She closed her eyes, shivered. Tried to breathe.
He bent closer, and his lips replaced his fingertips. Touched, traced, lightly kissed. The most tantalizing, most provocative caress she’d ever felt.
“Have you changed your mind yet?”
His words flowed across her mind.
Eyes closed, she drew in a deep breath. Scented the lavender, the roses, the grass—and him. Male. The unknown, the dangerous, wrapped in the familiar.
Opening her eyes, she turned and faced him. Met his amber gaze, saw the latent heat in his tiger’s eyes. “No, but…” She lowered her gaze to his lips. Moistened hers. “I’m open to persuasion.”
A risk, but one she couldn’t not take, not anymore.
A heartbeat passed, then two; she felt the increased intensity in his gaze, but refused to look up and meet his eyes.
His lips curved, just a little, the line almost wry. “In that case…”
He closed the few inches between them, and covered her lips with his.
Kissed her—and welcomed her response when she kissed him back.
And their hunger flared again, more insistent and intense, unsatisfied and growing, evolving and developing, strengthening and deepening.
He angled his head over hers; she locked her arms about his neck. Their mouths fused, tongues tangling, tempting, wild and uninhibited. She sank against him, into him, and felt his breath hitch.
His arms rose and locked around her, and as before she became someone else—or perhaps she became who she really was. She was no longer sure.
She no longer knew anything beyond the moment, beyond the thrill, the excitement, the yearning.
He lifted and turned her, setting her on her feet deeper under the arbor; she understood why—now they stood fully under the foliage, no one could see them. Only if someone approached on the path and came close could they be seen, and as the path was gravel they’d be warned long before.
So when his arms eased and his hands roved her back, then slid low to close over her bottom and lift her against him, she made no demur. Instead, she rejoiced, dizzy with the knowledge that if nothing else he wanted her. She could hardly miss the evidence, pressed low against her belly. When he molded her against him, shifting provocatively, she gasped.
He couldn’t have been clearer over exactly what he wanted.
Of her. From her. With her.
She could have pulled back then, Lady Hardesty’s view rebutted and dismissed, yet the thought never entered her head. Now she was in his arms, kissing and being kissed, she had other questions, much more burning ones, to address.
Such as whether there was any limit to the heat that rose between them, that like a flame seemed to ignite, flare, then rush through her, and him, through his touch, over her skin, down her veins. How hot could she—they—get? Enough to melt her bones along with her reservations? Enough to cinder all wisdom and cauterize all doubts?
More importantly, more tantalizingly, whether the sharp edge of desire now coloring their exchange, harder, more definite, more real, was his, hers, or theirs.
Regardless, it possessed power enough to drive them, to leave them both gasping when they broke from the kiss. To have her senses reeling when he closed his hand over her breast, and kneaded. To have her breathlessly willing him on when his fingers found the buttons closing her bodice and deftly, expertly, flicked them free.
To have her closing her eyes, head falling back, trapped in a web of expectation when he pressed the halves of her bodice wide and slid one hard hand beneath, with a quick jerk and a tug stripped away her chemise…and touched.
Her senses seized. Her lungs locked.
On a strangled gasp, she drew his lips back to hers. She had to kiss him, deeply, passionately; she couldn’t breathe but through him and she was desperate. Desperate to know, to feel, to experience…the pleasure in his touch. The reverence, near worshipfulness with which his fingers traced, tested, learned. Until at the last he cupped her breast in his palm, hot skin to hot skin, and gave her all she wanted.
All she suddenly needed.
Gervase inwardly shuddered. He wanted nothing more than to taste the firm flesh beneath his fingers, but that couldn’t happen, not now, not here. He ached, and knew matters were only going to get worse. Much worse. She was so responsive, so uninhibitedly ardent, so free of all guile in her wanting that all he could think of was appeasing her. Of slaking her sensual thirst, even at the cost of his own.
But he couldn’t let matters go any further. Even though they were both on fire, bodies heated and urgent for far more than just a touch—although he knew exactly what they needed to sate the intense hunger that gripped them both, he knew far too well that it couldn’t be.
Especially not with her, given what he wanted of her.