Page 19 of My Hellion, My Heart
Henry lifted his hand and touched one of her bare shoulders, his palm resting gently on her velvety skin. A hot sweep of blood coursed through his veins.
“I like that you say what you please,” he said, attempting to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. However, when it came time to pull his hand away, he couldn’t. Instead, his fingers trailed down her arm, lightly brushing the underside of her wrist.
“You weren’t pleased tonight,” she replied, her voice catching.
His other hand rose to her other shoulder, but instead of trailing down her arm again, Henry’s fingers drifted to her neck. Her skin was as soft and smooth as the silk of her dress.
“I am,” he murmured, his mind wandering as his eyes and fingers did, as well. He cupped her cheek. She was warm and so beautiful, and those cheeks were now flushed with passion from shouting instead of embarrassment.
“You’re pleased?” she asked, her eyes finally rising from where they’d been staring at his chest.
All Henry could see were her lips, forming that word.Pleased.Pleasure. He wanted it. Craved it. And before he could stop to think, he took it. Henry crushed his mouth to hers. The moment his lips made contact, the tight coil that had been twisting and twisting inside of him all evening snapped free. He surged forward, pressing her against the table. Irina’s lips parted on a soft sound of surprise, and without hesitation, Henry’s tongue delved past them. Instead of shyly retreating, she met him with equal fervor, matching his intensity beat for beat.
Passion.
She was brimming with it, her own tongue trying desperately to mimic and twine around his, her small hands wrapping around his neck, her fingers spearing into his hair and anchoring him closer. He needed no further invitation. The determined press of her warm, wet mouth consumed his every thought and made him senseless. Heedless of anything but satisfaction.
Lost to a wild swell of lust, Henry swept his hands down her ribs and over her hips, and with a fast jerk, lifted her from the floor. He set her on the edge of the table, his mouth ravaging hers, relishing the sinful remnants of chocolate on her lips and her heated breath. Kissing Irina was like nothing he’d ever experienced. It was like racing through a summer thunderstorm—exhilarating and alarming in equal measure—and despite knowing the obvious danger, he only craved more. Henry felt as if he were falling into something warm and soft, and he wanted only to breathe her in, taste her, pleasure her with the same sweet torture barreling through him.
As he parted her thighs and shifted forward to place himself right at the crux of her, Irina’s answering moan made that snapped coil even looser. He pulled away from her mouth and nuzzled her neck, his tongue and teeth and lips skimming feverishly over her skin.
“Henry,” Irina sighed, her fingers pushing at the collar of his dinner jacket.
The sound of his name on her lips made him want to claim them again. Henry couldn’t decide which he liked more—the velvety soft skin of her throat or the chocolate glazed decadence of her lips.
Cupping her chin in his hands, he ran his thumb over her plump bottom lip and kissed her again. Gently this time. Sipping from her mouth and slowing his pace to something more tender, as she deserved. But Irina wanted no part of it. She tugged on his lapels and scraped his lip with her teeth. Her eyes met his, and desire shot through him in scalding bursts when she openly sought his mouth with hers. Matching his hunger equally, her uninhibited silken tongue stroked over his as if she, too, could not get enough of him. There were no walls, no pretenses in her desire. She met him with more honesty than any other woman ever had. He liked it. Far more than he should.
Reason lifted the fog of his ardor. Despite her natural passion, Irina was an innocent, and he…was not. Pulling back with a groan of misery, Henry took a grating breath and composed himself. “Irina—”
She placed a finger on his lips, her blue eyes like bruised indigo. “If you plan to tell me this is wrong, then stop right now.”
He swallowed hard and disengaged from the cradle of her thighs along with the heated brand of her finger. His entire body felt the loss of how perfectly she fit against him. Stepping back toward the archway, Henry steeled himself, reaching inward for the rigid indifference that had always fortified him. He’d never needed it more than he did right now with this slip of a girl who made him want impossible things. Things he’d stopped expecting years ago. Things men like him did not merit.
“Please don’t leave like this.” Her voice was quiet.
“I have to,” he bit out without looking at her as he reached the door. “I am not the man for you, Irina.”
“Why?”
He hesitated for a moment and then nodded. She deserved an honest answer. “Because I cannot give you what you want…what you need.”
Her voice lowered, something indefinable threading between the words. “And what do you think that is, my lord?”
“You want what every debutante wants—courtship, devotion, happiness,” Henry said. “And I am incapable of any of those things. Trust me when I say that I would only break you.”
Chapter Six
The spring flowers in Hyde Park were beginning to emerge, their bright colors offsetting the richer chartreuse of the underlying grass. It had rained the night before, and their petals were still dewy and glistening. Even the Serpentine gleamed, the early morning sun dappling its surface with playful shimmers. The hour was early, not yet noon, so the park was not crowded with the beau monde dressed to the nines and showing off their equipages. Most of thetonwould be out in the late afternoon.
Normally, people-watching was one of Irina’s favorite things to do, but today she preferred to escape it. Her mind was tortured with other things as she rode along in Max’s phaeton. Thoroughly indecent things. Like the way Lord Langlevit had claimed her mouth the evening before. Her lips still tingled. She hadn’t simply been kissed—she’d beenbranded.
Irina had been kissed before, but none of them had ever been like Henry’s kiss. Their lips and teeth and tongues had ground together in an embrace that had been violent, carnal, and intoxicatingly arousing. She’d found herself responding to it, wanting to devour him as he’d been devouring her. If he hadn’t left when he did, she would have stripped bare and abandoned herself to ruination. Even now, warmth saturated her, pooling between her thighs and making her skin feel shivery-hot. Her breathing wizened to short pants just from the memory of the bloody thing. Irina’s fingers curled into the folds of her riding habit, and she squeezed her legs together.
“Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?” Max asked with a laugh. “Honestly, what has gotten into you today? You’ve been distracted ever since we left Devon Place. What is it? A delectable new suitor you haven’t told me about?” He eyed her, arching an amused eyebrow as he scanned her flushed cheeks. “Oh, do tell, you naughty minx. I should have known you were hiding something from me.”
Irina’s startled glance met his. Max was too perceptive for his own good, and his guess was far too close to the truth. Not that Langlevit was a suitor. In fact, he’d declared himself the exact opposite.
“I’m sorry, I was thinking about Lana,” she fabricated wildly and then stifled the indelicate chortle that welled in her throat. The image in her head had most definitely not been that of her sister—not unless she’d turned into a handsome, if impossible to understand, earl. “And my return to Essex. What were you saying?”
