The kiss was tender but firm and more intimate than she could possibly have imagined. Her knees went weak, especially when he lingered there to draw in a long breath as if to inhale her fragrance.
Still holding her wrist, he lifted his head to stare at her with eyes more fathomless than they’d seemed scant seconds ago. She couldn’t look away.
So, to break the spell, she asked, “Why kiss me there?”
A faint smile touched his lips. “Call it one of those whims you seem to think I have.” He straightened, then tugged her closer. “And here’s another.”
Then he kissed her lips.
Oh yes. Until he’d done it, she hadn’t realized it was what she’d been waiting for. Edwin to kiss her mouth. So she could see, could know, if he truly was as different from her interpretation of him as he claimed.
In this, at least, he was. He didn’t demand; he offered. His mouth toyed with hers, as slowly and intently as his fingers unbuttoning her sleeve. It made her insane. She was used to men pushing, forcing, taking. She wasn’t used to patience or silken temptation, breaths mingling and lips caressing in equal measure.
And when he slid his tongue inside her mouth, it didn’t so much startle as intrigue her. She’d been kissed like that before, but not so eloquently. It made her restless for more.
Hardly even aware she did it, she wrapped her arms about his neck. Then everything got more interesting. The kiss got more interesting. He sucked on her tongue and she slipped it into his mouth, something she’d never done. Their tongues engaged in a “merry war” that made her dizzy with the sweet ache of it.
His kiss grew bolder, but she didn’t mind. She wanted it bolder still. She slid her hand inside his coat, shocked to find his heart beating as rapidly as hers. The kiss went on and on, battering her defenses, tempting her to let go . . . until he pulled her flush up against him.
She froze. She could feel the thickness inside his trousers, and she knew what it meant. Pain, humiliation. Danger.
Jerking away, she whispered, “No. Enough.” She waited fearfully for his protest, waited for him to fight her, to try to subdue her.
Instead, he ran his fingers through his hair and said raggedly, “Enough. Right.”
She fought to get her breathing under control. “Edwin, I’m sorry I—”
“You have nothing to be sorry about.” He was already slipping into his formal manner. “I overstepped my bounds. You’re always well within your rights to remind me where they are.”
No man had ever said that to her. It sounded too good to be true. But then, she and Edwin had done little more than kiss. Perhaps if matters had progressed further . . .
She tamped down a stab of fear. This was Edwin, after all. “Thank you. I can always count on you to be a gentleman.”
He eyed her steadily, as if sensing that her words were as much a plea as anything. “And I can always count on you to be a lady.”
He spoke the words with perfect sincerity, yet her throat felt suddenly tight and raw. How little he knew.
“Tomorrow, then,” he said. “I shall fetch you and your mother at nine to take you to services.”
All she could manage was a nod.
He looked as if he were about to remark on her uncharacteristic silence, then sighed. “I’ll show myself out.”
The moment he cleared the door, she collapsed into the nearest chair. Heavens. Edwin could kiss. He could feel.
He could be aroused. By her. By kissing her.
She didn’t know what to think about that.
But one thing was certain. The next time she thought about offering him a reward, she would put the idea right out of her head.
Before it got her into trouble.
Seven
Still shaken by his reaction to the kiss with Clarissa, Edwin paused at the door of Warren’s town house to speak to the head footman. “Have you seen Count Durand hereabouts?”
“No, milord. I’ve been watching the street as you requested, but haven’t seen the Frenchman.”
Relieved that the arse wasn’t hanging about the house at least, Edwin rode from Mayfair to Pall Mall as if the hounds of hell were at his back. His “reward” had gone better than he expected. If he didn’t watch it, he might yet find himself leg-shackled to Clarissa. And that would be disastrous.
He felt again the rapid beat of her blood against his lips as he kissed her inner arm. He saw again her expression as he straightened—a heightened look of awareness and arousal that had prompted him to kiss her lovely mouth. To plunder and taste and wish he could continue drinking from her lips for days.
A curse erupted from him. Drinking from her lips, indeed. He didn’t want to do any such ridiculous thing. What he wanted was to have her in his bed. Which couldn’t happen unless they married.
Remembering her reaction to him at the end, he gritted his teeth. When a woman recoiled from a man’s embrace with alarm in her eyes, it didn’t bode well for her wanting to marry the fellow.