Chapter 10 #2
“Stop.” The word came out sharper than Isobel intended.
The duke fell silent, and she forced herself to inhale deeply as something hot and painful seemed to twist in her chest.
“Was it truly such a mistake? Kissing me?”
Richard's gaze snapped to hers, confusion flickering across his features. “I did not say it was a mistake–”
“You implied as much,” Isobel interrupted, rising to her feet. Her hands trembled slightly, and she clasped them together. “Because I am unlike the other ladies of the ton, is that it? Compared to them, I am rude and improper. No better than a barn animal.”
“That is not–” Richard stood as well, frustration evident in the tone of his voice and on the stiff lines of his frame. “You are manipulating my words.”
“Is that so? Am I truly doing that?” Isobel challenged. “How rude of me. In that case, wouldn’t you share what you meant by that, then, Your Grace? Pray, enlighten me.”
Richard stared at her, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
Something seemed to be caught in a fierce battle within him, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
Then, suddenly, he closed the distance between them, stopping just inches from her, unable to ignore the satisfaction that climbed up his spine as her green eyes widened in surprise.
“What do you want from me?” he demanded to know, his voice hoarse. “Do you want me to tell you that I never once felt as though I made a mistake by kissing you? That I have been unable to think of anything else since? That even now, standing here, all I can think about is doing it again?”
Isobel's breath caught in her throat, and she parted her lips to respond, only to close them once more as she realized her mind was unable to formulate the words she would use.
“Because I could,” Richard continued, his icy blue eyes boring into hers. “I could throw caution to the wind and do all the things I want to do to you. But if I did, you would be ruined for anyone else. Do you understand that?”
Isobel’s mouth felt dry, and speaking still felt like a far-fetched dream. Somehow, she managed a slight shake of her head, feeling as though she was witnessing a situation out of her own skin.
Richard's gaze dropped to her lips, then slowly trailed back up to her eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper, each word deliberate and devastating.
“I want to kiss you until you forget your own name. I want to touch you until you are trembling beneath my hands, until every breath you take is either a plea for more or a moan of my name. I want to learn every sound you make when you are lost to pleasure, every place on your body that makes you gasp. I want to taste your skin until I have countless dreams about the sweetness of it, to feel you arch against me, to watch your gaze change into what it is now.”
Isobel could barely breathe. Heat flooded through her, filling her cheeks, dripping down, and scorching her heart before it pooled low in her stomach. She felt heavy and stiff like a wound-up doll, her nerves burning with anticipation.
A proper lady would have reproached him.
A sane one would have long since left this man and run away.
But she? She could imagine it all – too clearly, quite vividly.
The weight of his hands as they grip her body and roam over her skin, the heat of his mouth, the sensations that would remind her of their kiss but magnified a hundredfold.
She wanted it. God help her, she wanted it all.
“That… that is quite the noble spirit you have, there. But I do not care,” she heard herself say, her voice quiet and breathless.
Richard stared at her, confused.
“You do not care? About –”
“I do not care about being ruined,” Isobel retorted with a too high tone. “I have no intention to marry. After this is over, I will return to Scotland and become a nun. So you need not worry about my prospects.”
Richard stared at her, his expression frozen in shock. For a long moment, neither of them moved, neither of them breathed. Isobel expected questions – she even expected to be scolded or even reproached for making such a terrible decision.
And so she waited, expecting the worst.
But then, he was moving, closing the space between them with two long strides. His hands came up to frame her face, and his mouth crashed down on hers.
This kiss was nothing like the first one. Where that had been uncertain and questioning, this was fierce and demanding. His lips moved against hers with a hunger that stole what little breath she had left, and when his tongue swept along the seam of her mouth, she opened for him without hesitation.
The sound that escaped her was swallowed by him as he deepened the kiss, one hand sliding into her hair while the other wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against him.
Isobel's hands found purchase against his chest, her fingers curling into the fabric of his coat as though she needed to hold onto something to keep her steady.
Every place their skin touched felt like it was burning, and when Richard's hand tightened in her hair, angling her head to deepen the kiss further, Isobel heard herself make a small, desperate sound that should have embarrassed her but somehow did not.
Because he responded to it – a low groan rumbling in his chest that was just as desperate, perhaps even more so, while his arm tightened around her waist as though he could not bear to have any space between them.
Isobel had never known a kiss could feel like this. It was like she was underwater, but still somehow alive, with so much more room to thrive. It felt as though she had lost herself, but had discovered something new in the same breath.
When Richard finally pulled back, they were both practically gasping for air. His forehead rested against hers, his eyes closed, his grip on her still firm, as though he feared that she might disappear if he let go.
“A nun,” he muttered, his voice rough and slightly disbelieving. “You want to become a nun.”
Isobel could not help the small, breathless laugh that escaped her. “At the time I made that decision, I had not yet been kissed like that.”
Richard's eyes opened, meeting hers, and what she saw in them made her heart stutter. Heat, yes, but something else too. Something that looked almost like wonder.
“I am not finished with you yet,” he murmured, and then his mouth found hers again.