Page 35 of Heartbreaker of the Ton
“Why must you assume that I must have been hurt in order to care about others?” she asked, the tightness in her voice increasing the pitch.
“I think you would care about others whether you’d been hurt or not, Etty. Kindness is a quality that few possess. It’s ingrained in their souls, an instinct to nurture and love. It cannot be taught, or earned through suffering. It merely exists.”
She closed her eyes, her chest rising and falling in a sigh, and his blood warmed with desire as she threaded her fingers into his.
“You’re wrong,” she whispered. “So wrong.”
“Is your opinion of me that low?” he asked, the pain in his heart warring with his desire.
She shook her head. “Oh, no, Andrew,” she said. “You’re the kindest man I have met. But you cannot be more wrong about me. I am not kind—far from it. I have been cruel, and I have thought nothing of giving pain to others, even those closest to me. And it is only through experience have I learned that the world is in great need of kindness.”
He lifted her hands to his lips and placed a light kiss on her knuckles. “You have a kind soul, Etty. Perhaps you were unable to recognize it until you suffered the unkindness of others.”
She blinked, and a tear splashed onto his hand. He dipped his head and placed a kiss on her skin, tasting the salt of her sorrow.
“Do not be kind to me, Andrew,” she said. “I-I couldn’t bear it.”
“Why?” he asked. “Because you believe you don’t deserve it? Or perhaps you’ve learned, to your cost, that the appearance of kindness can be the precursor to cruelty?”
She let out a low whimper, and his heart seared with pain at her cry—its very gentleness evidence of the intensity of the painshe suffered. Unable to suppress his need, he pulled her close and brushed his lips against hers.
For a moment, she stiffened. A nugget of shame swelled in his mind, but before he could release her, she parted her lips in invitation. He flicked his tongue along the seam of her mouth, and she grew still, as if she waited.
But for what?
Robert would have known what do to. Andrew’s brother—the master at seduction—would, at the touch of his hand, have rendered her open and ready, begging him to take her.
Surrendering to instinct, he slipped his tongue inside her mouth, relishing the warmth and the delectable taste.
Like honey.
The taste grew sweeter as he caressed her mouth with his tongue, and she let out a soft sigh and leaned toward him. Emboldened by her body’s encouragement, he flicked his tongue along the tip of hers. The warmth in his body increased as she responded to his kiss, curling her tongue around his, drawing him into a dance more seductive than anything he’d experienced in a ballroom.
Then she stilled, and a swell of panic rose within him.
She was a woman of experience—what did she expect of him?
Perhaps more of the same.
He deepened the kiss, relishing her soft warmth, and his manhood surged with need at the prospect of the sweet warmth elsewhere—that sweetness his older brother had said could make a man go mad with want until he claimed it for his own.
Her soft mewls of pleasure threatened to unleash the torrent of lust building in his mind, hammering against his defenses, that primal urge all men fought to conquer…or satisfy.
She arched her back—almost imperceptibly, but enough to move her breasts close to his hands—so close that he only need move a fraction…
Ought he dare? Robert had always told him that a woman spoke more clearly with her body than with her words.
Unable to resist, Andrew shifted his hand and suppressed a cry as his palm met the swell of her breasts. Such soft sweetness hidden beneath a thin layer of muslin! Her chest rose and fell as her breathing quickened, and she curled her tongue around his, caressing it from root to tip, sending a bolt of lust into his groin. Then he curved his palm to cup her breast and she moved closer, pressing her soft flesh against his palm, until he felt it—a hard nub pressing insistently against his hand, as if it begged for his attention.
Heavens!His brother had spoken the truth, that there was nothing so delectable as a peaked nipple awaiting a man’s attention. Awaitinghisattention.
What might it be like to touch it with his fingers, without the barrier of a layer of muslin? What might it be like totasteit? All he need do was lower her neckline and dip his head…
Sweet holy Lord—what the devil am Idoing?
He broke the kiss and removed his hand. For a moment, the woman before him remained still, like an angel, her hair coming undone in untamed wisps surrounding her face like a halo. As for her expression…
Her eyes had darkened into deep pools of pure, raw need. And, for the first time in his life, Andrew understood what his brother had meant when he said that a man would know when a woman was ripe for the taking.
