Page 13 of A Deal with the Rebellious Marquess
His fingers stroked her cheek and lingered, cupping her jaw. ‘Iwould like to kiss you.’ His lips hovered beneath her ear, his words quiet but bold, turning her blood from warm to hot.
She turned into his touch, catching his wrist with her hand and pressing a kiss to his palm. ‘Not if I kiss you first,’ she whispered, reaching for him, her hands in the luxurious dark mop of his hair, pulling him to her.
Chapter Seven
At the first touch of his lips she knew what this kiss was: mutual madness. His mouth was ready for her and the kissshe’dinitiated was instantaneously not hers any longer, buttheirs, the product of an afternoon spent building towards this moment when curiosity and want could no longer be contained by an exchange of stories or pacified by the faintest brush of fingers as he fed her sweets. Combustion was the only outlet left.
Yet even in the meeting of mutual want there was also the mutual need to duel, to dominate, to claim control. Neither of them wanted to be weak, to be subdued. It was there in the press of his mouth, the probe of his tongue, the nip of her teeth as they sank into his lower lip.
Fleur gave a breathless moan that was part-pant, part-gasp, sucking hard on his earlobe as his mouth found her neck. The heat within her escalated with the kiss. The kiss was no longer about mouths meeting mouths, but bodies meeting bodies. He was all tastes beneath her tongue and textures where her hands slid beneath his coat, palms running over the silk of his waistcoat, feeling the plane of muscle beneath.
It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to taste the tannins left behind by the tea, or to feel the muscle of him beneath his clothes and to know it was there. The more she had of him, the more she wanted of him, this man she barely knew, and in fact had not known forty-eight hours ago, this man who had sought her out and now had her nearly writhing for him in her office. That was unacceptable.
Fleur fisted her hands in the lapels of his coat and broke away with no small effort. Her body did not thank her for it. The only consolation was that he seemed to feel the loss of the contact, too. His topaz eyes were darker now, the colour of a tawny port, his breathing jagged as he gathered himself in the aftermath. But his wits had not deserted him. He gave a slow smile, overtly seductive. ‘Well? What does my kiss say about me?’
Fleur took the opportunity to create distance. Goodness knew she desperately needed some. She rose from the sofa, smoothing her skirts and donning the exaggerated pose of a professor delivering a lecture. ‘Your kiss suggests you are a man who is used to being in control. When you don’t naturally have control, you will find ways to seize it. It also suggests you are a bold man, unafraid to kiss a stranger on the briefest of acquaintance.’
He smiled and leaned back against the sofa, looking entirely too at ease for what had just taken place. ‘I won’t say you’re wrong. I am used to being in control. I was raised to it, it’s part of my job. My family, my social position, expects it of me.’ There was a twinkle in his eye. ‘But I must disagree on the last. I am bold, but are we truly strangers?’
‘We’ve only known each other for two days.’ She was aware he was stalking her with his eyes, recording every swish of her skirt, every movement of her hands.
‘Is there a required amount of meetings before we are no longer strangers?’ he asked with feigned innocuousness. He was baiting her. ‘Three meetings? Four? If we go to lunch tomorrow, will we suddenly be friends? I know married couples who have been together for a lifetime and are still strangers to each other. Yet, I feel as if you and I know each other better than you think even on short acquaintance,’ he drawled in a quiet tone.
It was always the quiet ones one had to be on guard for. Who would have thought Lord Umberton with his untamed hair, wire-rimmed glasses and quietly stern tone would be so wild underneath? She smiled and shook her head, his words making her feel warm and pleasant because they matched how she felt and there was relief in knowing he felt it, too, that she wasn’t alone. There was some indefinable quality about being with him that spoke to her. The French would call itje ne sais quoi.
‘Is that all my kiss says to you?’
‘Are you fishing for a compliment?’ She busied herself picking up the remnants of their tea. It was best he leave now. She wasn’t sure where they went from here. Kisses were like that. Watersheds that divided a relationship into two time periods. B.C.—before curiosity was satisfied, or ‘before combustion’ if one preferred—and A.D.—after detonation. It was like eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Now they knew what it felt like to act on the chemistry between them and in the knowing, they would have to decide what to do next. Choose exile? Never meet again? Pursue the knowledge? Or perhaps try to ignore their knowledge by stuffing it back into the Pandora’s box they’d opened. Was that even possible?
‘If you don’t want to talk about my kiss, shall we talk about yours and what it says about you?’ His sibilant tenor was utterly inviting and dangerous. Part of her wanted to return to the sofa, sit down beside him and play the little flirtation game he was initiating, to let it go where it would. But that was an easy out. She knew where it would go with the current climate of the room being what it was. The heat of seduction, the desire for more, the craving, was still here.
