Delighted, laughing, she towed him to the door.
Very much like the illicit lovers they weren’t, by mutual accord, they skirted the ballroom and found their way by minor corridors and secondary stairs to the front hall. Fighting to maintain their customary façade of haut ton dignity, they donned their evening cloaks, and Devlin collected his hat. Their carriage was summoned, and they waited with barely concealed impatience, with desire threading through them and tightening their nerves, and the instant their carriage rolled up before the Cassington House steps, Devlin escorted her across the porch, down the steps, and into the carriage.
He followed on her heels.
She waited only until he sat beside her and the carriage door clicked shut, then flung herself at him.
He caught her, and she kissed him, and he palmed her head and held her steady as he ravaged her lips.
The kiss turned incendiary, setting spark to their already smoldering desires. Within seconds, greedy flames licked over their skins. They seized each other, wanting, claiming, and possessing. Need glowed, then caught alight and flared.
Through the fine silk of her bodice, his clever fingers clasped her breast, then found the tight bud of her nipple and flicked, and she gasped. She closed her fists in his lapels and hauled him to her, into a ravenous kiss, only to tip back and back, until with a smothered shriek, she overbalanced and landed on her back on the padded seat with him looming over her.
He chuckled, the sound dark and laden with desire, then he dipped his head and set his lips to her collarbone and, with his tongue, traced the delicate curve, and she held him to her and shuddered and closed her eyes.
Only to feel her hunger surge as her sensitivity to touch dramatically heightened.
She felt every evocative caress he pressed on her swollen, already aching breasts. Her nerve endings sparked as if lightning danced over them. Then with one hand, he followed the long line of her bent leg, then rucked up the silk of her skirts and petticoats and, setting his hard, hot palm to her silk stockings, traced upward…until, above her garter, he met the hem of her silk drawers and, beneath that, bare skin.
She shivered; she felt his intention to further explore as if it were her own, and anticipation leapt, but then the carriage rocked and swayed, turning a corner, and he froze.
Cassington House stood at the southern end of South Audley Street. While they were so hotly engaged, the carriage had rolled sedately north, presumably passing the darkened expanse of Grosvenor Square… It had just swung left into Upper Grosvenor Street.
They had only minutes before the carriage drew up outside the door of Alverton House and the footman opened the door.
Devlin swore, his voice a gravelly rumble. Therese knew how he felt. He withdrew his warm hand from beneath her skirts, sat back, and hauled her upright.
“Quickly,” he murmured, glancing out of the window at the houses sliding past while he rapidly straightened his cravat, coat, and cloak.
Smoothing down her skirts, she softly laughed, then grasped the upper edge of her bodice and wriggled it to resettle her breasts. “I’d forgotten how…limited moments like this tend to be.”
There’d been a few such incidents when they were courting, but back then, she hadn’t known what the ultimate destination on their sensual road actually was. Now she knew, and greedy need fizzed in her veins. If the journey had been longer…she really didn’t think she would have had to argue to get Devlin to appease their mutual need. Thinking of what that would have entailed, as the carriage turned in to Park Lane, from beneath lowered lashes, she slanted a glance at him.
He must have felt her gaze; he turned from the window, scanned her face, then mock growled, “Damn it—stop that. I’m having a difficult enough time reining in my lust without you doing your best to ignite it. We have to get past Portland first—at his age, we can’t afford to shock him into a heart attack.”
She laughed, even while, at the mention of his lust, something inside her purred.
“Don’t forget,” he muttered as the carriage turned in to the Alverton House drive, “Portland’s known me since I was a boy.”
She leaned close to whisper in his ear, “Exactly. Which is why I can’t imagine he would be shocked at all.”
He looked at her, then huffed.
The carriage halted, and before it had even settled on its springs, Morton had dropped down and swung open the door.
Devlin rose and descended to the gravel, then reached back and gave her his hand. She gripped his fingers and climbed down, then released her skirts and straightened, and with her head held at her usual confident, faintly haughty angle, she took the arm Devlin offered and walked beside him up the steps.
Portland had the door open before they reached the porch. They swept inside, followed by Morton; as the door closed, Therese heard the rattle as the carriage drove off to the mews.
Portland approached to relieve her of her cloak. “I trust the evening went well, my lady?”
“It did, Portland. Exceedingly well.” It took effort to keep her soaring delight over the evening’s outcome from her face and voice. As for her expectation of what was yet to come, the bubbling anticipation streaking through her veins was increasingly difficult to contain.
Portland lifted the heavy velvet cloak from her shoulders, and from the corner of her eye, in the hall mirror, she saw the butler’s gaze rise to her hair and, for a moment, halt.
Only then did she remember the feathered headdress—such adornments being currently all the rage—anchored above the knot of her chignon. It was now in a sorry state; presumably, her and Devlin’s wrestling in the carriage had crushed it. As no plausible excuse sprang to her tongue, she blithely pretended nothing was amiss and, with her customary assurance and a restrained “Goodnight,” made for the stairs.
Having been relieved of his cloak by Morton, Devlin, too, bade the staff an urbane goodnight and followed at her heels.
Therese climbed the stairs as quickly as she dared; she could sense Devlin at her back, a sensual predator with whom she couldn’t wait to tangle.
The instant her foot touched the gallery floor, she broke and, grabbing up her skirts, valiantly struggling to smother her laughter, raced down the corridor toward her room.
He caught her before she reached her door, spun her around, backed her against the panelled wall, and kissed her to within an inch of her life.
She gave as good as she got, and he seized her and held her, and she wrapped her arms about his neck and clung—to the kiss and to him.
After several seconds of a rapacious exchange, without breaking the kiss, he swung her up into his arms, juggled her, then walked the few paces to her door. He managed to open it and strode through, then kicked the door shut behind them.
Warm lamplight, soft and golden, engulfed them.
Devlin halted in the middle of the room and, on a gasp that came as much from him as from her, broke the voraciously greedy kiss. He raised his head and released Therese’s legs, letting them swing down.
Once her feet touched the floor and she stood of her own accord, he raised both hands, speared them through her hair, then cupping her face, drew her up to her toes, drew her lips back to his, and—letting fall each and every rein that, with her, he’d always endeavored to retain—devoured.
Tonight, his hunger had scaled new heights. He angled his head and, with her open and avid encouragement, steered the kiss into still deeper, even more turbulent waters. Waters that churned with a deeper longing, a more profound yearning than anything in his previous experience had prepared him for.