Page 50 of A Deal with the Devil

“Virginal sacrifices should be my lot, don’t you think?”

“I suppose you were taking too long.”

He smiled. It was quick and crooked, and a true smile. It made her feel warm. Strangely vulnerable.

“Now what?” she asked.

His smile lingered like a hot coal on a winter morning. She wanted to keep it safe. She had slid closer to him without conscious thought. He had leaned forward.

“You tell me,” he said, voice rough.

“This is madness.” And not just because she was technically blackmailing him. A gentleman and an earl like Lord Birmingham, a man like Devil, would not think twice about someone like her.

And yet…

There was no denying something heated the air between them, charged until it practically crackled. The memory of their one kiss blazed and burned.

“Perhaps we just need to get it out of our blood,” she suggested. Out loud. Like a cabbagehead. He was no doubt used to considerably sultrier.

“Sounds very reasonable,” he murmured, not looking the least bit put off. She liked him in that moment. Not just wanted him but liked him. “Downright scientific.”

She had read too many novels like this. She knew exactly what she was doing and all the ways it could go wrong. Would go wrong.

But for right now, in this private, dark corner of the world, she did not care.

She leaned closer, hands resting lightly on his thighs, and tilted her head up expectantly. She had initiated their first kiss. Would he initiate this one? Was he only doing this to pass the time? Was she a complete idiot?

Did it matter?

Devil pushed his fingers into the hair coiled at the nape of her neck, tightening until she made a small sound, very much like a moan. His eyes were stern, searching. “This has nothing to do with our trade.”

“Of course not.” Kitty snorted, which was the least alluring sound she could have chosen, but his posture softened slightly in response. “This has everything to do with your pretty face.”

“Pretty?”

He did not smile, but she could still tell he was amused. Why was that, she wondered? And then his thumb stroked the bare skin of her neck and she stopped thinking altogether. She nearly purred. “Unfairly so,” she managed instead. “It’s quite annoying, actually.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” His mouth was so close to hers that her lips actually tingled in anticipation.

“Do try not to smolder.” She might go up in flames.

He smoldered. Of course he did. The heroes in books always smoldered.

But the devils?

Kitty might not survive, and she was still wearing every stitch of her clothing. He dragged his mouth across her jawline, across her collarbone, down her arm to loosen the ribbon securing her plain glove above her elbow.

With his teeth.

The scrape of them against her skin, following the glove and nipping gently at her wrist made her head swim. The other glove landed on the seat beside her, and she wasn’t entirely sure how he had managed it. Her breasts pushed against her neckline. He had barely touched her, and was already building and building the tension until she trembled.

She wasn’t strong enough for this.

To hell with it.

She grabbed his cravat and tugged. He chuckled like an ordinary man and not at all like a devil, before scooping her forward in one swift movement so that she straddled him. The devil was never far away. The softness between her legs heated, dampened at the sudden pressure of him against her where she ached the most. His breathing was rough when he finally kissed her, and it made her feel like a queen.

He licked into her mouth slowly, as if she were a delicacy, as if he could kiss her for the next hundred years and not be sated. She rocked against him—or the sway of the carriage did it for her; it hardly mattered. She was made entirely of need and desire and desperation. For him.