Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
“Hey!” James exclaimed. “What was that for?”
Kitty pinned him with an accusing glare. “You toad, James Cashell.”
He dared to look as if he were the injured party. “You asked me to kiss you, remember?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.”
He had the grace to look a little guilty. His eyes darted away.
“Charles Willingham does not kiss like that,” she said firmly.
He glanced back at her with a scowl. “Like what?”
“Like the man who kissed me in the tower.”
He stilled. Only the cheerful sound of birdsong and the distant crash of waves intruded on the sudden silence. He parted his lips to argue, but she wasn’t finished.
“Admit it. That was you last night, wasn’t it?” Her heart was pounding so hard she felt lightheaded.
The hands on her arms tightened, and his gaze burned into hers. And then he closed his eyes and dropped his head.
“I wanted to tell you. I meant to tell you. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
She raised one eyebrow. “You lost your head over a few kisses?” she said scornfully. “Do you really expect me to believe that? Your experience with women is well-documented, James. I hardly think kissing me would be enough to make you forget—”
“You make me forget my own bloody name!”
The force in his voice made her blink and he stilled, as if realizing what he’d just admitted. And then he let out a long, slow exhale.
“Kissing you makes me forget the whole world,” he continued, more softly. “All I can think about is how good you taste. How right you feel. How I want you in my arms forever.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a rueful smile. “I love you Kitty. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember.”
He shook his head, and his laugh was half joy, half despair. “Andrew knew; he saw what I’d been hiding for years.”
Kitty stared up at him, her eyes wide. Her breath caught in her throat. “You love me?”
“I do. And not just as a friend.” He slid his hands down her arms and tangled his fingers with her own. “As everything.”
Kitty could scarcely believe her ears. He stared into her eyes, and she suddenly felt weightless, suspended between heartbeats, like a dandelion puff that might float away in the breeze.
“Kitty Worth, will you marry me?” he asked solemnly.
“You said you’d never marry,” she couldn’t resist saying.
“That’s not true. I said I’d gladly settle down with the right woman.” A smile softened his face. “And that’s you. The right woman.”
He saw she was about to argue and squeezed her fingers. “Please allow that years of warfare change a man. I was an idiot not to tell you how I felt. And when I got back from Spain, I was so consumed with guilt over losing Andrew that I didn’t think you could bear to see me.”
Tears of happiness pricked the back of her eyes, but she blinked them back. “Of course I wanted to see you, you idiot. I love you too.”
“So that’s yes? You’ll marry me?”
“Yes.”
His shoulders dropped in obvious relief, and then he gave a rueful groan. “I can’t believe you kissed Charles Willingham.” His lips quirked and a mischievous light entered his eyes. “You know, now would be an excellent time to admit that my kisses were better than his.”
Kitty slid him a teasing smile. “Oh, I don’t know. . . I think I need to do a little more research—”
“Only with me,” he growled.
“Only with you,” she agreed.
His smile turned devilish. “Perhaps I should remind you again about the different types of kisses?”
“Please.”
He tilted her chin up and pressed the pad of his thumb to her lower lip. Kitty shivered, despite the warmth of the air, as excitement twisted low her belly. She leaned into him with a soft moan, wrapping her arms around his neck as he kissed her, tasting her sweetly and softly.
“This is the kiss of a desperate man,” he murmured. “A man who’s been starved of kisses.” Another kiss, a little more forceful. “A man who never wants to stop.”
“Then don’t,” Kitty said simply.
He gave a fevered groan against her mouth. “We have to stop, Kitty. If we don’t get back to the castle soon, you’ll be ruined and—”
She gave a giddy laugh. “What? We’ll be expected to marry? Oh no! How will I bear the agony of becoming your wife?”
He shook his head at her sarcasm. “You’re shameless.”
She gave a delighted nod. He kissed her again, hard, then caught her hips and picked her up, effortlessly holding her against his chest before settling her on the wide ledge of the window embrasure.
