Page 43 of Temptations of a Wallflower
Who was she? What was happening? Nothing but now mattered.
The dance began in earnest. And he moved. They were as close to each other as two clothed people could be. She felt every twitch, every glide of his body against hers. The music swirled and floated, and they moved in time with it, hips together, this way and that. He was at all times in control, his hand large and hot in the small of her back. He watched her with proprietary need, his gaze on her lips.
It was the closest she’d ever come to making love. She didn’t know this man in blue, but they claimed each other.
Yet . . . oddly . . . she felt as if shedidknow him. She could not quite explain or understand it, but something in her recognized something in this masked stranger.She turned protectively toward it, as though seeking the warmth of the sun in the middle of a cool, rainy day.
Yet he was profoundlyother.Charismatic, without saying a word.
They turned together, moving as one, moving as though they were meant for this. For each other.
Time slowed. And yet, all too soon, the music came to a halt. Whether the other couples left the dance floor or remained, she had no idea. All she knew was him.
Then he bent down. And kissed her.
His lips were firm and soft against hers. Surprisingly gentle and tender. At first. His mouth slanted over hers, urging her lips to part. Stunned at first, she could only let him kiss her. This was her first real kiss. But then an age-old instinct took over. She needed to claim this thing she desired. She opened for him, letting him in.
It was lush, their kiss. Rich and intoxicating in its naked desire. This was not a kiss of politeness, of well-manneredaffection. This was a man and a woman—strangers to each other—united by shared hunger. His tongue swept against hers, searching, and she sucked on it. Her reward was a low growl deep in his chest.
One of his hands cradled the back of her head. The other flattened against the small of her back, urging her against him. She wrapped her arms around his wide shoulders as she pressed against him tightly. It was only a kiss—she’d written about so much more—yet she felt herself lost, dazed, adrift on sensation.
She broke the kiss with a gasp.Good Lord. Jeremy.
How could she do this with a stranger, a man she’dknown less than an hour, when she’d barely even touched the man she truly wanted? Tears burned her eyes at the thought of her disloyalty. How could she face herself, when she’d proven herself to be a faithless lightskirt?
“I—” But she had nothing to say to the man in blue.
She turned and fled the chamber. She had to go. Immediately. Before she did something she would truly regret.
Hurrying down the hallway, she passed a small group of women standing near a table of refreshments.
“It’s true,” one of them was saying to the others. “I have it on the best authority that someone is here tonight to learn the identity of the Lady of Dubious Quality.”
Sarah froze.
“How did you find this out?” another queried.
“Servants’ gossip. They said a stranger had come tonight. A man. Tall—wearing green? Blue?”
Sarah’s stomach pitched. Heaven help her, had she just been kissing the man who wanted to learn her secrets? No, it couldn’t be him. She refused to believe it.
I have to leave. Hastening past the women, she stumbled toward the foyer.
“My friend?” Amina asked with a puzzled frown.
But Sarah had no words for her. She dragged open the front door and hurried off toward her waiting carriage several blocks away. One of the most thrilling and adventurous nights of her life had turned into the very worst. She could only pray that the man in blue never learned who she was. That all her secrets would remain safe.
She hastened into the night, fear and inevitable change chasing her like demons.
His hair curling damply over his collar from his dawn swim at Hampstead Heath, Jeremy paced the paths of his mother’s garden, deep in thought. Other than his early morning excursions to the bathing pond to work off a surfeit of energy, he’d gone nowhere in the two days since he’d visited the masked gathering. Instead, he’d haunted the garden that had always given him peace, searching for a measure of elusive tranquility. Yet it didn’t matter how many times he strode up and down the gravel walkways. He couldn’t be still, couldn’t be calm.
Not since The Kiss.
How could he not have known? How could he have blithely assumed that he could go to that gathering without there being some profound change in him? That he could continue on as he always had, ignorant of who he was? Never knowing what he was capable of?
The gravel crunched beneath his boots as he walked briskly past the struggling rose bushes.
His mother had been mercifully ignorant of Jeremy’s visit to the masked club, but she had noticed with some gentle reproof at breakfast that he hadn’t been sleeping, as evidenced by the telltale shadows beneath his eyes. “Perhaps I should fetch my physician,” she’d murmured concernedly.
