A Good Debutante's Guide to Ruin_The Debutante Files

He smelled good, like soap and male. He was so handsome that it hurt to even look at him. A first kiss should be this. Or rather the moment leading up to the first kiss should be like this. The pull. The heightened awareness. A man whose mere closeness, his face, his eyes, his lips, made her ache.

She would have this. The moment before the kiss.

No. More. She would have the kiss.

Standing on her tiptoes, she circled her hand around his neck and pressed her lips to his. They felt warm, firm but soft. Softer than she had expected from such a hard man. A small breath escaped him, and her stomach fluttered at the gust of warm air in her mouth.

She pulled back, hand loosening on his neck.

He stared down at her, his eyes dark and fierce. “I thought you changed your mind.”

“I changed it back.”

“Why?”

“I decided I wanted my first kiss after all.” She dropped her hand from his neck and started to pull away, satisfied that she had come here to do what she set out to do.

His arm came around her waist, hauling her back, pressing her intimately to his chest, holding her up so that her feet came off the ground. She felt her eyes go wide.

“Then let’s make it count.” His head dipped, and when his mouth came over hers, there was nothing hesitant about it. No, his lips were commanding and thorough, both soft and hard, slanting over hers. It was nothing like that first press of her lips to his. “Open your mouth,” he rasped against her lips.

She obeyed, and gasped at the thrust of his tongue, gliding across hers. He tasted of heat and scotch and male.

He backed her into the wall and she clung to him, relishing the sensation of his strong body sinking against hers. She wrapped both her arms around his shoulders, her fingers delving into his hair.

His kiss deepened, grew harder, his tongue bolder, lapping at hers. She kissed him back, moving her tongue, mimicking his movements and tasting him as he tasted her. She marveled that a kiss could be so consuming. How it could set all of her ablaze.

“Wrap your legs around me,” he instructed. The command made her shake. She hesitated, unsure how to go about that, but before she could speak or move, he grasped one thigh and guided it around his waist. When he reached for her other thigh, she understood and hopped up to meet him.

The thin fabric of her gown fell like a waterfall around her legs, offering no real barrier. She felt him between her legs, his lean hips wedged between her thighs. And that part of him. The bulge of his manhood rubbed at the core of her, where all sensation seemed to begin and end.

She moaned as he thrust himself against her. Her belly clenched.

How did one begin a kiss and not want more? Not do more? Or was it simply that this kiss was better than most?

Yes. That was it. It had to be. It had to be because it was him. Dec.

She grabbed his face with both hands, reveling in the bristly stubble of his cheeks against her palms. She slanted her mouth and licked her way inside his mouth, her thighs tightening around him, instinctively angling so that she felt him even better, harder, right over the throbbing core of her.

“That’s it,” he growled. “Take what you want.”

His guttural voice was like a dose of cold water.

She’d had what she wanted. She’d had her kiss. A kiss with Dec, no less. This needed to stop. Before it became impossible to stop. She knew that point couldn’t be far from now. She ached and quivered so badly. She was certainly already close to that point.

She tore her mouth away, panting, both heartened and alarmed to see that he was panting, too. He wanted her. He ached and quivered for her, too.

They stared at each other in the murky corridor. His features were cast in gloom, but it didn’t matter. She had them memorized, and she could see what was lost to shadow. Every line. Every hollow. She could see him so clearly, so perfectly. And now she had the taste of him to forever go with his image.

She brought her gloved fingers to her lips, brushing the tender flesh. “Oh. My.”

“For first kisses, I’d say you have received a thorough education.”

She nodded once, speech impossible.

“Did it meet your expectations? Your hopes?”

“I . . . yes.” Beyond that.

He brushed her cheek with his hand and his head inched closer again, coming back for more. Her gaze fixed on his mouth, hungry, wanting him, and she realized she might not have the power to resist, to stop this from happening.

“Ah, there you are.”

They jerked apart. Rosalie snapped her attention to the figure approaching them up the stairs. Mrs. Bancroft held her skirts as she ascended. “I was just returning to check on you, my dear.” Her gaze, shadowed and unreadable within the bright plumage of her domino, fixed on each of them in slow turn.

Rosalie moved down one step to meet her. Dec stopped her, stalling her with one hand on her shoulder.

She looked from him to Mrs. Bancroft uncertainly.

The proprietress nodded as though understanding that they needed a moment. “I shall await you at the base of the stairs.”

The desire to call out to her and ask Mrs. Bancroft to return and accompany her warred within Rosalie’s chest. It was cowardly perhaps, but what was left for them now? More kisses? That would only lead to ruin. It was one thing to toe the line, another to dive headlong over the side.

And there was the fact that every moment in his company put her at risk.

But Rosalie said nothing. She let the proprietor of Sodom drift away, leaving her alone with the man whose kiss still burned on her lips . . . on her very soul.

“I must go,” she whispered in her carefully modulated voice.

“You won’t return.” It was not a question but a statement—which he only confirmed by adding, “This place is not for you.”

But you are. You are for me.

The wretched thought snuck into her heart, unbidden.

She nodded in agreement, panicked at the foolish direction of her thoughts. “I won’t be back.”

Slowly, he lifted his hand from her shoulder. Everything about him seemed resigned, and perhaps that was regret in his eyes.

Satisfaction curled through her. It was a dangerous thing . . . this feeling that he had enjoyed their kiss, that he regretted its end. That he enjoyed her. That she was somehow different than the multitude of women to pass in and out of his life. In and out of his bed. Dangerous indeed.

She was an indiscretion. She was his stepsister. Two factors that meant this would never happen again.

“Your name, then. At least leave me with that.”

“No names,” she murmured, trying not to choke on the idea of giving him her true name.

“But you know mine. Banbury. If you . . .” He paused and sliced fingers through his dark, unruly hair. As though he did not know quite what he was doing or saying. “If you ever have need of me, or wish to see me again, you may contact me. Directly . . . or send word through Mrs. Bancroft.”

She blinked. Was he truly inviting her to see him again? That feeling that she was somehow different, special, reasserted itself. It lightened her heart and made her wish. Made her wish she was someone else so that she could be with him.

“Thank you, but that’s not necessary.” She inclined her head. “I received what I came for. Thank you for obliging me.”

She turned without lingering for his reply. Mrs. Bancroft waited for her at the bottom of the stairs.

“Well. I trust you are satisfied?” she asked as she looped arms with Rosalie.

“Quite so. Thank you. Have you seen my friend?”

“I believe she’s engaged in a game of whist. Let’s fetch her before she gets in over her head.”