Page 29 of The Last Duke She'd Marry
He briefly closed his eyes, as if he, too, found the contact stirring. “You didn’t like me much when we met.”
No, she hadn’t. In truth, she still wasn’t sure why she did like him. He was everything that she disapproved of. A wastrel. A libertine. A man happy to expend his youth and talents in the aimless pursuit of sensual entertainment.
“I wouldn’t let you kiss me if I held you in disdain.”
Another of those self-derisive smiles that always made her silly heart cramp. “If you decide you hate me again after this, the play will suffer.”
That surprised a laugh out of her. Then before she could reply, Evesham lashed his arms about her and hauled her up until his mouth crashed into hers.
There was nothing gentle or tentative about this kiss. This was desperate and passionate and all-encompassing. This was fire and darkness and insatiable demand. Juliet collapsed against him, looping her arms around his neck as his mouth plundered hers.
When he bit her lower lip, she parted on a gasp of astonishment. Then even more outlandish, his tongue slipped through to tangle with hers. The shocking unfamiliarity of what he did drowned in a wave of staggering pleasure. Her whole body, bones and all, melted into helpless and immediate cooperation.
Juliet was burning up, flaring into a column of flame. She found herself responding to him as the pleasure, already unprecedented, built to an inferno.
Without thought, she plastered herself to him. Her breasts swelled with longing, and the furious meeting of lips lit another fire in the pit of her stomach. She squirmed as the throbbing between her legs rose to drive her mad.
Vaguely through the pounding of her blood, she felt his hands slide down to catch her rump and lift her. He pressed her between his thighs. Something hard and long rubbed against her stomach.
The sudden intrusion of unmistakable masculine need sparked alarm in her dazed mind. She gave a troubled mutter against his seeking lips.
As abruptly as he’d snatched her up, she was free. He lurched back and regarded her with unconcealed horror that not even the advancing twilight could hide. She staggered to find her balance and struggled for breath even as nausea knotted her innards.
“Juliet, forgive me,” he grated out, his voice raw.
She touched a trembling hand to her lips and struggled to return to the real world after that flight into a new and alluring universe.
“So that’s what a kiss is like,” she said in a reedy voice. Her heart still banged like a drum, and she fought the urge to step back into his arms.
His face contorted with self-disgust. “It’s what some kisses are like. I should have been gentler. I want you so much, I went too far.”
She’d returned to herself enough by now to understand that she hadn’t been alone in yielding to passion. This man, whose manner always conveyed endless self-assurance, was badly shaken.
“I like…I like that you forgot to be calculating.”
Bewilderment sharpened his tone. “You don’t mind?”
She shrugged, although she didn’t feel casual about any of this. “That the madness was mutual? Of course not. It makes me feel less like your dupe and more like your equal.”
His lips twisted in derision. “Madness is precisely what overtook me.”
“You stepped back. You kept your word.”
He groaned again. “I almost lost control.”
Juliet shouldn’t like to hear this. After all, for one exhilarating moment, she’d been in genuine danger. She should be ashamed to admit that it wasn’t she who had called a halt, but the man the world had dubbed His Dis-Grace. “Yet you didn’t.”
A charged silence fell before he spoke. “Shall we do it again?”
Despite everything, she almost said yes. She’d never felt so alive as she had in Evesham’s arms. She suspected that he could kiss her to heaven and back.
But her native caution had revived. Despite wondering what other marvels Evesham could reveal to her, she shook her head. “I wanted to find out what it was like to be kissed. Now I know. The experiment is over, Your Grace.”
His sigh was heavy with a regret that she shared – however shameless that might make her. Goodness, if Portia knew what she was up to, she’d never call her staid again.
“And you’re happy to walk away from what that kiss promised?”
Happy? No. But she’d taken enough risks. The memory of that terrifying, intriguing moment when she’d felt his arousal shuddered through her. If followed through to its end, that wild kiss promised ruin. She had too much at stake to compromise her good name.
