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She giggled. “How old were you?”
“Seven or eight.”
“And Jeanne?”
“Oh, about the same age, I should think.”
Her mouth, that lovely pink mouth, turned down. “I said the first woman. Eight is a child, not a woman.”
Laurent leaned down and rubbed his nose against hers. “Honoria, you are the only woman I want to think about kissing right now.”
He felt her sigh more than heard it, and her arms came around his neck. Her chin lifted, and then his lips were on hers. How he had missed the simple pleasure of a kiss. The press of lips and the tease of more to come. This morning he expected nothing more. There was the innocent joy of touching her intimately, the feel of her velvet lips under his and the heat of her body so near to him. If this was his last kiss on earth, he would die a happy man. He would remember the sweetness of her mouth, the way her lashes fluttered closed, and the warm exhalation of air as she sighed into him.
And then her hand fisted in his hair, tugging hard as she pressed him down to meet her mouth more fully. Her innocent mouth turned hungry and hot, and when her tongue dipped into his mouth to tease him, he clenched his hands to keep from filling his palms with her flesh.
The kiss swirled out of control as he gave and she took, and she gave and he took. His heart raced, and he imagined he could feel her heart beating in her breast where their bodies meshed. His desire thundered in his ears, and though he had always prided himself on being the most patient of lovers, he could scarce control his own needs. The urge to possess her, to feel her naked flesh against his, to know her body and soul threatened to overwhelm him. Laurent didn’t know how to fight against the desperation. What had she done to him? Was it her or a product of months of celibacy due to imprisonment?
He had never wanted a woman, never wantedanything,like he wanted her in that moment.
His control wavered, and he pulled back. “Wait,” he said, his breath coming in gasps. “You’ve undone me,mon ange.”
She blinked up at him with confusion, then pulled his lips back to hers.
With a restraint it was unfair to expect of any man, Laurent held back. The story she’d told him of her youth niggled his brain, nor had he forgotten the nightmare she’d woken from the night before. She’d refused him before, and now when he took her, if he took her, he did not want to do so without her consent.
He could not stomach being another encounter she regretted. Not when he knew he would never regret a moment with her. Not when she had somehow come to mean so much to him in such a short time.
“Honoria, I will kiss you again, but if I do, I will not stop there.” He spoke in English, the language she had spoken when she’d been in the throes of her nightmare and the language he assumed must be the one she felt most comfortable.
“Is that what you want? Tell me, sweetheart. Do you want my hands on you here?” He traced his fingers oh so lightly over the exposed skin of her plump breasts. “And here?” One hand skimmed down her torso to rest between her thighs. His head swam for an instant. He could feel her dampness through the shift. Surely this sort of restraint made him a candidate for sainthood.
But his hand between her thighs had finally cut through the haze of her desire. Her eyes focused, became sharply blue, and she grasped his wrist. He allowed her to take his hand away, and he willingly rolled to the other side of the bed.
His cock throbbed in angry protest, and his entire body ached at the separation. He needed her. More than that, he wanted her. Not just any woman—her. Those lips, that lush body, the way she sighed and laughed and looked at him with a mixture of annoyance and lust.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have allowed the kiss to go so far.”
“You needn’t apologize to me,” he said through gritted teeth. “I will kiss or cease at your whim.”
She turned her head to look at him, and Laurent wished she would cover those half-exposed breasts, rising and falling as she caught her breath. And then he prayed she would not cover them. Was it too much to hope her corset would come loose and she would spill free?
“You would kiss me again, even if such a kiss led to nothing more?”
His attention was not so centered on her bosom that he didn’t see her gaze fall to his erection.
“As you see, I am capable of calling for quarter when needed. I want more. That much is obvious. But if all you will give is your kisses, I would be a fool to reject them. Your kiss is like water to a man wandering the desert.”
She laughed, and he frowned indignantly.
“How many women have you said that to?”
“Very few.” He sat. “I am feeling some discomfort here.” He gestured to his cock. “How am I supposed to think of new metaphors when I can still taste you on my tongue and all I want is to breathe you in and make you cry my name?”
She blinked at him, her violet eyes turning dark, so dark his cock throbbed angrily once again.
“It is best that we stop now,” she said slowly. “I don’t want to be the next in your long line of women.”
She sat, but before she could scoot away, he grasped her wrist lightly. “You would never be that. I feel...” He didn’t know what he felt for her. “More,” he finally said.
