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More forbidden.
His mind reasserted itself. She was forbidden.
Employee. Teacher to his sisters. Living under his roof. Penniless.
He broke free, reluctantly ending the kiss. His breathing heavy, he took a moment before saying the words he knew he must say.
“I can’t. We can’t.” He wasn’t making sense. “What I mean is that we have to stop, Viola. It’s not right. I’m your employer. You’re companion to my sisters. You have moonbeams and fairy tales in your mind and I’m bad. I’m bad, tainted, and wicked. We shouldn’t be kissing.”
“Kiss me again,” she said, pulling his face down to her. “Kiss me until I can’t breathe.”
He very nearly did. He was so close to wrapping his arms around her and giving her exactly what she asked for, exactly what he craved so very badly. He could have her warmth, her brightness, her dimpled smile.
No, he couldn’t.
“Ha,” he said with a casualness he was far from feeling. “Did you just ask me for another kiss?” He crossed his arms over his chest to keep them from pulling her close. “I win. You have to perform at the musicale.”
The haze of desire left her green eyes and her cheeks turned bright pink. “Insufferable jackass!”
He raised his eyebrows. “Now that was slightly better. Keeping insults simple and straightforward is sometimes best.”
“This is all just a joke to you, isn’t it? Everything is a wager at the gaming table. You’re never serious about anything.” She straightened her bodice and smoothed stray tendrils of hair back into place. “It was only a challenge.”
He watched the emotions playing across her face. Anger, hurt, and desire. And then she schooled herself back to the placid, pleasant expression she customarily wore. “At least I accomplished my goal tonight, Your Grace.”
“Which was?”
“I promised Lady Blanche I’d keep you out of the gaming hells this evening so you wouldn’t heap further disgrace upon this family. And here you are, safe at home where you belong. See? You’ve already begun your campaign of reform.”
She spun around and left his room without a backward glance.
She was right, damn it. He never stayed home of an evening. And yet he hadn’t even visited The Devil’s Staircase in weeks.
He’d meant to go to the gaming hell tonight and instead he was having conversations about courtship and musicales with a music instructor. And kissing an innocent young lady who was in his employ.
Badly done, West.You really are an insufferable jackass.
Chapter Sixteen
“That kiss never happened,” Viola told her reflection in the glass the next morning.
It couldn’t have, she shouldn’t have, and therefore, she hadn’t.
One could simply refuse to believe one’s own memory.
Didn’t it, though?Her reflection begged to differ. Her lips were still red and tender from his kisses. She brushed her thumb over her lower lip, as he had done, and a flush crept over her cheekbones and a dreamy light filled her eyes.
She picked up her hairbrush and began vigorously brushing out her hair, yanking the bristles through the tangled curls until tears sprang to her eyes.
Better to pretend that the kiss hadn’t happened . . . kisses plural . . . so many of them. She could remember each one. She’d learned more with each kiss. How he tasted, how large his hands were, how his fingers around her wrist had felt like an iron band and she’d liked that feeling of being small and delicate. She was petite but she’d always felt that her petite size belied her sturdy, steadfast personality. Yet he’dmade her feel so powerful, so filled with passionate desire.
It had happened.
She’d gone to his room to make him a list of new duchess candidates, and to keep him out of trouble, and they’d ended up kissing. And why, pray tell, was that shocking? What had she expected to happen? She’d walked right into it, willingly, and she’d only gotten what she deserved.
And she wanted more.
No,no! She didn’t want more kissing. Not when it meant nothing to Westbury. It had all just been a lark. He’d won the wager. She’d succumbed too easily.
