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Nell still shook with reaction from her first kiss. The experience had left her confused and strangely frustrated. She wasn’t sure she’d enjoyed it, although it had been … interesting.
She hadn’t expected the heat and intimacy and sheer physicality of placing her lips on a man’s. His mouth had been firm and he hadn’t responded. Not that she was sure what she wanted him to do.
For a long moment, Leath watched her with an unreadable expression. His hands dug into her shoulders and she feared that he was about to shove her out the door. She was bizarrely reluctant to go. She braced for a summary ejection from his room, then tomorrow a summary ejection from Alloway Chase.
His hold softened in a way she couldn’t describe. She stared up at him, transfixed, afraid. No wonder poor silly Dorothy had fallen under his spell. He was the most compelling man she’d ever known.
Her skin tightened with anticipation. Slowly his lips skimmed across hers in a caress as different from her allout assault as satin from iron.
The kiss lasted no more than a second, yet flooded her with such longing that her knees buckled. She leaned back against the door.
He still looked uncompromising. His features were all hard planes: strong bones, jutting nose, adamantine jaw.
Yet his lips … His lips had been softer than a feather.
She snatched a jagged breath and struggled to speak, but before she could, he gave her another of those sweet kisses. Did he linger a little this time? Taste her as delicately as he’d sample a fine claret?
Her breath caught as he raised his head and regarded her with familiar concentration. To steady herself, she hooked her hands around his neck. “That was …”
Lovely? Wrong? Frightening? Beguiling?
Heaven help her. Heaven condemn her. She’d started this. Now she’d opened the gates to destruction on a level she’d never contemplated.
One thumb trailed down the line of her jaw, leaving a tingling wake. His lips quirked in a faint smile that set her heart cartwheeling. The huskiness in his voice stroked across her nerves like silk. The clean, male scent of his skin surrounded her, too familiar in a man who should be a stranger. “You’re not usually lost for words, Miss Trim.”
She’d never been kissed before. She’d always imagined that whoever the lucky fellow was, he’d use her Christian name. Still, something about the way his lordship said “Miss Trim” made her shiver with excitement. And God forgive her, lately when she’d imagined kisses, the man kissing her had been Lord Leath.
Nell felt as if she toppled over a cliff. She should flee, forsake her quest for vengeance, forget that however unacceptable the attraction, she found this man so appealing. She should scuttle back to Mearsall and her dear, kind stepfather, and her dull existence, and be grateful that dullness promised safety.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said shakily.
“You kissed me first.”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
She wasn’t surprised when he laughed. Even she thought that she sounded absurd.
“You seem new to the activity. I merely offered an alternative technique.”
She thought she’d blushed before, but this critique set her cheeks on fire. “I don’t go around kissing random men, my lord. I refuse to apologize for my inexperience.”
“I’m glad.” He caught her loosely by the waist. She was overwhelmingly conscious of those large hands holding her.
“For my inexperience?”
“That you made an exception to your rule.”
“I suppose you’re used to women throwing themselves at you,” she mumbled, knowing she made a fool of herself. A man like Leath probably couldn’t step outside without tripping over eager young ladies wanting to kiss him. Wanting more.
The idea of him doing more to her sent Nell’s heart hurtling into her ribs.
He smiled. How she wished that he’d stop. That gentle curve of his beautifully cut lips set her pulses rocketing. “If only life was so exciting for a politically minded marquess.”
She wasn’t deceived. Even disregarding Dorothy’s story, she couldn’t see women ignoring his manifold attractions. He’d been angry when he’d discovered her in his room. She sensed no anger now. Just perpetual waiting.
She backed away and bumped hard into the door. “I must go.”
His hands tightened. “You freely entered the lion’s den, Miss Trim.”
“Stop calling me Miss Trim,” she said crossly, bracing her hands against his powerful chest. She told herself to push him away, but her disobedient fingers curved into hard muscle. He was so wonderfully warm. Beneath her right palm, his heart beat like a conqueror’s drum.
The kiss had been intimate. Feeling the life pounding through him felt more so. What a mistake she’d made coming here. Even if she left immediately, she and the marquess would never be strangers again.
“Would you rather I called you Eleanor?” he asked silkily.
Her eyes widened. “Only my father called me Eleanor. Everyone calls me Nell.”
“I rather like the idea of kissing Eleanor.”
“I rather like the idea of going back to my room.” She squeaked in horror. That sounded like a proposition. “Alone.”
“So no curiosity?”
She saw by his expression that the shake of her head lacked conviction. “I’m sorry I invaded your apartments.”
“I’m not.”
Shocked, she stared at him. “You’re not?”
“I have a lovely woman in my arms and no particular plans for the rest of the evening.”
Her stomach lurched in dismay. Dear Lord, at last she saw the seducer. And as he’d so rightly said, she’d put herself squarely in his sights. She shoved his chest. It was like trying to move a monolith. “No.”
“No?”
“Droit de seigneur went out of fashion with the farthingale.”
“So you don’t want to share my bed?”
“No.” Although her blood beat hard and hot at the thought of having that big beautiful body as her plaything for the night.
“Yet here you are.” The edge in his tone made her shiver.
“I … told you why.”
“Yes, you’re suffering a bad case of unrequited love.”
She pushed at his chest again. “Not love. Just infatuation.”
“Prove it.”
Her wriggling stopped and she regarded him aghast. “I’m not a doxy.” Bitterness seeped into her voice. “I don’t even know how to kiss, as you so ungallantly pointed out.”
His laugh this time held the characteristic grim note. Briefly when he’d kissed her, he’d looked like a gentler, younger, kinder man. Now the purpose in his expression made her quake with nerves. And unwilling excitement. She’d never stood so long in a man’s embrace. Next to Leath, she felt small and feminine. Powerless too, which should terrify her. After all, he threatened ruin, and there was nobody to save her.
“You’ll keep your chastity, although God knows you tempt fate.”
“I thought you were in the library,” she said stubbornly.
“No excuse.”
“So let me go.”
His smile wasn’t reassuring. “Not until you’ve learned how to kiss a man.”
She braced against him. “I think I’m better off not knowing.”
“I’m appalled that a woman so lovely is untouched.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Compliments won’t make me stay.”
“Perhaps not. But this might.”
He captured her lips in a quick, commanding kiss. Odd how much he could convey without words.
“You … you flatter yourself, my lord.”
“Do I? You’re still here.”
She gulped in air. She kept forgetting to breathe. Then when she did, Leath’s musky essence intoxicated her, making coherent thought impossible.
Another inhalation. Only to realize that he no longer held her. His beautiful hands hung loose and open at his sides, although his rough breathing indicated disquiet.
She raised her hands from his chest, loathing how his warmth lingered on her palms, and reached behind her for the doorknob. “You’ll stop me if I try to leave.”
Nell had a horrible feeling that she sounded like she wanted him to keep her here.
“Try it and see.”
Despite all the evil she knew of him, she had the strongest feeling that she could trust him with her life. Was she right? Or was she another stupid girl caught in a rake’s net?
“Just a kiss?” she whispered, hardly believing that she wasn’t already halfway back to her room. She wondered if he had any idea what potent effect his raw masculinity had on her frail willpower. “Can I trust you?”
The edge returned to his voice, although he didn’t move. “You’re the one who broke into my bedroom.”
Completely unjustified guilt surged. He was a bad man and she’d been doing the work of the righteous. But she couldn’t deny that she’d felt shabby breaching his inner sanctum. “One kiss and then I’ll go.”
“As you wish.”
“You agree?” she asked in shock.
“It’s time to move from negotiation to action, my dear Eleanor.” To prove he meant it, he drew her into his arms.
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