She widened her legs as he stepped between her knees and slid his fingers up her thighs, bunching the fabric of her skirts. Her heart pounded in anticipation.
His hands settled on her hips and he squeezed, as if making sure she was real flesh and blood and not an apparition. “God, Kitty,” he rested his forehead against hers with a ragged exhale. “I want you so much.”
“I want you too.” She stroked a lock of hair from his forehead, her heart pounding with the astonishing realization that she could touch him exactly as she pleased, whenever she wanted. It was a Midsummer miracle.
She pressed a coaxing kiss to his lips. “I think you should show me all the kisses. Right now.”
His tortured groan sounded as if he was being stretched on the rack. “Believe me, there is nothing I’d love more, but we don’t have time for all the kisses, and this is definitely not the place.”
Her spirits dropped at what she thought was a refusal, until the corner of his mouth curved up.
“But I suppose I could demonstrate a few . . .”
His nose brushed the hinge of her jaw, and she tilted her head back into the sunlight to give him better access. He kissed a burning trail down her throat and along her collarbone.
“These are the kisses of a man who wants to kiss every inch if you.”
She threaded her fingers into his hair and tugged him lower. His lips reached the top curve of her breast, above the neckline of her dress.
“A man who wants to hold you and taste you.”
Her skin burned where he touched, happiness and desire twisting through her veins. She leaned back against the pillar, the stone warm from the sun.
James kissed the valley between her breasts.
“The kisses of a man who cannot wait to make you gasp with pleasure.”
He pushed down the front of her dress, exposing her breast to the warm summer breeze, but before she had time to feel embarrassed, he’d kissed her peaked nipple and drawn it into his mouth. The sensation was so delicious, so unexpected, that all she could do was gasp.
“James!”
His expression was pure wickedness as he glanced up at her and used his flattened tongue to lick a stripe over the tight bud that made her stomach twist.
“Oh! That’s so nice!” she groaned.
Something flared in his eyes, a laughing intensity that made her blood heat. “Nice? I can do better than nice.”
He dropped to his knees, and his long fingers encircled her ankles, their warmth burning through the silk of her stockings. He stroked up her shin, pushing her skirts up as he went, and pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee.
Her lips parted in wonder. An aching throb pulsed between her legs.
His palms slid upward, under her skirts, to the ribbon garter tying her stockings, then higher still, to the bare skin of her thighs. Her lungs felt like they were being squeezed.
“Can I kiss you here?” His thumb skated over the smooth skin on the inside of her thigh, and she nodded. He could do anything he wanted. She was putty in his hands.
She caught his head, threading her fingers through his hair as his shoulders widened the space between her legs. Heat flashed over her as he pressed his lips where he’d touched, then kissed her again, even higher.
She wasn’t wearing anything under her chemise, and she shivered in breathless, throbbing agony as his warm breath teased the most sensitive part of her.
“What about here, Kitty?” His voice was deep, rough. “Can I kiss you here?”
“Yes,” she croaked.
He didn’t immediately comply, and the anticipation stretched her nerves. He looked up at her.
“Do you know what I was thinking yesterday, when you were getting the honey?”
She frowned, confused by the apparent change of topic. Was he trying to drive her insane? “What?”
His eyes were almost black, the pupils blown so wide they swallowed the gray.
“I thought of licking you. Tasting you,” he growled. “Like this.”
He leaned in and swiped the flat of his tongue over her core, and she arched her back with a gasp of shocked pleasure.
“James!”
His answering groan made her melt.
“God, you’re sweet. Like honey.”
She felt like honey. Liquid and melting and utterly decadent. Her initial embarrassment slid away, replaced by bone-melting pleasure. Her eyelids fluttered closed.
His finger joined his tongue at the entrance to her body, circling, teasing her with possibility.
“Have you ever touched yourself, Kitty? Have you ever given yourself pleasure?”
“Yes.” Her cheeks heated at the shameful admission. Gently born, unmarried ladies weren’t supposed to have such wicked knowledge.
She felt his amused huff against her thigh.
“And how did you discover such things?” He sounded intrigued, not censorious.
