Page 48 of The Viscount's Code
“I couldn’t,” he said in a low voice, wishing she would forget the subject, but instead she leaned even farther forward.
“What do you mean?”
Anthony groaned as he rubbed his temples between his thumbs and forefingers.
“If I had come to you,” he began, speaking from between gritted teeth. He shouldn’t be saying this to her, but she deserved an explanation. “I likely would not have been able to stop where I did last time.”
“What are you saying?” she asked, her blue eyes wide, and Anthony had to look away.
“We should not be speaking of this,” he said, as he felt all the blood in his body rush to his growing erection, and he shifted in his seat to try to hide it.
“Nor should I be here alone with you, nor should you have entered my bedroom the other night,” she returned, one eyebrow cocked in a way that had his heart pounding with a deep rhythm that urged him forward. “Yet here we are.”
“Very well,” he growled. “If you really must know… if I had returned, I just might have made love to you, truly ruining you for all others.”
She dipped her head before returning her gaze to his, vulnerability in her eyes now.
“Perhaps… perhaps that wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” she whispered.
“Hope,” he began again, “I have told you before that I cannot marry you – at least not right now. Besides…” he didn’t want to ask, had to choke out the words, but he needed to know, “why would you even want to?”
“Because,” she said, scooting even farther forward so that she was on the edge of her seat and it was a wonder she didn’t fall off. She reached her hand out tentatively and placed it on his knee, “I have always found you to be an attractive man. You are brooding, yes, but it is somehow endearing. It seems to me that you are hiding your true feelings behind that prickly exterior. And as I have come to know you, I have realized that there is more to you than you let on. It was obvious from when you first came to stay with us just how much you care about your mother and would do anything for her. But there is more than that. You also clearly care about Gideon, if you are willing to do this for him, even when you obviously had no wish to. And I believe that part of the reason you wanted to stay was because you wanted to spend more time with Reeves.”
He dipped his head abashedly. “I did enjoy seeing him again.”
“And you have been most considerate toward me,” she said, her lips curling slightly, enticing him all the more. “Even when my father and Faith have both been unkind, and I have made things quite difficult for you. You could have thrown me out of this carriage onto my bottom the moment you discovered me, and yet, here we are.”
“I must admit something to you,” he said slowly, and her fingers tightened their grip upon his thigh.
“Yes?”
“I am terrified to see your sister.”
She laughed then, tilting her head backward, exposing the long column of her neck. It was hard to believe that he had ever been opposed to the joy she greeted life with. Now he didn’t think he would ever tire of it; he only wished he could know what that was like. Perhaps the only way for him to truly discover it was to view it through her.
When her laughter settled, he found her face just inches from his, and his breath caught as he fought everything within him to lean forward and kiss her again. How many times had he told himself to stay away from her? But before he could process just what he wassupposedto be doing, she leaned in and kissed him, stealing his breath away.
Her kiss began hesitantly, but her touch ignited a fire within him, one he had been attempting to tamp out, but the flames kept stubbornly flickering. Her one innocent kiss had him roaring up for her, as he reached out and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off her seat and pulling her over to his side of the carriage. His tongue dove into her mouth, making love to it as he wanted to do to her with his body.
She paused for just a moment before she was fumbling with something behind his head, and he realized she was removing her gloves when her soft hands slipped around his neck, the firmness with which she gripped him surprising him. She shifted in his lap so that she was straddling him, her knees beside his thighs. There was so much clothing and fabric still between them that he wondered whether she could even feel anything – but then she rubbed up against him where he was hard. He reached for her and moaned.
That was the moment he truly came undone.
He didn’t remember removing her clothes or any of his own, as all he was focused on was the feel of her mouth against his, of kissing her properly before running his lips down the skin of her neck that had been calling him, enticing him all day.
Then he noticed that all that was covering her breasts was the thin fabric of her chemise, as apparently, he had been unfastening the back of her gown while he had been kissing her. Her hands were at the top of his trousers, and he lifted his hips so that she could free him. Her eyes went wide as they flicked down toward him, and he couldn’t help his throaty chuckle at her “my goodness!”
“That’s your fault,” he growled, leaning forward and kissing her over her collarbone until he found her breast, his tongue circling her nipple, and he heard her intake of breath as she arched into him.
He knew how incredibly lucky he was that she was trusting him with her body, though he wasn’t sure he was worthy of that trust as she began to shift back and forth over his lap in rhythm with his mouth on her. If she didn’t stop that soon, this was going to be over before it even began.
He tried to distract her by moving to her other nipple, grazing it with his teeth as he cupped her breasts, which fit perfectly in his hands.
“I do not have the most, um, generous bosom,” she said, and he looked up at her, reading the worry in her eyes.
“You are beautiful,” he murmured. “As perfect as could be.”
He took her lips again as his hands framed her hips before sliding up, over her ribs, back beneath her breasts to show her just how much he liked them. Her movements became more insistent, and he lifted her skirts up around her waist, fanning them out around them as he slid one hand within to cup her between her legs. As he returned his mouth to her breast, he began to stroke her bud of sensitivity, and she hissed out his name in a way that made him want to claim her, to tell all of the world that she was his and his alone.
