Page 17 of The Duke Says I Do
That was what it was like to kiss Lady Portia Frain. Like holding a sunny day in his arms. As Granville’s head filled with her evocative scent and his arms bundled her close, every rational thought evaporated under a blast of heat.
It took a mere moment to register that she stood as straight and still as a column. A moment, but still too long.
Painful understanding dampened his burgeoning arousal. She must resent him mauling her.
Granville thought that he’d seen desire in her eyes. But it was so easy to read what one wanted to see in another person’s expression, wasn’t it?
Feeling like he shifted a ton of lead single-handed, he prepared to let her go. Fighting every instinct, he told his hands to release their grip. He told his face to lift away from hers, to end the kiss. He told himself to step back and beg her forgiveness.
Until he kissed Portia, he’d had no idea quite how cold his world was. He was so used to the cold, it became his natural habitat. Now he held summer in his arms, how could he forsake that for deadly winter?
But he must. He must.
Feeling like he amputated his arm, he began to withdraw.
Then the miracle happened.
Portia made a faint sound. Before he could decide whether it was a complaint, her lips moved beneath his and she raised her hands to his shoulders.
A signal that she wasn’t disgusted. A stronger signal still when her rigidity flowed away and her body curved to fit his. Portia Frain was a generous creature. In nature and in form. He shuddered with delight when her full breasts pressed into a chest covered only with a light shirt.
On a muffled groan, he gathered her closer and began to kiss her with intent. The flutter of her lips against his zapped him with heat. Her grasp on his shoulders firmed, and the little hum she made in her throat conveyed surprised pleasure.
Surprise…
Granville lifted his head to stare down into her lovely face. Her eyes were closed, and he couldn’t mistake her rapt expression. Her lips were full and red and parted as if she trembled on the brink of asking for more.
She was the perfect image of female desire.Innocent desire.
What a fool he was. What an infernally stupid fool.
“Portia, you’ve never kissed a man before, have you?” he murmured, hands settling on her narrow waist.
Her eyelids lifted, a flicker of thick brown lashes. He drowned in misty blue, while she stared up at him as if she lost her bearings in the real world.
“Portia?” he prompted. Then smiled at her with all the gladness that she aroused in his moth-eaten soul. “I refuse to believe I’ve shocked you speechless. I didn’t think anything could shock you speechless.”
A faint frown wrinkled her brow, and her gaze focused on his face. She no longer looked as if she wandered the far boundaries of the cosmos. “You’re teasing me?”
He thought about it as he stepped back. “I suppose I am.”
“You’re far too careful of your dignity to tease anyone.”
He hid a wince. “I don’t feel dignified right now. And you haven’t answered my question.”
She blushed, and her eyelids lowered to hide her eyes. “When would I have kissed anyone? You know what life is like for well-bred young ladies.”
“You’ve clearly found ways to circumvent your chaperone.” Juliet had been her chaperone until last year. Since then, he had a vague memory of an aging lady accompanying her when she was out in public.
“My animal rescue?”
“Yes.”
Humor quirked that luscious mouth. “I didn’t kiss any of the…gentlemen who were mistreating their fellow creatures.”
“None were handsome enough to tempt you?”
“Some were handsome enough. But people who are cruel to animals are also cruel to humans. I might have wanted to shoot a few of them. I never wanted to kiss them.”
