“What about the other”—she eyed his lap—“issue?”
He glanced down, frowned, not even trying to act like he didn’t understand her question. “Still apparent. I shall remain seated.”
In for a penny… “You said I could be different here. Free. What’s the harm?”
His head jerked up, color rushing across his cheeks. Unbelievably, for such a skilled libertine, he wasn’t good at hiding his emotions. “No. Oh, no. No way. This kiss was it. Finito. A fleeting lapse. A moment’s insanity. Masculine idiocy.” He half came out of his chair. “We’re doubling down on the friendship bet. You’d be mad to consider anything else. I’m not for you, for any proper lady, in any way but one. A road you and I are not traveling. You know this. You know my story. The rookery, the orphanage. Isn’t that ignominy enough of a detriment?”
She rose, walked to the desk, leaning over it until her face was inches from his. He didn’t move a muscle, but he drew a staggered breath as his arms tensed. Interesting. Finn Alexander was only comfortable when he was in control. “Has anyone ever said no to you, Blue?”
His eyebrow rose, just the one, an excellent recovery. “It’s rare.”
Lowering her lashes, she smiled, then laughed at the fascinating mix that crossed his face. Curiosity, suspicion. “Most of us mere mortals hear it all the time, so we quickly find ways around it. Lots of ways.”
A choking sound ripped from his throat. “Good God, is that a dare? Hell’s teeth, are you one presumptuous piece of baggage.”
She moistened her lips, pleased to see his gaze sharpen, his hands clench where they rested atop the desk. “I’d say it’s more a statement of fact.”
“You can take your statement of fact and jam it—”
This kiss caught him off guard, threw him off balance, which is where she wanted him to be. She missed his mouth trying to reach him, but the spontaneous reaction from earlier raced back in even with her lips pressed to his cheek, tangling them in need and blinding desire. She shifted and popped up on her toes. If he would just move a little to the—
He broke away and circled the desk in three strides, caught her shoulders and walked her back, almost lifting her from her slippers. “You love puzzles, Tori. And as I’m coming to find, so do I.” Then he slanted his head and captured her lips, crowding her into the wall and pressing his long, lean body against hers until she couldn’t tell where hers ended and his began.
The kiss was punishing, filled with two parts retribution and one part rage, finally fully exposing the man beneath the cavalier façade. Overlord of a gaming hell, mind reader, gifted interpreter. Intelligent, furious, passionate, perplexed. Going against his anger, his hand rose to cradle her jaw, a tender, trembling touch that softened the assault. Softened her heart until her weakened knees failed, and she had to grasp his forearms for balance, only his broad chest and the wall holding her up.
“Incorrigible,” he murmured against her lips. “Mischief-maker.”
“Very,” she agreed, looping a gloved hand around his neck and pulling him closer, her body unfurling like rose petals dipped in dew as his tongue swept in and engaged. His arm coiled around her waist and tugged her in tight, up high on her toes until they fit, lock and key, against each other. His body was more muscular than it looked beneath his beautiful clothing she found as she began to explore. He ended the kiss, and she thought to argue when his mouth trailed her jaw, nipping, soothing each point he touched, to the shell of her ear and back. Goosebumps dimpled her skin like raindrops striking a pond.
I’m yours, she thought as the door to the library burst open, and a startled exclamation shattered the silence.
Edging back, she glanced over Finn’s shoulder to find Lord and Lady Beauchamp standing in the doorway, echoing expressions of astonishment on their faces.
Finn banged his head against the wall and sighed. “Julian. Piper.”
She nodded, letting her arms slide free and giving him a shove that sent him stumbling, all his delicious magnetism moving away with him.
His eyes when they found hers were a dogged blue-black, darker than she’d ever seen them. The look in them alarmed and aroused. “You owe me for this one, Tori darling, and you should know I always seek payment.”
Chapter 9
The first taste of her had felt like Finn’s brief but frenzied experience with absinthe.
After Freddie’s death, he’d spent many a predawn surrounded by starving artists, butchers, cobblers, earls, actors, barons, princes, paupers—even a doctor who’d kindly attended to his chest wound when he’d torn the stitches during an unfortunate brawl—crowded in the back room of the Mon Plaisir, the lowliest back alley club, during the infamous l’heure verte. The green hour. Only to be expelled like a heedless gasp into the wretched London miasma when the curtain of darkness began to fade. He’d stumbled through those twilight streets night after night with a blessed sense of detachment.
Which, at the time, he’d needed to withstand one day rolling into the next.
He’d not felt that sort of separation from mind and body until he’d stepped away from Victoria a half hour ago, forced apart by intrusion, a good thing, as his awareness had compressed to only the points where their bodies touched, like poking holes in a sheet of paper and trying to see the world through it. The nape of her neck, his hip, her thigh, his bottom lip, her cheek, the rounded curve of her breast. Scalding points of contact drawing them together as if they’d been connected with needle and thread. Coming back to find himself surrounded by the scent of moldy books and ink, stacks of letters and open ledgers, the sound of his breath rushing from his lips to mix with hers, had been as bewildering as a blow across the jaw.
He’d never lost himself in a kiss. Not once.
Not ever.
Had never imagined he could when his attention was centered on the thoughts. This time, amazingly, the ones crowding his mind were his and his alone. He’d found that to be, indeed as he’d always imagined, quite wonderful.
From his view out the library window, Finn recorded Victoria and Piper’s progress across the sloping lawn. At this late stage of pregnancy, Piper waddled, to put it kindly. They paused at the fountain to rest on the carved stone bench adorning it, Victoria’s gaze not once roaming his way, although she knew Julian was monitoring how the increasing distance affected their gifts—observations to be recorded in his blasted chronology.
Finn tapped the letter he held against his thigh. It was a simple kiss. Two, he supposed, if precise calculation signified. Nothing he and Tori hadn’t experienced many times with other people and walked thoughtlessly away from. Kisses were weapons he often retained to create distance, not eradicate it when he wasn’t even sure he liked the amusement all that much. Too intimate an effort when reading someone’s mind was the very definition of dispassion.
Victoria was quite skilled at using kisses to remove herself from tight spots, conversations she wanted to divert. He’d seen her in action. Saved her from letting the ton see her in action.
Because being caught in a compromising position was more damaging than anything she could do aside from marrying him.
He crushed the letter in his hand, wondering where the hell that thought had come from. Simple, Finn, remember? Nothing to this. Just another girl. Same old. Except simple was an unfair categorization for an interaction more carnal then ones he’d had with someone’s legs locked around his hips.