Succumbing to momentum, she swayed against him. Somehow her arms found their way under his coat where he was warmest, and wrapped themselves around his narrow waist. His soft linen shirt was thin from wear and washing, and it molded enticingly over the musculature of his back beneath her seeking hands.
This time, he growled in a way she had not heard before. The husky, savage sound made her knees tremble, her legs as insubstantial as ivy vines. But he shored her against him, his broad palm skating down the curve of her spine to the small of her back.
“Open for me,” he whispered against the damp seam of her lips, nuzzling into the corner of her mouth. “Don’t be stingy with your tongue.”
Tongue? she wondered dazedly, never thinking that the wet, budded surface would be something another person would wish to investigate. “Whyever would you want that?”
“Trust me. It’s part of the process.”
The trace of amusement in his tone made her question his authority on this portion of the lesson. “Do you have reference material to which you might direct me?”
She felt his grin against her lips and then a playful tug of his teeth into the flesh of her bottom lip. A zing of pleasure spiraled through her, swirling tightly, deep inside her middle. Who knew that a bite under the right circumstances could feel so pleasant?
“You can’t learn everything from a book,” he coaxed, nipping her again. “There are some things you just have to try for yourself.”
Curious, the willing grapes parted for him, waiting for him to surge forth and explore her taste receptors.
But he did not. Instead, he continued his small sipping kisses, sampling her nectar, weighing her readiness for the bottle. Good gracious, the bottle!
Jane blushed at the thought, purple inside her skin as she bore the sweet agony of his kiss, one drop at a time.
Then, at last, he nudged her mouth open and delved inside the dewy cavern. The unexpected pleasure, the slow glide of flesh against flesh, the thrilling rasp of his tongue against hers, sent tingles cascading through her in a hot deluge, quivering deep down inside her stomach.
She felt like purring.
Her arms lifted, slipping out of his coat, and her hands glided around his neck to delve into the mink-soft hair that was just long enough to brush his collar. It all felt perfectly natural to her now. A successful experiment—one she would like to repeat as often as possible.
Sliding closer, she rose up on the toes of her slippers to satisfy all the new sensations pulsing into full wakefulness. Raven assisted her. He settled her body into some faultless orientation against his own, where the hardness of him met the softness of her.
The sublime configuration definitely deserved further study.
No one had ever kissed her or held her like this. And even without having compiled any research on the subject, she suspected that this was the way it was supposed to be done.
His hands fisted in the back of her gown, pulling her tighter against him. She could feel the buttons of his shirt and, further down, the hard, unmistakable and imposing ridge of his erection.
He was aroused, she thought, awed by this entire sequence of events. Her body reacted to this knowledge with a low liquid throb that urged her hips to tilt of their own accord against him, and a strained whimper escaped her throat.
Chasing the sound she’d made, his lips drifted hotly along the underside of her jaw and down her throat to the V-shaped niche in the center of her clavicle. And when his tongue touched that susceptible place, laving it tenderly, she whimpered again, clinging to him.
He growled that new growl again. “Do you taste this sweet everywhere, Jane?”
“It’s only the jam,” she assured him, even though she wasn’t feeling sure of anything at the moment. In fact, she was barely holding onto her wits as he nibbled a path to her earlobe and raked the flesh softly between his teeth.
“Currant?”
“Damson plum,” she breathed, her neck arching against the delightful scrape of his whiskers along her throat. An excited pulse sped on a current through her body, settling where their hips aligned. “I cannot fathom how you kiss worldly women. The pleasure must cause them to burst from their skin like overripe fruits.”
Raven went still, clutching her tightly. The hard pounding of his heart inside his chest matched the same harried rhythm inside her own. Then a slow breath staggered out of him.
She shook her head when he gradually eased his mouth away. “No. I don’t want to stop.”
In response, he pressed lingering kisses against her cheek, her temple, and her brow as he held her excitable, breathless body against him. He stroked a hand down her back, calming her in slow passes. “You need to get some rest.”
“But the letter. We have more to—”
“I don’t want to talk about the letter anymore today. And if you continue to push me, then you’ll soon find yourself carried to that napping spot and thoroughly kissed in places you’ve likely never even read about,” he warned darkly.
Taking her chin in his grasp, he let his gaze fall to her lips as if preparing another assault to her senses.
A wanton thrill raced through her and her lips pursed in inquisitive contemplation. The scientist within her was reminded of the importance of being thorough. Her inner scribe was disheveled and eagerly reaching for a fresh pen.
But even she understood that this was less of an offer and more of a threat, like the snarl of a cornered animal.
She’d pushed him too far already. In the past twelve hours, she’d done quite a lot to upset the course of his life.
“Very well,” she said. “I’ll send word to you as soon as I translate the letter, as well as whatever I discover from our copy of Debrett’s. After it is mended, of course.”
“Of course,” he said with a small grin and she could almost taste it against her tingling lips. She wished she could taste it.
But no. That was a dangerous thought. Her head was beginning to clear enough for her to realize that more kisses would only lead to ruination and being eschewed from her family. She wasn’t willing to take that risk just for research.
Decided, she straightened her shoulders. “Once it is all in your possession, that will be the end of my interference in your life. I trust that will be amenable to you?”
He offered a nod. But before he released her, he took her lips once more, stealing the last of her senses.
Then, several breathless and intoxicating minutes later, he set her apart, pivoted on his heel and left, cursing under his breath about bloody irresistible damson jam.
Chapter 13
For the following week, Raven was glad to get back to his own life. He put his focus where it belonged—on refurbishing his house, keeping his employment—and not on any unreliable debutantes.
He enjoyed his position at Sterling’s. After three years, the red silk wallpaper was as familiar as the color of his own blood.
When Reed Sterling had first offered him a position, Raven had started out as a mere usher, but quickly worked his way up to a croupier. Now, as he prowled through the rooms, he oversaw the tables and the bank, kept the books in order, and took care of patrons’ requests. He also supervised the list runners and made sure the ushers filled the whisky glasses.
It all kept him busy. Far too busy to think about Jane Pickerington. Or to wonder why, after pushing and pushing to find a link between the mark on his arm and the Northcott family, she’d suddenly lost interest.