Chapter 12 #3
Their arms came up to the same chandelier, which bathed her skin in a glistening glow.
“You should thank me, you know,” he said when the set brought them face to face. “I’ve saved you again from a bounder who would think nothing of ruining y—”
Andromena laughed.
Finally—her full-bodied, blithesome amusement.
Albeit, at him.
God, she was a scourge upon a man’s pride.
“Yes, how will I ever repay you for saving me from the charming, dashing, not at all uncouth Lord Kilmartin?”
A black curtain of rage fell behind his vision, briefly blinding him. After it cleared, her droll smile remained, mocking him.
“If you knew the sins and crimes Kilmartin is guilty of—”
“Never tell me he’s done something unforgivable, such as plotting to take an innocent lady and ruin her name and thus, any hope of a proper, respectable match with an honorable gentleman.”
His jaw worked.
She wasn’t near done. “As I see it, Edgar, you should be the one thanking me.”
This he had to hear.
“Your rescue on New Bond Street—”
“Ah, you’re calling it a rescue now. That is quite a concession from before.”
“Has made you the number one sought-after bachelor.”
Yes, it had. She had.
“Well?”
Only when she gave him that peevish nudge did it register, she was deadly serious.
“For loosing other flea-brained ladies on me,” Kerr laughed; a real, god’s honest, explosion of amusement. “I think bloody not?”
“Just do not go cursing so in front of them, or you will find yourself gentleman non grata.”
“I’ll be bloody well sure to use it even more bloody often.”
Andromena laughed…as did Kerr. Kerr hadn’t laughed in so goddamned long. Not a sincere laugh. Before now, his mirth was the usual chuckle that came with crude jokes and friend banter.
Which was clearly why time stood still, and he and Andromena found themselves suspended in this singular moment where they were not adversaries but shared in joined amusement.
Their chests shook. Their laughter—his graveled and ruined from one sea-fight gone wrong, and hers clear and clean like ocean air—rolled together.
Quiet saturated the air and space between them. Their mirth also died as one.
Kerr and Andromena remained, gazes on one another.
Andromena’s eyes lifted in an unblinking, owl-sized stare.
At some point, the music had drawn to a close.
Andromena closed her eyes slowly. When she opened them, he knew she’d returned from whatever place of madness they’d both briefly landed.
Her countenance grew stricken. “Damn you, Edgar. Just…damn you.”
Then, snatching her hands free of his, she wheeled off and fled the dance floor, leaving him wondering what the hell he’d done to account for her tears this time.
By the time he shouldered his way through people attempting to get his attention and neared in on Andromena, healthy anger crowded out reason.
Kerr shoved both terrace doors open and stormed outside. “For the love of God, woman! You will stop running away from me.”
And in the first miracle of humanity, the obstinate chit did as he demanded.
Spinning in a whirl of sparkling, foamy pink chiffon, she faced him.
The words he intended to speak vanished.
Her flushed cheeks brought to mind the last time he held her.
Andromena lifted her skirts, revealing the shapeliest pair of calves he’d ever seen.
Kerr’s throat went bone dry; every breath became a struggle.
She moved, like some pagan dancer, up and down, fluidly graceful even on one slippered foot.
His cock responded to her bizarre dance as it responded to everything the siren did, each bounce sending her plunging neckline lower.
The moon did him the additional favor of bathing the generous expanse of her breasts in a soft gl—
A slipper struck his chest and dropped.
Kerr recoiled and looked where she struck him.
He had taken sabers to the shoulder with less alarm.
Jaw slack, he raised his eyes just in time to duck the incoming heel.
The bloodthirsty hellion tossed her gloves next.
They both froze.
He narrowed his eyes and caught the exact moment she saw the danger.
“Anything else?” he purred.
Kerr and Andromena moved at the same time.
She bolted into Aragon’s grotto.
Kerr followed at his leisure into the low, rough-built cavern of flint and tufa, its walls encrusted with pale shells, glittering minerals, and fragments of colored glass. Moonlight caught the curves of conches and cowries, turning the shadows beneath them black.
Pressed against a life-size conch shell made of small ones, Andromena stood in her glittering gown—Botticelli’s Venus come to life.
He had her where he wanted her.
Kerr pulled an uneven breath through his nose.
Wrong. He wanted her under him. He wanted to bury himself so deep and hard inside of her, they couldn’t sort out where each started and ended.
The harsh rasp of their breathing echoed off the cavern walls.
Kerr fought for restraint. To give the illusion of control, as he walked, he freed the buttons on his white kidskin gloves, one at a time, and peeled the tight material off finger by finger.
He stopped a pace away and beat his gloves together.
Andromena eyed him warily.
He let them fall.