Page 50 of Teach a Rogue New Tricks
She patted her hair, finding flower petals there and pulling them loose. “I think I should return home.”
He grabbed his jacket, trying to appease the guilt, hide the pride, and calm the raging hardness in his trousers. But by the time they had hailed a hack and he’d settled her into the conveyance, all three still hummed.
He wanted her.
And she already had a man to kiss her day and night.
He’s not here, his snarling selfish past insisted,take her kisses for yourself, day and night and every hour in between. It would be easy. A whisper to the driver. Join her in the hack. Get her to the docks. Or perhaps just to Graceling. Ruin her. Publicly.
She put a foot on the step of the hack to leave him.
A man like him could do it. Would do it. So very easily.
He reached for her as she disappeared inside the hack, wrapped his hand around her hip, stilling her.
She popped her head back out, her gaze lingering on her hip where his hand lay possessively. Slowly, she lifted eyes full of questions.
He dropped his hand to his side, guilt turning it to rock. “Miss Cavendish, I apologize. For the, ahem, touch just now, and for the—”
“Meet me again tomorrow.”
That did it. Where he’d not been able to tame the violent emotions rubbing him raw inside, her request—ha! More of a command!—did it. Guilt, pride, lust, villainous impulses, all vanished with the wind.
“Pardon me?” He cleaned out one ear. Perhaps he’d misheard.
“It’s clear these outings are doing you a world of good. I would hate to give up now.”
He leaned close, bared his teeth. “I just now touched you inappropriately. I kissed you. Almost kissed you yesterday. And you’re exactly the type of woman”—pure, innocent, kind—“I should not be kissing. Additionally, you are entirely unaware of the thoughts that mere moments ago ran rampant through my head. Kidnapping, Miss Cavendish. How do you like that?” He rocked back on his heels and crossed his arms over his chest.
She waved away his concerns. “You did not kidnap me. As I recall, you apologized for everything. As for the kisses, we can forget those.”
Like hell he could. “Miss Cavendish, I do not think you understand how kisses work.” Especially kisses like the one they’d shared.
“Oh, that? A sweet thing, was it not? But no reason not to continue your… hmm.” She sucked her cheeks in and looked at her feet. Then her head popped up. “Your journey.”
“My journey. Ha. From villain to hero. I assume that’s what you mean. Do you not understand what happened today? I did an about-face and ran back toward my old ways. Gentlemen take care not to kiss almost engaged women. Villains”—he pointed at his own chest—“do not.”
She smiled, tapped him on the nose. “You will not do it again.”
“I certainly will if I so desire.” And he did, very much. In fact, he dipped, quick and hungry, and crushed his lips against hers, dragged her bottom lip with his teeth until she shivered, then hopped away from her as if it had never happened.
She fixated on his lips, licked her own, then dragged her gaze up to his with a shaky breath. “Astley’s Amphitheatre. Tomorrow.”
“Bloody hell, woman,” he hissed. “Do you not understand?”
“Astley’s. Yes, I’ve always wished to go there. In fact, I shall go there tomorrow whether you escort me or not.”
He pressed forward until their bodies almost touched. “Alone?”
She nodded. “Alone.”
He stepped back. “I’ll be there.” She gave him no other choice.
She grinned. “Excellent.” Then she disappeared into the hack.
He gestured to the driver then stepped back, watching it trundle her out of sight.
He walked in the opposite direction. It must be a joke, the whole thing a Covent Garden farce because the man who’d just calculated how easy it might be to abduct a woman who belonged to another man, would have toprotectthat very woman’s virtue.
