As, arm in arm, they stepped down to the pavement and turned toward Park Lane and Alverton House, he asked, “Is Horry truly teething, and even if she is, is there any reason for you to go to her?”
“Yes, and no.” Therese studied his face. “She is teething, but she’s over the worst of it and, at this moment, is doubtless sound asleep.”
“Good.” His smile felt sharp with hunger. He lengthened his stride, and obligingly, Therese increased her pace as they rounded the corner, then turned in to the Alverton House drive.
Seconds later, Portland admitted them to the house.
Devlin handed over his hat and cane, then stepped behind Therese and lifted her heavy velvet cloak from her slender shoulders. She’d worn an evening gown of cornflower blue, and the wide neckline left her shoulders bare; the soft lamplight in the hall laid a pearlescent sheen over skin he knew felt like the finest silk.
His mouth watered. After handing the cloak to Portland, he let the footman take his overcoat, then walked quickly to catch up with Therese as she made for the stairs.
“Goodnight, my lord, my lady,” Portland called.
“Goodnight, Portland,” they chorused.
Devlin captured Therese’s hand as they started up the stairs. She threw him a faintly questioning look, but uncertain of what she might see in his eyes, he kept his gaze fixed forward.
Fed by anticipation, the impulses he’d thought well-leashed were rising.
They gained the landing and turned up the second flight—and his hold on his smoldering passions snapped.
Using the grip he had on Therese’s hand, he drew her to face him, stepped closer, and backed her against the panelled wall of the stairwell, then bent his head and crushed his lips to hers.
They were out of sight of Portland and the footmen locking up downstairs. Freed of restraint on that score, Therese responded instinctively to the scorching kiss, to the desire and hunger she sensed behind it, with her own almost-desperate need.
In an instant, with that one searing kiss, Devlin answered all her questions and swept away her newfound uncertainties. This was what now lived between them—this glorious, heady rush of passion, desire, need, and wanting, all focused on the other.
She kissed him back every bit as ardently, as heatedly, as he kissed her.
She gripped his nape and sank her fingertips into his shoulder and held him as tightly to the kiss as he, through his unbreakable grip on her hips, was holding her.
He ravaged her mouth, and she ravaged his back, equally hungry and greedy and needy.
On a gasp, he broke the kiss. They were both heated and close to breathless. Their gazes met and held. His eyes were dark pools of sinful temptation. She had no idea what he saw in hers.
He hauled in a breath, then stepped back, pulled her from the wall and, slinging a steely arm around her waist, urged her up the stairs. “Your room.” His voice was a gravelly rumble.
Grinning from ear to ear, she grabbed her skirts and rushed up the stairs.
He easily kept pace, steadying her when, in her haste, she almost stumbled.
They reached the gallery and rushed along it and into the corridor leading to their rooms. But it wasn’t easy to run in well-laced stays and still breathe.
When, gasping, she staggered sideways to lean against the corridor wall and catch her breath, he swooped on her and kissed her again, voracious, greedy, and with a soaring urgency that sank its claws into her and didn’t let go.
She clamped her hands to the sides of his face and held him as she kissed him back, as she poured all the passion surging through her—so much more than she’d ever felt before—into the kiss, into him.
He was hungry for it, for her, and the power of that hunger, that all-consuming need, seemed so much greater than before.
I want, I want. With every pulse of her heart, the words beat through her, and she wasn’t sure if they came from her or him.
Or both. Certainly, as their hands raced over their still-clothed bodies, there was no distinction between them in terms of desperation, urgency, and sheer driving need.
He pulled his lips from hers enough to insistently growl, “Your room.”
Yes. Desire gave her the strength to push away from the wall. He stepped back, supporting her as she swayed.
She met his eyes, then she grinned and made a mad dash for her door.
He was on her heels as she got the door open and all but fell into the room.
One quick glance confirmed that Parker was nowhere in sight and the lamp beside the bed had been left alight.
Then Devlin kicked the door shut behind him, spun her into his arms, and she forgot about everything else—ceased to be able to think of anything beyond him, beyond them, beyond slaking their ravenous need.
Lips locking, releasing, then hungrily fusing in a long succession of searing, open-mouthed kisses, they fell on each other, hands knowingly caressing, seeking, possessing, as driven by that unrelenting need, they divested each other of their clothes, peeling each garment away to reveal the prize beneath.
When, already nude, he spun her around to attack her laces, she tipped her head up and back, trying to drag air into lungs starved of that commodity. Kissing him always took priority over mere breathing.
Eyes open, she stared upward, but couldn’t focus on the ceiling. Her mind wasn’t engaged, yet words leapt to her tongue. “When you didn’t stay to share luncheon, I thought I’d read things—this”—with one hand, she waved over her shoulder, indicating what was between them—“wrongly.”
His attention locked on the desperately necessary task of loosening her laces, Devlin blinked. For a second, his fingers slowed, then he huffed. “I couldn’t trust myself to be in the same room.” He set his fingers frantically working once more, then glanced at her face, at what he could see of her expression. “I didn’t know how attached you were to that dress.”
Her features eased into a delighted smile, and she laughed, a tinkling sound of sheer happiness, and something in his chest heated and swelled.
Then she said, “Not that attached.” She paused, then twisted her head and glanced over her shoulder. “Next time…tell me.”
There was a wealth of sexual encouragement in her tone, which, at that precise moment, he really didn’t need to hear. He was rock hard and aching already.
He wrestled with the final knot at her waist. “I assure you I will, but equally, I fervently hope you won’t see the need to make another excursion to a place like Gentleman Jim’s.”
Finally, the last closure was free, and he peeled the light corset from her and cavalierly flung it aside as, clad only in a gossamer-silk chemise, she turned toward him.
The lamplight found her eyes, the silvery blue darkened by passion to a steely shade, as she boldly stepped into him. The silk screening her curves tauntingly caressed the heated planes of his body, then she pressed closer, and the tactile impression of her barely screened flesh sent a surge of heat to his groin as she draped her arms over his shoulders and, with those mesmerizing eyes locked with his, purred, “Well…if this is the result, I’m not sure I would go so far as to offer any firm undertakings.” Her lips curved provocatively as her lashes fell, and in seductive fashion, she whispered, “I certainly won’t promise.”
Lord, I’m well on the way to creating a monster.
He couldn’t find it in him to care.