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She leaned up on her hands, his hair a wreath of blondish brown luxuriousness around his head. “Before you kissed me…”
“Before I kissed you…” It was a miracle his voice alone did not divest her of her petticoat.
“I was not honest with you. I adore kissing. But I have not kissed many who liked it as much as I did.” Tabitha ducked her head and rubbed her forehead on his sternum. “I feel you enjoy it as much as I do.”
“Before I kissed you,” he murmured, “I had not kissed anyone for many, many years, and it was as though I had never kissed anyone before. As though you were the first and now have ruined me for anyone else.”
Kissing Alwyn ap Lewin while standing was exhilarating but a vastly different proposition to kissing Alwyn ap Lewin while lying down; when one lay on top of him, it took on a whole new light. She spread her knees to rest on either side of his hips.
He set one hand on her ribs and the other cupped the back of her neck. He drew her down slowly, his eyes on her mouth, and they both sighed when their lips met.
Oh, a different proposition entirely. He was careful of his hands, of where he moved them, unlike more than one potential lover who, once she was in their grasp, turned into octopuses. She smiled against his mouth. He urged her back and nipped her chin. “Funny?”
“You are not an octopus.” She laughed at his confusion and shook her head. “I wonder if I have ever, in the past, kissed one of those.”
He blinked, perplexed. “They tend to live close to the ocean, as one would assume.”
Did she want to laugh or kiss? Kiss now, laugh later… She leaned down again, and he decided to take this kissing seriously. An arm wrapped around her waist, the other behind her shoulders, and her knees slid farther apart until she fully lay upon him. She could feel every movement of his muscles and that…that was not his hip, or not just his hip she felt against her belly. She wiggled once, and his moan reverberated through his body, made her shiver, which caused him to rock them both with a shift of his pelvis, and they were heading down a very slippery slope indeed.
“Wait, I—” she said, and he pulled back immediately, held her away from him; if his head hit the table with force, it was gratifying to know he was as overtaken as she. “It is not that I am not enjoying this—”
“If you wish to stop, then we shall stop.” He stroked a finger over her cheek, where she knew she blushed.
“This is not—I am meant to be treating you, not cavorting about on the table with you.”
“I am no longer your client. I would be your suitor.” He lifted her off his body and set their feet on the floor. “I am aware you have other considerations. You may find, with time, there is much to like in the toad.”
“The frog!” She took a step back but kept hold of his coat. When had she taken hold of his coat? “I doubt I am able to juggle suitors like a diamond of the first water.”
“I will not make the mistakes my ducal peers did.” He laid his hand over hers, his fingers tracing over her knuckles. “How we proceed is entirely up to you.”
She lifted her chin as she had seen Felicity do when she wished to appear resolute. “I require time to consider and the solitude to do so.”
He stood, and honestly, every time she looked, he seemed to grow another inch. He made her an elegant leg that rivaled those of theton’s Corinthians and employed those lashes in aid of his brand of courtly dark arts. “Then you must take as much as you need.” He blinked at her and said, “I am entirely at your service.”
Fourteen
At her service, was he?
Planned to court her, did he?
Tabitha woke very, very cross.
As stimulating as their kissing and whatnot had been the night before, she woke contrary and annoyed and very, very tired of men declaring things at her.
Father; that loathsome lord; the Prince of Wales; and now His Grace of Llewellyn.
She couldn’t settle; she didn’t want to see him, but she wanted to know where he was so she could avoid that place. At least that’s what she told herself as she stalked around the fringes of the park and the village.
How she wished she could run as she had in Greece. She could not convey in words how it made her feel, how it settled her, how the fatigue of her muscles relaxed her mind. She’d had more than one breakthrough after a race down the beach with those Greek women, women of all shapes and social classes, united in their love of the invigorating sea air and of racing down the sand.
Even in this place that defied society on so many levels, Tabitha did not feel free to do so.
So she wandered from dawn until sometime between the noon hour and teatime. Wandered alone, as she wished, all the while annoyed Llewellyn was respecting her wishes and had not sought her out.
Timothy was right: she was out of sorts.
The duke was only doing as she asked.