“I found Andrew’s book of naughty pictures.”
“Good girl.” His low praise made her flutter and throb.
She’d opened the silk-bound folder of Japanese woodcuts not knowing what they were.
At first, she’d only noticed the strange, stylized drawing style, so different from the satirical cartoons of Rowlandson and Hogarth.
Then she’d noticed what the figures were doing, and eyes had widened in shock.
Scores of lovemaking couples, the man’s erect member shown in clear detail, pushing between the legs or lips of the woman.
Hands grasping naked breasts, fingers squeezing thighs and flesh, tongues licking.
One particularly bizarre image showed a woman with a giant octopus between her legs, her body arched in ecstasy as it feasted on her. Looking at it had produced a strange, squirming sensation in the pit of her stomach, a throb deep in her core.
It was the same sensation James was making her feel now. She squeezed her thighs around his head and tilted her hips, wordlessly begging him to continue.
He seemed to understand her urgency. He swirled his tongue again, licking into her, languid swirls and stabbing flicks, and the stimulation was almost too much to bear.
When he tapped the little bead of nerves at the top of her sex it bordered both pleasure and pain, and she squirmed against him, desperate for completion.
“James!” she groaned, pleading.
His finger teased her still. Slow maddening circles that promised but never delivered. He was a terrible, wicked tease.
“Come for me, sweetheart,” he murmured.
He pressed his palm against her, adding just the right amount of friction, and the pleasure crested and broke in a glorious, throbbing release. Kitty clutched his shoulders as she convulsed, her head thrown back in ecstasy.
When she finally caught her breath she slumped, boneless, against the pillar and opened her eyes to find James drawing her skirts back down her legs. The satisfied smile on his face and the twinkle in his eye made him look piratical and endearing all at once.
Kitty smiled back at him, still a little dazed, then frowned when he stood and adjusted the prominent bulge in the front of his breeches.
“Oh! You haven’t—” She gestured between his legs. “Is there anything I can do?”
He shook his head with a rueful laugh. “Not now. We need to get back to the castle.”
“But it’s not fair,” she pouted.
“It’s all right. I’m used to being in this state. It’s been almost constant, with you close by.”
He held out his hand to help her up and Kitty took it. Her legs were still a little shaky, and her body felt flushed in the most delightful way.
James sent a fond, rueful glance at their shell-encrusted surroundings. “One day, my love, I’m going to bring you back here and make love to you so thoroughly you won’t be able to think about it without blushing.” He pressed a teasing kiss to the tip of her nose and Kitty laughed.
“I look forward to it, my lord.”
“But your first time should be somewhere more comfortable.”
She sent him an arch look. “I hope you’re not planning to wait until after we’re married to make love to me properly, James Cashell.
Because I’ll tell you right now, I don’t want to wait.
It’ll take weeks to arrange, even if you get a special license.
” She went up on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “We’ve already wasted so much time.”
James tugged her into his arms. “I don’t want to wait either. I want to make you mine, body and soul.”
“Then what about tonight?” Kitty suggested, her heart pounding wildly at her own daring.
“The tower bedroom at midnight?”
She pretended to consider. “Was there a bed? It was so dark the last time I was there I couldn’t even see who I was kissing, let alone see whether there was any furnit—”
She squeaked as James swatted her playfully on the bottom. “There was a bed, vixen. I’ll have a word with Lord Locryn and ask to move up there. I’ll say I can’t sleep where I am because Willingham’s snores echo down the hall.”
He caught her hand in his and gently guided her out into the sunlight, and together they started along the path that wound through the trees. Kitty inhaled a contented breath of warm, flower-perfumed air.
“It’s going to be agony, pretending to be just friends all afternoon, when all I want to do is kiss you,” she sighed.
James slanted her a wry smile. “Oh, I’m sure we’ll manage for a couple more hours. We’ve been practicing for years, after all.”
Above them, quite unnoticed, the honeysuckle burst into bloom, and a tinkle of joyous laughter echoed on the breeze.