“I know. One poor devil after another is dangling at your shoestrings. But I dislike standing in line. Now tell me if we were followed.”
Puzzled by his remark, she turned toward the screen to peer between the crack in the hinged panels. “There is no one out there,” she whispered.
“Good.”
To her surprise, she felt Deverill’s arm slip around her waist from behind. Kate went still. “What do you think you are doing?”
“This is revenge for being amused at my expense.”
“I am sorry for laughing at you.”
“No, you are not.”
When his fingers rose to the décolletage of her ball gown and brushed the swell of her breasts, she sucked in a breath. “Deverill, you need to release me.”
“Not on your life. Since you have avoided me all evening, I had to create my own opportunity to be alone with you.”
Kate shook her head in disbelief. He was constantly confounding her, and in this case, he had an ulterior motive. “Why would you need to get me alone?”
“I mean to bring you to pleasure.”
“Right here?” Her voice rose an octave and came out a squeak.
“Hush, sweetheart,” he chided. “You don’t want to be discovered in my arms.”
In the distance she could hear the sounds of chatter and music, but the parlor was fairly quiet. If someone were to enter, she and Deverill could be heard.
“I advise you to keep silent,” he repeated. “If someone finds us like this, there will be a scandal.”
Craning her neck to look back up at him, Kate narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to coerce me?”
His mouth quirked. “I can’t imagine coercing you into anything you don’t wish to do. But you will wish this, I promise.”
He was serious, she realized. Shock rippled along her spine, along with an electric thrill.
When she tried to break away from him, Deverill prevented her by tightening his embrace. “Be still, princess. If you struggle against me, you will cause a scene.”
His warning was abetted by her realization that she had no desire to struggle. In fact, she craved more of the pleasure he had given her in the folly.
What did that say about her wantonness? What did that say about his? Many of her ancestors had lived lives of scandal and passion, and this generation of Wilde cousins had unabashedly lived up to their name. But Deverill was every bit as outrageous as her family, bold and brazen and so very irresistible. No one had ever lured her into temptation the way he did, damn him.
Kate was trying to form a coherent objection when he cut her off. “I am not releasing you, so you might as well let yourself enjoy this….”
While he spoke, he raised her skirts to bare her sex to the evening air. Then, very gently, he ran his palm along the front of her thigh. The erotic caress made her breath catch.
When his palm shifted farther left, stroking the satin of her inner thigh, Kate tensed and remained so when his fingers glided through the curls covering her woman’s mound.
The unexpectedness of the contact stunned her. She felt light-headed and unsettled. Then his hand slipped fully between her legs, pressing against her cleft. At the searing heat of his touch, longing melded with insidious excitement.
Deverill must have been pleased to find the wetness there, judging by his sound of approval.
“See,” he murmured in her ear in the lazy, husky voice that always made her hot. “You want me badly.”
“How…do you know?”
“Your body betrays you. You’ve grown hot and wet between your thighs, and the bud of your sex is hard and swollen.”
As if to prove his claim, his fingers slid along her slick flesh, grazing the nubbin secreted in her feminine folds. Even that slight pressure was like a jolt of lightning to Kate. Suddenly she lost the ability to think, to move, to breathe.