“Shall we place a small wager on it?” she asked, and lifted her face. “Kiss me.”
As aroused as he was at the moment, Grif chuckled and shook his head. “I’ll no’ be commanded. Ask me nicely to kiss ye, and I may.”
With a throaty little laugh, Anna smiled seductively. “Kiss me?” she whispered, and lifted her face a fraction more, so that her lips skimmed his like a breath of air.
Grif’s good sense told him it was a mistake, but the rest of him reacted to the carnal enticement, and his hand was moving around the nape of her neck, pulling her closer.
She opened her mouth beneath him and he delved deeply into the sweetness of her mouth, his hands caressing her shoulders, her hair.
Anna kissed him just as hard, dropping her hands to his thigh, then feeling his chest, slipping her hands into the open collar of his shirt to feel his neck. And then, just as suddenly, she pushed him away. Her eyes were glittering and her chest heaving. “There, you see? I have the power to stop you,” she said in a husky voice.
Grif laughed low—he adored her curiosity and the many ways he could teach her the lesson she was begging to be taught. “There, ye see, then, do ye, that ye have a wee bit of the diabhal in ye,” he said, and reached down, caught her foot. Anna leaned forward, balancing herself on the arms of the chair, her face only inches from Grif’s.
“Is that your response? To hold my foot?”
“Ach, now ye’re being impudent. When ye beg for mercy, I willna be of a mind to give it,” he said, shifting forward so that they were, literally, nose to nose. “Now that I have followed yer blessed scent to the gates of heaven, ye think I canna go farther. But I am made delirious by yer scent, and the purity of yer skin, and the silkiness of yer hair, and now, lass, now that ye have so boldly challenged me, I think that I might have a wee taste of ye…”
Anna laughed wickedly. “Do you intend to gnaw on my ankle?”
“The ankle is merely the door,” he said, encircling her ankle with his fingers as she sucked in a breath. “A door to yer leg,” he added, his hand riding up her calf, slipping beneath her drawers.
She sucked in another breath, but kept her gaze steady on his face, the glimmer of amusement shining deep.
“And yer knee,” he added, pausing there to push up her drawers so that he might slip his hand beneath them and caress her knee.
A sound of unmistakable delight escaped her. “Is that all, sir? Master Stephen Throckmorton performed a similar maneuver on my knee when we were both twelve and hiding behind the dog kennels.”
“Did he?” Grif asked pleasantly. “And did he remark that yer thigh was as soft as a goose-down pillow?” he asked, his hand moving upward, to the fleshy part of her thigh.
Her breathing, he noticed, was coming faster. “Actually, no,” she murmured.
“And I suppose he was much too shy,” Grif said, withdrawing his hand from her drawers, “to have dared to touch ye here, eh?” he said in a low voice, as he slipped his hand between the slit of her drawers to feel the springy curls that covered her sex.
“Ooh,” she whispered, and slipped, falling back onto her elbows on the arm of the chair, her gaze still steady on him.
Grif did not falter; he watched her eyes closely as he played with the curls, then slipped his fingers deeper inside her drawers, between the wet folds. He grinned; she was warm and wet, and now her lower lip was trembling slightly as he casually, methodically stroked her, his fingers glancing against the tip of her lust, then sliding slow and long to the bottom and back and again.
After several moments of that, Anna gave in to the pleasure. With a moan, her eyes slid shut and her head dropped back. “What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly.
“I’m teaching ye a lesson,” he murmured, and with his free hand, abruptly caught her around the waist and yanked her upright, so that her breasts were at eye level. “I’m showing ye what could happen if ye are foolish enough to believe a man willna have his way with ye, with only a wee bit of encouragement,” he said, and buried his face between her breasts for a moment, inhaling deeply before letting her slip from his arm, back against the chair. “I’m showing ye how a man might find his pleasure in giving ye pleasure,” he said, and withdrew his hand from her thighs.
Sprawled against the chair back, Anna silently watched him, her hooded eyes following his every move as he casually moved first one leg, then the other, so that he could kneel between them.