If she sat down beside him, she knew where this would lead. She knew, too, that she would regret this. He was the one lord she’d connected with so far who supported her work on the dam. Conflating business with pleasure might jeopardise that connection and, if word got out, it might jeopardise the project’s credibility and hers. This was not a decision to be made in the afterglow of a passionate moment. If she was going to sleep with him, she needed to give it some thought and if he wasn’t going to leave, she’d have to make him.
‘I don’t need you to tell me about my kiss. I already know,’ she said briskly, piling the linen back into the basket to be returned to Fortnum and Mason. ‘My kiss is the product of desperation, of a woman who occasionally suffers bouts of loneliness because she misses her husband and the intimacies of their marriage, both physical and emotional.’ She shut the lid of the basket and held it up. ‘The basket is ready to be returned. Thank you for the tea.’
He stood slowly, the heat of his eyes cooling as he registered the dismissal. But by no means was he willing to cede the field. ‘Are you saying you used me for sex, Mrs Griffiths?’
‘Not sex, Lord Umberton. It was just a kiss,’ she corrected, but his words had done their damage, creating images of what might have been—a floor covered in abandoned clothes, bodies entwined on the sofa seeking completion, seeking distraction from the real world, from their individual worlds. They’d not been far from taking that step and perhaps they would have if she’d not called a halt to it.
‘And was the kiss successful?’ he asked, taking the basket from her, fingers brushing hers where they met at the handle, perhaps on purpose, knowing full well the jolt such contact would send up her arm, a reminder that she could banish him from the room, but not from her thoughts or from her body.
She gave him a cool smile. ‘Tut, tut, Umberton. You know better than to ask. A lady never kisses and tells.’ Especially when he already knew the answer. He was not oblivious to how she’d roused to him. ‘Good day.’
Good lord, what had she done? She watched him exit on to the street and step into his coach, her thoughts in a riot over what had happened and how she felt about it. She’d kissed a man in Adam’s office and it hadn’t been just a kiss, a physical connection of mouths. She’denjoyedit. It had electrified her because it had electrifiedhim. They had been fallingtogetheron the sofa, their bodies answering one another. It had not been like that before when she’d sought comfort. This had been different. Did she dare pursue it? Did shedeserveto pursue it while Adam’s newspaper foundered and her leadership along with it? Or was this just another way she’d fail Adam?
She’d have her chance to find out. She’d have to see Umberton again. They hadn’t done the one thing that they should have. They hadn’t discussed business or next steps. At least not next steps with the dam legislation. Which meant two things: she’d have to see him again, and it looked as though she’d be attending the Harefield ball on her own. Lord Harefield was an avid politico with an eye to a cabinet position. He’d be sure to invite guests who could grease the wheels of his own political advancement and she meant to make use of it.
‘Mrs Griffiths?’ A clerk poked his head in. ‘This note came for you. A man in the Duke of Cowden’s livery brought it.’
Ah, yes, the other letter she’d sent. It took a moment to bring her thoughts fully back to business. She crossed the room and took the note, smiling as she read the contents. Cowden would see her tomorrow. At least that was one thing that was going right today. She looked up at the clerk. ‘Thank you. I have to pick up my gown for the ball, so I’m going to step out and then head home.’ He nodded as if he and the staff weren’t aware she’d slept here last night. At least they couldn’t doubt her dedication. No one could say the paper failed while she danced the night away.
He knew where she’d be tonight. Dancing at the Harefield ball. It had been at the top of the list she’d given him. Jasper stared idly at the pages before him, unable to concentrate on the latest report from his steward at Rosefields, the estate in Meltham. He’d gone back to the town house after tea, confident that his mother’s at-home would be finished, the premises safe for unmarried bachelors once more.
He’d had every intention of doing a couple of hours’ worth of work before supper, but other than sitting behind the desk in his study, he’d not made any progress. Instead of crop yields, his mind wanted to think about the yield of her lips beneath his, only Fleur Griffiths hadn’t yielded for long. It had been a mere strategy before she’d launched her own attack on his senses. Even now, the echoes of her touch reverberated through his body: the caress of her fingers in his hair, the tug of her teeth at his ear, her hands, palms flat, pressed hard against his chest as if they’d prefer to rip the shirt from his body and press against the heat of his skin. His mind and body liked the image of that. He wouldn’t mind removing a few of her clothes either. He did, however, mind her motives for it, though.
Jasper played with a pen. The thrill of the kiss, of their interlude, had been tempered by the ending. Reality had a way of dousing even the most heated of passions. She’d been feeling lonely, and he’d been a handy substitute. It was a bit lowering to realise that he’d been nothing more than a tool, a means to an end, an external end, one that had nothing to do with him specifically if she was to be believed. It raised the question of whether or not she’d assuage that need with just anyone?
Jealousy pricked at the idea of Fleur Griffiths kissing another. Perhaps that was just him being proprietary, or, in her words, controlling. He didn’t like to share. Or perhaps that was his ego being bruised over the idea he might merely be an interchangeable part for her.Hecertainly did not feel that way about her. He knew that she roused him especially, uniquely.
