“I said, ‘Thank God,’” she repeated, only louder.
That infuriated Grif. He’d done what she wanted, and now she’d pretend it was distasteful to her?
Criosd, he’d never, not once, suffered a more aggravating woman. And instead of turning and walking away as he ought to have done, instead of leaving her to stand alone in the middle of the dance floor as she so richly deserved, he suddenly grabbed her hand again, and forcibly put it on his arm.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, stealing one last look at Lockhart over her shoulder.
“Ye want to incite a man’s jealousy?” he asked, not really desiring an answer, and marched toward the doors that opened onto the veranda. “Then ye must give him something over which to be jealous!”
“My lord!” she haughtily exclaimed as if he was loathsome, and tried to jerk her hand free.
“Uist!” he spat in Gaelic, surprising her into silence.
For a moment.
“What do you mean to do?” she exclaimed hotly as they marched through the doors onto the veranda, out into the cool night air where the only light was that spilling out from the windows. Grif glanced over his shoulder at the many backs facing the dance floor in anticipation of a quadrille, and shoved Miss Addison up against the railing. He stepped in front of her, put a hand on her shoulder.
The wench opened her mouth to complain, but Grif was too fast for her—with his other hand, he grasped her jaw and abruptly planted his lips on hers.
She tried to gasp for breath, and he opened his mouth, let her breathe him, intending to startle her senseless before letting go and giving her something to stew about.
But somehow his body got ahead of his mind, and he realized that her lips were soft and lush beneath his, her breath sweet. Before Grif knew what was happening, his tongue had slipped into her mouth, earning him a scintillating little gasp. His hand, of its own accord, apparently, was suddenly at her waist, anchoring her to him, the other cupping her face, tilting her head just slightly so that he might kiss her deeper.
In the cover of darkness, on a public veranda, her body was pressed against his, her breasts against his chest.
And then Miss Addison made a sound, something like a moan of pure pleasure, and slipped her tongue into his mouth. The moan and her darting tongue brought him instantly and harshly to his senses, and he recognized he’d just suffered an astounding slip of control. It rattled him; Grif suddenly reared back, breaking the kiss, and gaped down at the woman.
Her eyes were closed; black lashes formed dark, velvet crescents against cheeks stained the color of fire, the same intense heat that was coursing through him. Her lips, full and wet, were still pursed, but tilted up at the corners in a devilish smile.
Grif dropped his hands from her as if he had been burned. Miss Addison slowly, dreamily opened her eyes. His gaze slipped to her mouth again.
She smiled.
He growled. “Now ye have something with which to make him jealous,” he said, and abruptly walked away from her.
Eight
I t was several minutes before Anna could catch her breath, several minutes more before she could stop shaking.
Just beyond the door, dancers whirled by, and Anna slowly lifted her hand, touched her lips where Ardencaple’s powerful kiss still lingered. Her head felt as if it were covered with a shroud; she couldn’t think, couldn’t seem to do anything but clumsily feel his kiss on her lips.
After a moment or two, she realized how ridiculous she must appear, standing on the veranda alone, in the dark, and even though it felt as if that kiss were branded across her face, she woodenly moved inside, cautiously glancing about as she entered, wondering if anyone had seen such an untoward, unladylike, indecorous, absolutely brilliant kiss.
Dear God, had she dreamed it? Had it really happened? Just like that, so suddenly, so unexpectedly, as it had almost a year ago with another Scot? That kiss had been tantalizing, certainly—but this one, Mother of God, this one felt entirely different. This one had been blistering.
In truth, it had almost brought her to her knees, had begun a flood of coarse feelings and desires in the pit of her belly, flashing out to all her limbs, warming her to the point that she desired to rip her gown open so that she might feel cool air on her flaming skin. That naked desire was still racing through her, making her blind to the people around her, deaf to the music.
She paused in her aimless promenade around the ballroom to desperately fan herself, staring absently at the line of dancers moving through the quadrille. Did every woman feel such brilliance when they had been so thoroughly kissed?
She was so caught up in the wake of that kiss that she didn’t see Drake until he was upon her. “Miss Addison?”