Page 67 of The Secrets of Lord Grayson Child
She met Gray’s eyes and faintly arched her brows, then waved toward the door.
They turned in that direction, their steps very slow.
He bent his head the better to see her face as he lowered his voice and said, “I truly enjoyed tonight. It was relaxing in a way I haven’t experienced in…a very long time. Perhaps not ever.” He caught her gaze as she glanced up. “Tell me, Izzy, is it possible for us to pick up the strands of what we had, to go back to where we were ten years ago and explore what might lie farther along the road down which we started, but stopped?”
She was stunned by how high her heart leapt at the thought; in instinctive reaction, she forcefully reined herself back. He’d broken her heart once and left her emotionally wrecked and weak. She couldn’t afford to have him do so again. Yet… She held his gaze. “As to that…we’re two very different people now.”
He inclined his head. “Nevertheless…or perhaps that’s even more reason to try again.”
Perhaps, perhaps…She halted before the front door and conceded, “So much water has passed under each of our bridges, who can say what might or might not be?”
She watched his eyes, his face, as he analyzed her answer.
Then he focused intently on her. “That’s not a no.”
She tipped her head in acquiescence. “It’s not a yes, either.”
He smiled. “That’s good enough for now.”
Before she caught the slightest inkling of what he intended, he bent his head and pressed his lips to hers.
Oh Lord.
She’d forgotten this, the simple pleasure of his kiss. Tingles spread from the first light contact, then warmth welled and spread, washing through her as the pressure firmed.
Yet he kept the kiss gentle—questing, luring, but not pressing, not demanding.
Waiting like a supplicant to see what she wished.
Something inside her blossomed and bloomed, a flower unfurling at the reviving touch of rain—thirsty, hungry, needing, seeking.
Her thoughts suspended; all awareness of anything beyond the contact vanished.
The touch of his lips remained light, enticing.
She leaned nearer, then wanting more, stepped closer, directly into his arms. Her hands rose, and she curled her fingers into his coat and clung.
The sensation of his lips on hers was a drug, but even through the intoxicating miasma clouding her senses, she was aware of how gently his arms closed around her—as if to him, she was the most precious object imaginable.
Then their heads angled, and the kiss deepened, and her awareness was overwhelmed.
With a need more powerful than any she’d known.
With a yearning that came from so deep within her she couldn’t have denied it, even had she wished to.
And over and above everything else lay the heady, sparking, thrilling sensations the simple pressure of his lips on hers ignited and fanned, feeding her starved soul.
Fireworks erupting in the hall would have had less impact.
But a simple kiss was all this could be.
Nothing more—not here, not now.
With transparent reluctance, he raised his head as she, responding to the same intuition, drew back.
For a long moment, they stared at each other, then Gray drew in a breath deep enough to have his chest rising beneath her palms. Slowly, he lowered his arms and, his voice rough and low, said, “So…we’ll think about that.”
She didn’t reply; to her mind, the statement was a reasonable summation of where they now stood. She was grateful when, his distracting lips lightly curving, he inclined his head and turned toward the door.
