Chapter Three #3
“Stephen,” she said, and wasn’t that an unexpected pleasure?
The sound of his name on those plump, delectable lips.
“Stephen, I find this all to be highly unusual. But I also recognize this may be my best—my only—way to pursue the education that I require to become the doctor I should like to be. For that reason alone, I find myself . . . amenable . . . to your proposition.”
He lifted a brow. “Was that a very roundabout way to say that you’ll kiss me?”
“Must that be part of our agreement?”
“It binds the contract.”
“Very well.” She started to lean forward, and this time he was the one who pulled away.
“Not here.” He lowered his voice to a husky whisper. “This type of kiss isn’t suitable for a public setting.”
“It’s . . . it’s not?” she said faintly.
“Definitely not.” Escorting his bride-to-be out of the coffeehouse at a speed that hopefully prevented anyone from taking note of his bulging arousal, he turned down the first alley that they came across.
A narrow path carved out between two brick buildings, one still in the process of being built, with stacks of wooden crates and piles of black ash tossed down from the windows above.
Hardly a romantic venue, but Stephen’s gaze wasn’t on their surroundings.
No, his focus was commanded solely by the blushing brunette standing in front of him, and when he gently cupped her chin, everything else blurred and faded away.
“Have you been kissed before?” he asked, tracing his thumb across her jawline.
Her accent may have reflected her American upbringing, but her bone structure was all British rose.
Dainty and refined, with more than a dash of stubbornness in the tilt of her nose.
She may not have been a classic beauty. Her hair was too frizzy.
Her clothing too frumpy. But she was beautiful nonetheless, in the same way that all wild, untamed things were beautiful.
“N-no,” she said, biting her bottom lip, and it was all Stephen could do not groan.
“Close your eyes,” he instructed, bracing his other arm against the wall at her back as he stepped closer, effectively pinning her between a hard place and . . . well . . . a hard place.
“Why?” she said, her eyes opening even wider when their thighs brushed.
“Because a kiss—a kiss worth remembering—is about feel.” Lowering his head, he skimmed his mouth across her cheek to the delicate shell of her ear.
“It’s about touch.” He slowly drew her lobe between his teeth and gave the tiniest pull, his abdomen tightening when he heard her gasp.
“It’s about sensation.” A low chuckle vibrated in his throat when she slammed her eyes shut.
“Now . . . now what?” she whispered.
“Now,” he said, sliding his fingers under her bonnet into silky tangles of mahogany as his mouth hovered a heartbeat above hers, “comes the enjoyable part.”
“S-solely for the purpose of our contract, correct?” Her eyes flickered open. “Nothing more.”
“Yes.” In that moment, he would have agreed to anything.
A kiss to sign their verbal agreement. A kiss in exchange for all of his treasures.
A kiss for fifty years of indentured servitude.
Yes, yes, yes. All of that and more, if it meant a few fleeting seconds of sipping from heaven’s goblet before plunging straight into hell.
“All right,” she said with a solemnity that would have made him smile were he not consumed by the fiery ache of need. “You may proceed.”
Stephen needed no further invitation.
He didn’t just kiss Abigail.
He sank into her.
Slowly.
Tenderly.
His mouth lightly passing over hers once, twice, before lingering to sip the sweet nectar of her lips while his hand slipped to her nape to gently massage muscles taut with anticipatory tension.
He kissed her cheek, her chin, and then the tip of her nose, coaxing a startled giggle that eased the rigid cords beneath his fingertips.
Changing the angle of his head, he returned to her mouth, brushing his lips across hers before tracing the seam with his tongue and gliding inside when she opened for him on a quiet moan.
She reached between them to grasp his shirt, digging into the fabric to the granite muscle beneath while he explored the damp, utterly delightful cavern of her mouth with languishing sweeps of his tongue.
His little wife-to-be tasted of mint with a dash of honey.
He could have drunk from her all day. He could have lived from her, if such a thing were possible, as a bee did from a flower.
For while this was not his first kiss—far from it—he could not recall another that had stolen the ground beneath his feet and spun his entire world on its axis.
Abigail may not have been experienced, but she was earnest. She was intoxicating. And he was completely enthralled by everything about her.
Her taste.
Her scent.
Her unconventional beauty.
Her clever, clever mind.
Even her stubbornness captivated him, but it was her kiss that consumed him.
Again and again, he dipped in to sample what had been promised but never explored as the snow that had been lazily falling off and on all morning began to flurry in earnest, scattering sparkling flakes of white across his shoulders and catching on her eyelashes.
The cold whipped up and around them, but couldn’t penetrate the haze of heat emanating from their passionate embrace.
Spinning her away from the wall, he took her place against it, gathering her up and into his arms as he leaned his full weight against the hard, unforgiving brick without breaking the kiss.
The hand in her hair slid downward, following the length of her spine before settling possessively on the curve of her bottom and pulling her snug against the pulsing heat of his loins while he plundered her lips.
By its own design, her leg hitched upward, curling around his waist in a way that brought them from intimate to downright sinful, and if they weren’t in an alley . . .
But they were, he reminded himself on a shuddering exhale of breath as he reluctantly lifted his head. They were in an alley, and the future Viscountess of Brunswick deserved far more than to be ravished in the snow beside a pile of soot.
“Where are you staying?” he asked, and when she told him, he walked her there, right to the doorstep, and tested his tenuous self-control by pressing a kiss to her temple before stepping back. “I’ll come for you at half past nine tomorrow and we’ll ride to the church together.”
“What . . . what should I wear?” To his smug delight, her expression was still every bit as dazed as it had been when he’d ended the kiss. A testament to his passionate prowess, no doubt. Or she was merely settling into shock after the abrupt turn in events over the past two hours of her life.
“Whatever you’d like,” he murmured, tucking a loose curl behind her ear.
“Half past nine?”
“Half past nine. Look for a black carriage.”
“They’re all black.”
Stephen grinned. “Then look for me. I’ll be the chap bounding up the pavement to collect his beautiful bride.”
A spark of sobriety flickered in her gaze. “Physical attractiveness is a relative means of—”
“Beautiful,” he repeated firmly. “You are beautiful, Abigail.”
Her brow furrowed. “No one has ever called me that before.”
“Well you’d best get used to it.” He reached past her to open the door and gently nudged her over the threshold into an entry hall with a crackling fireplace and worn, but meticulously dusted, furniture. “I take it your room is upstairs?”
She started to nod, then stopped. “You cannot accompany me. We are not yet married.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he promised, even though he already was.
In quite intimate detail.
“Half past nine,” he told her one final time before he retreated into the falling snow. “Don’t forget.”
Her nostrils flared. “I have an excellent memory.”
He grinned. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Abigail.”
“Half past nine. In a black carriage.”
He tapped a finger to the side of his head. “You do have an excellent memory.”
“Good day . . . Lord Sandwich.”
His loud bark of laughter bounced off the door when she closed it and startled a horse in the street behind him.
He started to sink his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat, remembered that Abigail was still wearing it, and put them behind his back instead as he set off toward his own hotel whistling a merry tune.