Chapter 7 #3
He watched for a flash of blue and soon found her. She was near the Serpentine but not on the footpath. He easily closed the distance between them, but she kept at her shambling run.
When he came within a pace of her, he reached out to grab her arm. He stepped on her train and his boot tangled in the hem, jerking her off balance. Down she went, and so did he, on top of her.
As they struck the ground, his hat fell off. Out of the corner of his eye he saw hers roll away. Nearer to hand, her bosom rose and fell with her labored breathing. He raised his head and chest to take his weight off her, but he didn’t roll off her completely.
Damp curls clung to her temples and near her ears. Her skin was pink with exertion. She was scowling up at him, blue eyes glittering.
“What the devil is wrong with you?” he said.
Her hands came up. Instinctively he drew back. But she didn’t scratch his eyes out or punch him as he expected. She slid her fingers into his hair and grasped his head. She pulled, bringing his face to hers, and kissed him full on the lips.
At the first touch, he felt the skittering shock he’d experienced the day before, but deeper and stronger this time, as though he’d touched an electrifying machine.
This time, though, he didn’t draw away. Her mouth was soft and warm and her scent and taste spilled into him, sweet and fresh and warm, like a summer garden.
Inside him a riot seemed to be going on, of feelings.
He didn’t know what they were and didn’t care.
About them was springtime, cool and damp, but she tasted like summer and he craved the heat.
Her hands slid down to his jaw and her mouth was searching for more from him.
She was by turns insistent and coaxing, and he was all too willing to be led.
His brain slowed and he forgot everything else but the warmth and scent and taste of her. She brushed her tongue over his lips, and the shock he felt this time was a familiar one: the rush of pleasure at an invitation.
All of his senses responded to her, all shouting yes. In the warmth and rightness of their deepening kiss, all the turmoil—the anger and fear and frustration and confusion—melted into simple, inescapable need.
He sank onto her and wrapped his arms about her. He rolled onto his back and she went with him. No hesitation, no thought. Only yes.
The world went away. Nothing remained and nothing mattered but the teasing and tantalizing discovery of a kiss, slowly deepening. Nothing remained and nothing mattered but the ripely curved body melting against his.
He dragged his hands down her back and up again to trace the line of her spine and the angle of her shoulder blades and the slope of her shoulders and the curve of her neck.
Her hands moved over him, too, in the same unhesitating way her mouth had claimed his. He felt that touch in every cell of his body. The barrier of his clothing was nothing. He was acutely aware of his own skin, its nerve endings quivering.
His heart pumped harder and his breath came faster and heat raced downward.
He slid his hand up over her waist and belly and higher still, to cup her breast. She made a sound against his mouth like a purr and a moan mingled.
Her mouth and her hands roamed as boldly and possessively as his—over his shoulders and back and under his coat, then settling on his buttocks to press him against her, to rub herself against his hardened cock.
He broke the kiss only long enough to roll her onto her back again. She laughed deep in her throat, and his answering laugh was thick. He was drunk with the heat of tasting and touching her, and he drunkenly wanted all and he wanted it now.
He reached down to drag up her skirts.
He was aware of something else, something far away, but it vanished from his consciousness when her hand slid down below his waist to where his erection pushed against the flap of his breeches.
That touch emptied what was left of his mind.
He grasped a handful of her thick skirt and pulled it up.
He slid his hand under the cloth and along her stockinged leg.
He heard noise, somewhere, but it was not important. What was important was his hand moving up over her stocking. What was important was the warmth of her skin underneath and the beautiful curve of her leg.
“Good grief, are you completely lost to reason?”
A part of his consciousness took in the words, but they meant nothing. It was noise to him, a crow cawing. His hand slid further upward.
“Stop it!”
Thwack.
“Stop it! Heaven help me, it is like trying to separate dogs!”
Thwack. “Get off!”
Something was hitting his back.
Thwack. “Now! Do you hear me?” Thwack. “Get off her this instant!” Thwack. “Get off!”
Bloody hell. Not the idiot maid. Not now. Where in blazes had she come from?
He closed his eyes, took a long breath, and summoned his mind back into his skull.
He would kill the maid and throw her corpse into the Serpentine.
He rolled off Zoe, opened his eyes, and looked up.
The maid was there, yes, but well out of reach. She wasn’t the one who’d attacked him. Jarvis stood, shoulders hunched and fists pressed to her mouth, a few feet behind and to the right of Priscilla, mountainous belly heaving as she brandished the tightly furled umbrella.
“Have you taken leave of your senses?” Priscilla cried. “Good God, Marchmont, what is wrong with you? Rutting with my sister in Hyde Park! Like dogs! What will people say?”