Page 46 of Beyond Scandal and Desire
“The darker pleasures, then.”
His mouth, hot and moist, landed where her neck curved into her shoulder. Her eyes slid closed. His tongue lapped at her skin. Of its own accord, her head dropped back as heat sluiced through her, pooled in her belly, swirled lower to settle between her thighs.
His lips trailed along her throat. His hand cupped her cheek, turned her head slightly, tilted it up. His mouth retreated. Opening her eyes, she found herself staring into the blue depths of his.
“So many sins from which to choose,” he rasped, just before lowering his mouth to hers.
With a gentle nudging of his tongue, he urged her to part her lips. She complied, and her world spun upside down as he explored the hidden depths with a fervor that matched her own. Here, here was the heat she’d expected of a kiss. The demand for more, the yearning for all.
His mouth was delicious and wicked and skilled. She didn’t want to contemplate all the practicing it had taken to hone such remarkable talent. There was nothing cool, nothing proper, nothing distant in his actions. He was fully involved, devouring her mouth as though she alone provided sustenance, as though only through her could he be sated.
Her heart pounded with such ferocity that she was certain he had to feel it when he pulled her in closer, flattening her breasts against his broad chest. The blood rushed through her ears. Her nerve endings tingled, dampness pooled between her thighs. There was a throbbing, a pulsing at her feminine core that urged her to press herself nearer. He growled, his vibrating chest sending ripples of pleasure coursing through her. She needed to put a name to what she was feeling, to the sensations bursting through her. An insane thought flashed through her mind.
The kiss felt like winning.
Kissing her was the best decision he’d ever made in his life. Kissing her was the worst decision he’d ever made in his life.
He’d been intimate with women, but none had ever kissed him like this, as though their very existence relied on their mouths staying latched together, their tongues swirling, one part velvet, one part silk. Her moans and sighs urged him to take the kiss deeper, even as the soft sounds tightened his bollocks, hardened his shaft. Christ, he was in danger of spilling his seed without even feeling the dampness between her thighs that he was certain was waiting for him, hot and glistening with need.
From the moment he’d looked up from the contracts he’d been studying and seen her standing there, he’d wanted his mouth on hers, his hands on her back, her buttocks, her breasts. He had yet to move beyond the small of her back, to go further. He didn’t want to frighten her with his needs, his longing to possess her.
Especially as his own yearnings scared the hell out of him.
She was no longer the means to an end, but had become the end itself. He was supposed to be cool and dispassionate in taking her. His purpose was to draw her in while keeping himself at a distance. Instead, she’d managed to entice him into a maelstrom of emotions and sensations, needs and desires, that were foreign to him.
He was a man accustomed to controlling his world, his fate, his destiny—yet where she was concerned, he’d lost his bearings. He felt as though she possessed a sledgehammer and was knocking away his wall of indifference, brick by brick. How would he protect himself when they were all gone? He didn’t know if he could find the resilience to stack the bricks back up.
She smelled so bloody good, like flowers after a rain. Her fragrance was probably taken from a single blossom, but he knew little of plant names. Flowers were pretty to look at, but he had little time for learning the details about them. Yet at that moment he had an insane need to smell every bloom he came across until he found the one that matched her scent.
Sliding his hands beneath her pelisse, he cradled her sides, her back. So narrow, so delicate, so fragile. He suddenly realized he would hate the man who took her innocence from her—even if it was he.
Drawing back, he was surprised to discover his breathing was labored and harsh. Hers might have been the same, but he hardly noticed. Instead, he was arrested by the sight of her swollen, damp lips and the intense heat in her eyes. He saw the cooling, the arrival of confusion, quickly followed by horror.
Staggering back, she slammed her shoulder against the edge of the window casing, grimaced, shuffled away, her hand coming up to cover the mouth he was desperate to once again plunder. Then she spun on her heel and ran.
Chapter 11
Dear God in heaven! What had she done? What had she allowed him to do? Allowed? She’d wanted, encouraged, taunted and teased him into doing it.
She dashed down the stairs. So many blasted stairs. Why did he have to build a hotel with five floors? Were there really that many people in need of lodgings for a single night?
She hated that she had enjoyed the kiss so much, that it had stirred things within her that Kip’s hadn’t. She could barely remember Kip’s. It had been as nothing while Mick’s had been as everything. Her body had responded as though he held the key to unlocking her soul. Never before had she been so terrified, confused . . . shamed, because every inch of her demanded she return to him and let him finish what he’d begun. To lay her out for his pleasure, to touch her in ways she yearned for even though she didn’t know precisely what they were. But he knew. He knew how to lure, entice, deliver.
So many sins from which to choose.
She found herself wanting to create the gravest of all: giving herself to a man without benefit of marriage.
Love was supposed to center a person. No, this wasn’t love. Far from it. It was passion and desire; it was animalistic instincts. Humans mated. Men had barbaric cravings that women were charged with keeping in check. It was the reason men sowed wild oats while women embroidered samplers. They had different needs, different purposes. Men were weak when it came to the flesh, women strong.
So why had she nearly melted into a puddle at his feet?
Finally, she reached the lobby.
“Is everything all right, miss?” the gent behind the desk asked, but she ignored him, drew up the hood on her pelisse.
The porter who stood beyond the glass doors must have heard her coming, because he looked back and opened the door for her. She rushed through, hurried down the steps and stopped short. The hansom was gone. Of course it was. The driver had stayed longer than twenty minutes, but he couldn’t wait here all night. He was needed elsewhere. Especially as a light mist had begun falling.
Wandering beyond sight of the door, she leaned against the front of the building past the steps, below the eaves. She wondered how long before a hansom might pass by. Ages, she suspected. There was no theater to draw crowds. It was late. Who would think to come here to look for a woman in need of rescue?
