Page 39 of Hazard a Guest
And he pushed himself from the chair, leaning across the table with her hand captured in his. He looked down at her, watching her face, watching for any sign of disapproval or discomfort.
When he saw none, he took what he wanted.
He kissed her. Softly. As softly as he could manage. He wanted to feel it, to savor it. He wanted to take it in tiny breaths rather than gulps, so that every step would crystallize in his memory, should she let them.
She lifted her free hand to touch his cheek, to stroke the line of his jaw, and she took too, so softly, so carefully. Uncertain, perhaps, but wanting.
And when he pulled away, she looked a little dazzled, and he felt like he’d never breathe properly again.
“Yes,” she said in a whisper, gripping their clasped hands hard. “Plenty powerful.”
SUIT 3: HEARTS
CHAPTER 14
Ember Donnelly had never been kissed like that before.
She had found herself back in her room eventually, though she couldn’t account for much of what had happened after that kiss.
They had talked some more, certainly. He had walked her back here. He hadn’t touched her again, for some reason.
The whole thing, the wholeman, was completely confounding.
What did a kiss like that mean, anyhow? It hadn’t been hungry in the way kissing usually was, or dutiful either. She’d had both. She thought she’d understood what kissing was and what purpose it served.
So what hadthatbeen?
Did Joe Cresson not want things the way men usually wanted things? Was all that blushing something she’d misread?
She grunted, flopping onto her back and staring up at the whorls of plaster on the ceiling. It would take too long to write to Dotor Millie and get their thoughts. She didn’t want something like that out in the world, anyway.
And what an odd feeling, she thought, to be the one with kissing to talk about after all this time. She, who’d buried a husband and run the gamut of a contract where she served as mistress to an earl, was paralyzed in her sheets like a schoolgirl over a kiss that hadn’t involved any touching or any tongue.
Touching she could manage. Tongue she understood. Desire wasn’t new to her, but whatever had just happened certainly was.
Somewhere deep inside her, she had a creeping suspicion that despite having participated in a decent amount of kissing and having had a few lovers besides, this thing today, this chaste little brush with Joe bloody Cresson, had been the first real kiss she’d ever experienced.
It was ridiculous, wasn’t it?
Wasn’t it?
And if she didn’t find someone to talk about it with in the next handful of seconds, she was at high risk of devolving back to twenty and gushing over it to little Hannah, and that wouldn’t do. It would only encourage the little chit to keep emulating her.
She sighed and kicked her feet out, slapping at the blankets on either side of her.
Hazard, she reminded herself.How are you going to teach him hazard? We have to fool everyone.
She conjured mental images of dice hitting felt, of numbers and marks and odds … of wrists and forearms and fingers and … oh, damn it all to hell!
Whyhadn’the used any tongue? Why hadn’t he grabbed her or rounded the table to press her into something?
Didn’t he want to?!
She squeezed her eyes shut, ostensibly to banish the mutinous thoughts, but of course, also to invite them into relief behind her eyelids.
She could still taste him, just faintly, on her lips, still feel that soft, sweet brush of his lips. She flexed her hand, remembering the line of his jaw, the smoothness of his skin, the scent of almonds in his pomade.
She could feel the fire at her back and the uneven wood of the table under their entwined hands.
