Simple. He kissed you and you enjoyed it. And you want him to do it again. For him to touch you, to know you.
No. That was impossible. He was someone she was paying to save her sister from making a grave mistake, nothing more.
Liar.
Clutching the book, she wished to purchase to her breast, Alice turned left, intending to head to the sales counter. Her world was suddenly filled with a tall, green-eyed vision of male magnificence.
“Harry,” she gasped.
He quickly backed her up against a bookshelf and murmured, “Miss North. Fancy. Meeting. You. Here.”
Wicked heat pooled in her loins at the delicious way he spoke. Her nipples hardened. Whenever Harry was this close, he reduced her to a complete mush of nonsense.
Alice lifted the book and showed it to him. “Alexander Pope,” she said.
He glanced at the cover. “The Dunciad? An interesting choice. I, myself, prefer the Marquis de Sade’s poems. Especially the naughty ones. Have you read any of them?”
Alice shook her head.
Harry trailed a finger down her cheek and neck, and she shivered at his touch.
“You have to ask at the front counter for those books. They don’t stock them openly on the shelves. Perhaps you and I could share an afternoon reading some of my books in the comfort of my library,” he whispered.
The invitation rolled all too easily off his tongue. How many other women had been asked to spend time alone with Harry and his illicit collection of saucy poems?
“Is that how you seduce women?” she asked.
He frowned. He appeared genuinely taken aback by her words.
I’ve overstepped with him.
“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for,” she said.
“Alice, I have never asked a lady to my home. Apart from the main drawing room where I receive clients, the rest of the house is my private sanctuary. I was offering to share it with you,” he replied.
“Oh, Harry. Please forgive me.” Alice went to add further to her apology, but at that moment, Harry bent and covered her lips with his own before she could muster the words. She wasn’t sure if anyone heard her half-strangled cry as he grabbed her, but she honestly didn’t care if they had. All that mattered was that she was once again in Harry’s arms, and his tongue was in her mouth. Socially accepted norms of public behavior . . . be damned.
He took the book from her hands and set it on the shelf. The man was full of excellent ideas. With the book gone, he was able to pull her to him. Alice gasped as the hardness of his firm erection pressed against her stomach.
A woman of her station and marital status should be shocked, nay, outraged by such a thing. She should be scandalized at being handled so roughly, but all it did was make her throb in her most secret of places. Places that only she had touched in the privacy of her bed.
Her parents might well be unconventional, but they were also smart enough to have explained the birds and bees to their children as they’d stood on the cusp of adulthood. Sex was not something to be ashamed of; it was to be celebrated with a lover.
She shifted slightly against him, and Harry groaned. There was nothing else she needed to know. Harry wanted her.
He broke the kiss, sucking in deep, heavy breaths. After snatching Alice’s book from the shelf, he held it in front of him. A sly grin crept to his lips. “I am shocked by your conduct, Miss North. I thought you were the prim and proper one in all this. Fancy pressing yourself against a gentleman and then kissing him in a bookshop.”
She put a hand to her chest as she struggled to get her bearings. Her wits were still spinning in a circle. “Could I please have my book?”
He shook his head; the man was clearly in discomfort. “Not just yet. Give me a minute or two.”
Alice stepped back, creating a respectable distance between them as another customer appeared at the end of the next aisle over. She raised an amused eyebrow at Harry but stopped when she caught a glimpse of the expression on his face. It was anything but humorous.
Oh. I see. Did I do that to him? Well now, that changes things.
“Thank you for recommending The History of Persia, Lord Steele. I am certain my brother shall appreciate his birthday present immensely,” she said.
“It was my pleasure, Miss North. If you need me to recommend any other historical works, you only have to ask,” he ground out.
The other customer continued on along the row and out of sight.
This moment was glorious in Alice’s eyes. Harry had foolishly thought he had the upper hand in this little game. She might well be a novice when it came to the art of flirting, but she had still managed to teach him a nice and naughty lesson.
Alice reached out and brushed a hand on Harry’s cheek. She leaned in close and touched her lips briefly to his, exalting when he swallowed deeply.
“Be careful what games you play, Lord Steele. You might find you are not always the winner,” she whispered.
And with that, she snatched the book out of his hands and walked away.
Bloody. Bloody. Urgh! How was he supposed to make it all the way back to Grosvenor Street when he was in such a state? Of all the mornings he had decided to walk instead of taking his carriage. There was no way he could attempt to leave Hatchards, let alone hail a hack in his current condition.
Harry grabbed a heavy tome on global economics on his way to the back of the bookshop. With book in hand, he settled into a comfortable chair and set to dealing with the problem of his hardened member.
He was annoyed with himself. Only callow youths let their cocks run wild in public. When was the last time he had allowed a woman to get him into such an aroused state when he wasn’t naked and about to engage in the sexual act?
A very long time. Never?
Opening the book at a random page, he began to read.
Capitation taxes, so far as they are levied upon the lower ranks of people, are direct taxes upon the wages of labour, and are attended with all the inconveniences of such taxes.
Within minutes, the dry notes of Adam Smith’s, The Wealth of Nations, did the job. Harry set the book aside and turned his thoughts to the question of Alice.
He hadn’t gone looking for her this morning. It had been a fortunate coincidence that she just happened to be in Hatchards at the same time he did.
The minute he’d set eyes on her, he had started to behave like a lovestruck fool—following her around the shop, hiding behind the shelves, but making sure she saw him. He sighed. It was embarrassing to think what he had done.
And all over a woman. A client.
Her reaction to his kiss was what had him truly scratching his head. There was no doubt that she enjoyed his advances; Alice had kissed him back. She hadn’t even slapped him this time. He was making progress.
But progress toward what?
As Harry stepped out the front door of the bookshop, not having purchased a single item, a spark lit in his brain. He liked Miss Alice North. She appeared to find him not completely offensive to her senses. In his part of society, marriages had been forged on less.
The thought pulled him up short. He was a clever man, but even the brightest of minds sometimes struggled to perceive what was straight in front of their faces.
On the side of the street, in the middle of the crush of Piccadilly, Lord Harry Steele grappled with the notion that perhaps he liked Alice more than just a little. He liked her a whole lot. And when he had finally wrestled the idea to the ground, he was left with one startling truth.