Page 11 of The Hero

Her brows rose. “Saying you wished to kiss me is not outrageous enough?”

He shrugged. “I do not believe I have ever known a woman to react in that way to that suggestion before now, no.”

She huffed. “Perhaps those other women were all so overwhelmed by the thought of being singled out that way by the distinguished Duke of Oxford that they were simply too in awe of you to do anything other than submit.”

Gideon was well aware that he had just been complimented and insulted all in the same breath. He refused to accept either. “Then I shall wait until you grant your permission before I take the suggestion any further.”

Harry looked chagrined by the comment. As if she did not know whether to be relieved at the reprieve or upset by Gideon’s restraint.

Her next comment answered that question. “You are nothing at all like the forceful but romantic heroes in the novels I have read.”

“Thank God!” Gideon held back his smile at her disgruntled expression. “But, to be fair, I am sure none of the heroines in those books were quite like you either.”

She frowned. “Did you just insult me?”

“Not in the least.” Gideon found himself once again chuckling in this young lady’s presence. “Indeed, I meant to compliment you on not being anything remotely like one of the empty-headed misses usually depicted between those pages.”

“Truly?”

“Yes.”

“You are not toying with me?”

“Absolutely not.”

“You really wish to kiss me?”

“More than anything,” he acknowledged huskily.

Her expression brightened. “In that case, you may do so.”

His mouth quirked at this sudden about-face. “I may?”

“Yes.” Her gaze was again challenging.

He was tempted, oh so tempted, but first… “Only if you will first call me Gideon.”

“Gideon,” she obeyed in a husky tone that curled around and then invaded Gideon’s senses.

Making him totally aware of everything about her. Her softness, her perfume, the pulsing of the blood through her veins visible at the base of her throat, her breasts a creamy swell over the scooped neckline of her gown.

His gaze held hers as he slowly lowered his head to press his lips against her slightly parted ones.

The heat of desire raged through his body at the first taste of the softness of her lips, causing his heart to leap and his cock to engorge.

Physical reactions that were all the more surprising because he was not touching Harry in any other way. Not with his hands, nor his body. There was just the meeting of two pairs of lips that merged easily together before slowly moving in a dance of discovery. Testing, tasting, devouring.

Gideon’s body felt on fire with that last emotion, and he groaned softly as he kissed and licked those pillowy lips. His arms moved about the slenderness of Harry’s waist to pull her in tightly against the hardness of his body as he continued to kiss and lick and bite those responsive lips.

“You, down there! What do you think you are about with my daughter, you young scoundrel?”

Gideon staggered slightly at the abruptness with which Harry wrenched her lips from beneath his to turn her head and look up at the roof of the house.

A large and shadowy figure could be seen standing at the edge of the parapet.

A man Gideon knew without a doubt to be Henry Church, the Earl of Dunhill, and Harry’s father.

Gideon scowled his displeasure when Harry gave a dismayed gasp and pulled out of his arms. She then turned quickly on her heels and ran across the garden to enter the house through the door from which the two of them had left a short time earlier.

---