Page 45 of A Wicked Game

The lane grew steadily narrower, the buildings on either side getting closer and closer together until a gap of less than a few feet remained.

Morgan bellowed his displeasure.“No!”

Harriet, the devil woman,laughed. The joyous sound echoed off the looming walls.

He put on a spurt, leaping over crates of refuse and closing the distance between them even more. The walls closed in as the light became more sparse. He was almost near enough to grab her braid, but she darted back and forth like a rabbit, deliberately hindering his ability to get past.

His shoulder scraped the wall, and then the other one hit, and he realized with mingled outrage and disbelief that he couldn’t pass her. Not without tackling her to the ground and leaping over her.

Even as the thought materialized, he was forced to slow as both of his shoulders made contact with the crumbling bricks. Harriet, with her smaller frame, surged ahead, victory clearly within her grasp. He was about to turn sideways in a last desperate attempt to grab her when she skidded to a stop and whirled around to face him.

Morgan stilled in surprise.

Her shoulders and skirts touched the walls now too, filling the space, blocking out even more of the light. The gap could only be two feet wide at most. He lunged forward, but he was well and truly wedged.

She took a step back toward him until they stood face-to-face.

“Now I see why it’s called Squeeze Gut Alley!” he panted, trying to sound offhand when bitter disappointment was squeezing his own guts. “Well played, Montgomery.”

Harriet’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes glittered with triumph. “Do you admit defeat, Davies?”

He tried to free his shoulder and heard fabric rip. He’d have to get a new jacket. “I suppose I do.”

She gave a little crow of delight. “Ha! And don’t you dare say I cheated either. All’s fair in love and war. I merely used my superior knowledge of the local terrain to gain victory. Like any good general.”

“Wellington would be proud,” he grunted.

He was wedged tight, restrained by the coarse bricks as efficiently as if two men held him. He could have turned sideways and freed himself, but instead he strained forward so they were nose to nose. In the semidarkness it was as if they were the only two people in the world, despite the fact that a busy thoroughfare clearly existed not six feet farther on.

Harriet stared up at him. Her pupils were huge, herchest rising and falling with exertion. She looked like she’d just tumbled out of bed after the best sex of her life, and Morgan’s body hardened instinctively at the thought.

“You win,” he growled. “Which means I don’t get kiss number three. And you get to choose my forfeit. What’s it going to be?”

She lifted her hands and pressed them, palms out, against the rough walls just by his ears. She leaned closer. Her mouth was tantalizingly close to his own.

“I want…”

“You want—?” he prompted impatiently. “Me to run naked around St. James’s Square? A hundred pounds? What? Out with it.”

She licked her lips and looked him dead in the eye. “I want kiss number three.”

Chapter Twenty

Harriet’s heart was pounding so hard she thought it might explode. Had she really just admitted that she wanted kiss number three? Elation and terror fought for supremacy in her chest.

“You what?” Morgan asked.

She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Gryff was out of earshot.

“You heard me. I want kiss number three.”

Morgan’s eyes narrowed into suspicious slits, and she had to stop herself from laughing. He looked like a pirate who’d just lost a ship full of gold bullion.

“Wheredo you want it?”

She opened her eyes wide. Really, it was so much fun teasing him. “You mean geographically?”

He bared his teeth.

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