For what they all seek—or is it more?
“I return the query,” she replied in French. Poorly articulated, badly accented, but understandable. “Is my gift all you want—or is there more?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered. A lie when he knew damn well. Then he confirmed his truth by cradling the nape of her neck, drawing her into him as he bent to seize her lips. The taste of champagne and strawberries flowed into his mouth, down his body, and out the soles of his feet, grounding him to the earth and to her.
Her arm rose, grazing his waist, ribs, shoulders, reaching past his jaw and sending fingers into his hair, tangling, tugging, creating a jolt of aroused pleasure and a moan he could not contain.
She started at the sound and drew back, her expression concealed by shadow, but her wild eyes were glowing through it. If his groan wasn’t enough to tell her he was losing control, the erection pressed against her hip, an awakening he couldn’t conceal if his life depended on it, should have.
“Walk away now,” he said gruffly, his hands sliding to her shoulders and grasping, drawing her in instead of pushing her away, “before it’s too late.”
When it was already too late for him.
Shaking her head, she stepped back atop the low row of bricks circling the fountain, slanted her lips over his, and claimed him.
He sighed, giving up, giving everything he’d previously withheld.
If she were going to make love to another man, experience pleasure with another man, marry another man, Finn would make sure she never forgot this passionate moment in the midsummer twilight.
This moment when she was his.
The bricks made it easy for her to loop her arms around his neck, her breasts settling heavily against his chest. Hyacinth, he concluded after days of questioning, she smelled like hyacinth and vanilla, the unique fragrance unraveling his longing and laying it out like a rug before him. He cradled her head, nipped her bottom lip, soothed with his tongue, then nipped again. Her answering shift, hip to hip, the ragged sound of delight whispering from her throat, telling him all he needed to know.
He didn’t have to handle her delicately, like a vase he feared breaking. The woman who he was certain rode a horse like a whip and rolled in the grass with Piper and quarreled with him until he lost the will to conquer her would be an enthusiastic, fearless lover, meeting him move for move, sigh for sigh, pleasure for pleasure.
Unafraid to reveal his yearning, he palmed her hip and brought her gently against his hard length, settling her rather perfectly. Even through layers, he could feel her. Warm and welcoming. “Tori,” he whispered hoarsely, “you are magnificent.” Her hair was wild, the moist air creating a wealth of riotous curls he longed to see spread beneath him as he slid inside her.
With a stuttered catch of breath, she gripped his shoulders and followed his languid rhythm, their tongues echoing the movement of their hips. It was a dance as old as time…one he’d fantasized about, sweat-slick sheets and flushed skin, the scent of her, him, them, capturing the bedchamber and defying his every concern.
Slowing the kiss, she dropped her head to his shoulder, breathless, trembling. She was close, he thought in amazement, and he hadn’t even put his hands on her, not truly. He could make her come, right here in the moonlight, while standing on a low brick wall surrounding a decaying fountain on Ashcroft’s estate. Make her remember him if she were to marry the duke, every time she saw the crumbling monument.
If she were this responsive fully clothed, what would she be like when he stripped her down to nothing, all those silly stratums gone, his lips and teeth, his tongue, covering every inch of her with absolutely no barriers in place?
A lewd impulse, but one he followed, fingers trailing across her belly and up the side of her body to her breast. Cupping the full mound, his thumb found her nipple, pressed, circled, making it harden like the pebbles wedged beneath his boot. Her head fell back, exposing the glorious, arching nape of her neck. Powerless, his lips were there in seconds, kissing, sucking, drawing her skin tenderly between his teeth. Her pulse tapped against his jaw, proof of her yearning, the realization sending a pulse of longing through him.
Hell, he could come himself with nothing more than her sighs ringing in his ears, her fingers clutching his shoulders, the sweet taste of her filling his mouth.
Desire was overriding sense, he knew, when he began calculating how long it would take to retrieve his carriage, parked a scant distance from Ashcroft’s house to avoid the throng, send a note to Julian’s townhome so Humphrey didn’t worry, then spend the next two days inside, over, beneath, and behind Victoria Hamilton.
She had no idea how inventive he could be if inspired, which he rarely, if ever, had been.
He might even surprise himself.
He was eagerly reclaiming her lips when an explosion sent them stumbling apart, Finn’s quick reflexes, an arm snaked about her waist, the only thing that kept her from tumbling into the bone-dry fountain.
Chapter 12
In stunned bewilderment, Victoria watched color from Ashcroft’s horribly-timed pyrotechnic display wash across Finn’s cheeks and spark off his enlarged pupils. His hand lay on her breast, no longer cupping but still a firm, mesmerizing hold, and their eyes, at the exact same second, dropped to the marvelous indecency.
As she mentally debated the next steps—to the carriage together or apart—many things occurred at once.
A storm. The Earl of Hester. Finn’s temper. Observations about her gift.
A lone raindrop hit her bottom lip. Finn’s gaze tracked it as he leaned in to kiss it away when the Earl of Hester stumbled through a break in the hedges with a sneering chortle. Without a word, Finn strode directly to Hester and sent his fist into the man’s jaw. The earl went down like a carpet had been yanked from beneath his feet, the savage display unlike anything Victoria had ever seen.
She hopped off the wall and went to stand over Hester. He was breathing, air whistling from his bruised lips. So not dead. “Are you daft?” she whispered and turned to find Finn flexing his fingers with a pained expression. The aroma of Hester’s drink of choice enveloped them, driving out Finn’s enticing scent. Another blasted interruption.
“You don’t want to know what he thought when he saw us.” He blew on his knuckles and bared his even, white teeth. “He’s lucky I didn’t kill him. I should carve him up with the knife in my boot. The rotter has no idea who he’s dealing with.”
“How lethal,” she murmured, wondering why seeing Finn’s uncivilized side sent heat swimming through her body. And then she realized…
“Finn, you were able to read his mind.”
He halted and palmed his brow, his lids fluttering. “Lady Teasdale is looking for Hester. She’s crossing the lawn, daring the rain to ruin her rendezvous with him. Apologies, Tori darling, but I think the fountain is a well-used location.” Giving the earl’s shoulder a nudge with his boot, he flexed his hand again and said, “Can you take care of this? Erase the last five minutes or so? I think it would be best.”
As cool raindrops began to pelt her, she squatted beside Hester, circled his wrist with her fingers, and let the sound of his pulse enter her consciousness. She held on until she heard a click, until she’d stolen enough from his memory to secure their safety. “It’s done. Perhaps even so much as the entire night, poor Lady Teasdale. I can’t control how much. Or how little. We’ll hope it worked.”