Not Quite a Lady (The Dressmakers 4)

She took it from him and looked at it, then up at him.

She threw it at him. He caught it and flung it aside onto the marble shelf.

She turned away, head high, back straight.

Well.

He pushed the door shut before she could go out.

Her face went pink, but she looked back over her shoulder, the blue eyes flashing defiantly up at him. “Oh, now you are going to become all masterful,” she said. “If you think you can intimidate me with your—with your great size and—and swaggering arrogance, I recommend you think again.”

He was far beyond thinking. Logic, common sense, calculation, along with all the other components of the reason he prized so highly, jumbled into a useless tangle in his mind. He watched her perfect skin change, the pink washing over her face and neck. He stood near enough to discern the greenish tint in her blue eyes. He could see how long her lashes were, and how much darker they were than her hair.

Her lips were soft and pink and glistening, slightly parted as her breath came faster. He remembered the kiss that had all but brought him to his knees. He stared at her mouth and heard her sharp intake of breath.

Back away, said Logic. Now.

He grasped her arms and turned her toward him and lowered his head. She turned her face to one side.

That’s a no. What could be plainer? Let her go. Give it up.

He clasped the back of her head and turned her back.

“No, you don’t,” he said.

He held her. She didn’t struggle at all, but murder looked up at him from those blue eyes.

“Kill me, then,” he said. “Go ahead.”

Then his mouth covered hers, and Logic gave up.

Chapter 7

She didn’t move a muscle. She remained stiff and haughty and angry, her mouth firmly shut.

Darius lifted his mouth from hers and regarded her stony countenance. He remembered how she’d glowed, only minutes ago, before he’d ruined everything.

He remembered how warm and yielding she’d been the other day, the sweet surrender that had made his heart ache, his tiny, hard, reputedly nonexistent heart. He could almost feel again the coaxing touch of her mouth on his, drawing him back when he knew he ought to pull away. Her gentle persistence had stripped away all his defenses, all his better sense.

Ah, well, then.

He brushed his lips against her cheek.

I’m sorry.

He heard her breath catch.

He lightly kissed the corner of her mouth.

Please forgive me.

A tremor went through her.

He kissed her nose.

Her eyes fluttered closed.

He brushed feather kisses at the top of her eyebrows.

“Oh,” she said softly.

He kissed her temples and the corners of her eyes. He kissed the top of her ear and made a path of featherlight kisses along her jaw and kissed her chin and continued up to her other ear.

She made a half-stifled sound, suspiciously like a giggle.

He covered her face with butterfly kisses, and the stoniness melted away. Still, he didn’t stop. He teased, he played, until at last her hands came up and grasped his shoulders. She turned her head to capture his mouth, and even when her soft mouth touched his, he held back, kissing her as though they were children, as though he’d never kissed before, and this was the first time, and it was all new, a discovery.

It was.

Her lips trembled under his gentle kiss, and something within him trembled, too.

He brought his arms around her, so carefully this time, as though he held an armful of delicate blossoms. He inhaled her scent, sweeter and lighter than any flower. He wasn’t sure what he felt; he only knew he didn’t want it to stop. He deepened the kiss but again by the slowest degrees…holding back, holding back, even while he felt the pull of desire, as sure and inevitable as the tide. Her tongue met his, and the taste of her was sweet and light and inevitable, too, as natural as the clash and mingling of waters at the sea’s edge.

It was a kiss, only a kiss, and everything in a kiss.

He wrapped his arms more tightly about her, giving more to get more, of the warmth and lightness and the strange sense of beginning. Her body yielded, pressing against his while she played with the deepening kiss, exploring, learning, taking it as slowly as he did, surrendering, as he did, a heartbeat at a time.

By the same slow degrees, feeling welled inside him. It came from someplace deep, unfamiliar. He had no defense ready for it, no protection now against it, and it built into a surge of longing so powerful that he staggered back under its impact and braced himself against the marble table.

He dragged his mouth from hers to press kisses upon her cheek and upon the arch of her brows and the perfect shell of her ear and the smooth arc of her throat. She caught her breath and let it out in a sigh. Then she lifted her hands from his shoulders and wrapped her arms about his neck.

He tightened his hold, pulling her closer. His hands moved over her back, along her straight spine and down to the sweet place where her waist curved out to her bottom. Down his hands slid, shaping to the voluptuous curve of her derrière, then pressing her against his arousal. She stiffened, but in the next instant she yielded, and pushed against him.

His control unraveled.

He reclaimed her mouth, and this time the kiss was deep and fierce. He grasped her bottom, turned, and lifted her onto the table. She clung to him, and he let his hands slide down over her dress to the hem. He slipped his hands under dress and petticoat, and slid them up over her feet, and clasped her ankles. Slowly, he drew his hands up the sweet curve of her legs while the silk stockings whispered under his hands.

Up, up, he moved, to her knees, the dress and petticoats moving up with him, rustling as they bunched up over his forearms. He let his fingers trace the shape of her garters but he didn’t stop to untie them. He drew his hands up and up, and all the while, they kissed, no longer like children but like lovers, hungrily. Every pore of his body came alive with pleasure and with something else, something he didn’t recognize, couldn’t name.

He skimmed his hand over the thin cloth of her drawers to the place where the garment opened between her legs. His heart raced like a steam engine, as though he’d never before touched a woman intimately. And, as though he never had, and was almost afraid, he only drew the back of his index finger against the downy curls. He felt her sigh against his mouth. Then her mouth left his, and she kissed him as he had done her: lightly over his cheek, and to his ear. He felt her tongue lightly tr

acing the outline of his ear, then her lips along the angle of his jaw.

His intimate touch was equally delicate. He coaxed and teased until he felt her push against him for more. Then he brought the heel of his hand against her, and pressed. She rocked against his hand, her breath coming faster and faster.

His own breathing matched hers; her quickening pleasure excited him almost beyond bearing. He was aware of nothing but needing to be inside her and have her completely. Yet he let her pleasure herself until he felt her shudder of release. She gave a little gasp and moan, and buried her face in his neck.

He held her, his heart pounding so hard that everything seemed to be vibrating around him. His mind was thick, a haze of heat and excitement and triumph and need. Too thick for reasoning, let alone caution.

He hardly knew he was reaching for his trouser buttons. It was instinctive. But she caught hold of his neckcloth, forcing his face up to look into hers, and gasped, “For God’s sake, think. Look at me. Look at me. I’m not one of your lightskirts.”

He looked up into that ethereally beautiful face, and the last words lashed as sharp as any whip. He drew back abruptly and took a step away from her.

She pushed down her skirts. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, I cannot believe this. You are—you are…” She let out a huff of air. “Curse me, why do I blame you? But you do not make it easy for a woman, do you?”

Darius barely comprehended. All he heard, ringing in his ears, was the one sentence: I’m not one of your lightskirts.

The warmth and longing and triumph and pleasure died under the icy blight of those words.

He stood appalled, ashamed.

This was a nobleman’s daughter.

A nobleman’s only, unwed daughter.

This was beyond stupidity. This was dishonorable, despicable.

And deeply disturbing. He was the servant of Logic, not of Lust. Never, never before in all his life had physical desire made him forget himself as he’d done a moment ago.

She slid down from the table and straightened her skirts. Then she shot him a scornful glance. “You needn’t look so frightened,” she said. “I won’t tell anybody.”