Chapter 3 #2
The wine ran his thumb down the length of Tessa’s neck. “Ruining isn’t about what you think it is, Tessa. It’s not about the moment a man enters a woman—”
“I know you’re proving you can be naughty, but please do remember I am unmarried. And you are unmarried. And though I may have heard worse from libertines on the Continent—
“You have?” he growled. Jealousy hit like a fist to the gut. “I shall have to talk to Lady Chattaway about the company she lets you keep.”
“The company she keeps.”
“They couldn’t resist you, could they? The libertines?”
She pressed her cheek against his arm, hiding her face, and his heart pinged with some terrifyingly soft emotion.
“Did they pursue you?” he asked quietly.
“A few tried.” The tone of her voice said the unspoken—she’d put them firmly in their places.
He speared his fingers into the hair at her nape and cradled the back of her head. She wiggled out from under him, toward the edge of the rock, but he held her head, her slender neck, and he controlled her escape, moved with her.
“When men like me want to ruin a woman,” he said, “it’s more about what comes before the final act. Acts one and two are of utmost importance.” He lowered her to the rock, where it sloped down toward the forest floor, and rested her head on a thick patch of summer-green moss.
The gasp that parted her lips widened her eyes, and her mouth remained open in a little pink O.
Good. She wasn’t laughing any longer. Neither was he.
She made a fist of the palm resting on his chest, clutching at his waistcoat, his shirt beneath, and trying to pull herself upright.
Her other hand shot to his shoulder, held on tight. Her throat bobbed on a hard swallow.
He crawled over her outstretched form, noticing how her skirts molded around her belly, her hips, how her breasts strained to escape the gold trim of her bodice as she arched down the boulder’s slope.
Gravity tugged at her breasts, and the weight of his knee on her skirts tugged at the bodice.
He’d never seen Tessa King so exposed, and beneath the heavy warmth of the wine, despite it, his cock stirred.
She was breathing heavy, clinging to him, and completely in his control, arched backward and spilling out of the form he knew so well, taking a new shape.
He needed to taste her.
“Say it,” he demanded.
“Very well.” He’d never heard her voice so breathy, so raw and foreign. “You, Remington Ives, are a rake.”
She didn’t mean it. Not a bit, the little liar. Her arched brow and rolled eyes said she was well equipped to deal with the likes of him. This the Tessa from childhood. This an entirely different Tessa too. Bold and brilliant and undeniably saucy.
His Tessa, but more.
Holy hell. He needed more of her.
He caught her ankle and, through silk stockings, felt the delicate bones before closing his eyes and skimming his hand up the back of her leg. Shapely. Warm. The cocoon of her skirts a place he never thought to have become acquainted with.
She flinched away, bending her knee.
But she felt too good to release, and he smoothed his hand up the front of her leg, over her knee, and her skirts came, too, dropping off her knee to pool around her waist and to reveal a rather startling sight—a deep blue ribbon tying her stockings up, and above that, the creamiest thigh he’d ever seen.
He was harder than he’d ever been in his life, his cock as interested as a…
as a bee in search of nectar—necessary for survival.
But it would have to become uninterested.
This wasn’t about survival or honey (oh God, she probably tasted just as sweet). It was about proving himself. This was about playing a part and, perhaps, scaring her a little.
He trifled with the edge of the ribbon—warm and sleek—then took the plunge.
His fingertips met her skin first, and that first touch felt like a bolt of lightning to his heart.
And parts more southern. God, she was soft.
How’d he never known how soft she was? He ventured his entire palm, flattening his hand, squeezing, cursing when he heard the faintest whimper slip from his lips.
He felt like whimpering.
Damn wine.
“Admit I’m what I say I am, and mean it,” he said, harder than he meant to. He squeezed her thigh hard, too.
She bit her bottom lip, shook her head, her eyes flashing rebellion.
“Very well then.” He inched farther up her body until his legs were tangled with hers, until his cock pressed against her hip. It felt so damn good. “I’ll teach you…” He grazed his lips up her neck. “The truth.”
He tilted his head so their noses nestled next to one another. Their mouths so close, almost touching, both parted, both warm, both wine and brandy spiced.
He’d never thought to touch her this way. When a man had no money, he didn’t trifle with a penniless woman, no matter how… or what… or who. But he was a rake on a mission with a soft, lovely woman beneath him.
So he kissed her.
Through the wine and brandy she tasted like chocolate. And peppermint. Both of which she kept nearby while painting. Familiar.
And not.
Because he’d not known how soft her lips were, how delicious it was to sink into their plumpness. He never would have guessed that a little squeak of a sound could taste so good, or that an exhalation could flutter a soul.
Flutter a soul?
He was drunk, wasn’t he. He’d taken this too far. Time to pull away. He’d made his point, so he lifted his hands from her thigh, her shoulder.
But then her lips parted.
And she kissed him back, her mouth opening with a warm breath of surrender and moving against his own with inexpert and inquisitive eagerness.
Tessa. Tessa King. Her name cracked him open and replaced the pounding of his pulse.
She’d killed him swiftly without even knowing, but her sweet, eager kiss could bring him back to life just as surely.
He broke away, held still as a deer in the wood who’d heard an unfamiliar sound. He couldn’t bolt, couldn’t push as far from her as possible. He didn’t need to. That would suggest that kiss had scared him.
It hadn’t.
“Re-Remmy…” she whispered. Her mouth twisted with horror. “Why did you—”
“Now you know.” He backed off her, pulling her skirts down over her legs. “I’m as bad as the Belle says.”
She shot upright, pulling her legs beneath her, touching her fingertips to her lips. Her eyes were wide and full of fire. She swung down off the rock and smoothed her skirts with rough, agitated gestures.
Straightening her shoulders, she met his gaze as if he hadn’t just had the entire needy length of his body pressed against hers. “That was a terribly silly thing to do.”
“Silly?” He jumped off the rock to stand tall before her, hands on hips. “You’re not scared of me?”
“Scared? Of you?” She stilled, shook her head slowly.
“You’re Remmy. No matter what, you’d never hurt me.
But you’d irritate me. Wouldn’t hesitate to do that.
I’ll forgive you, though.” She patted his shoulder, all friendly like.
“And forget what you’ve done.” She picked her way carefully back toward the path, then up it. Soon, she was entirely out of sight.
He leaned over the rock, pressing both palms into its time-smoothed top while trying to tame his erection.
Forget? She’d be able to forget that? He dropped his head, and the wind whipped up, whistling through the trees, low and mournful. She really didn’t feel a damn thing for him, did she.