Page 103 of House of Crimson Hearts
“Unfortunately, I am Cordelia St Clair, firstborn and heir to the St Clair legacy.”
She pulls back. The warmth in her eyes evaporates.
“I see you’ve heard of my family,” I say.
“Gods,” she breathes. “Open the wine.”
A strange request at the revelation of who my family are. But I do as she asks and uncork the bottle.
When we’ve both taken a sip, she glances at me, strain wrought through her brow. She glugs an entire glass of wine and then takes my hand in hers.
“You like me,” she says as if it’s fact.
“Of course, I find your company very pleasant.”
“No,” she shakes her head. “I mean, youlikeme. Don’t you?”
“Why I… Um…” My words are all jumbled on my tongue. They won’t come out in a proper order.
“Just tell me,” she says and squeezes my hand.
“I mean. I certainly have some unusual feelings. I find myself quite flustered around you, but I’m not experienced with what that means.”
“It means that you like me. I should like to kiss you now,” she says.
“I…Pardon?”
“A kiss. I’d like to take a single kiss from you, and if you feel something, if this is what I hope it is… then, well… We shall have to cross that bridge when it comes.”
“I see.”
“So… may I?” she says the words so softly, so tenderly that I find myself desperate to say yes. Desperate to taste her lips and see whether I can savour the sweet wine from her mouth, her tongue.
“Yes,” I say. “Kiss me.”
She cups her hand around my jaw and leans in, pulling me to her. She brushes my long, black locks behind my ears and looks into my eyes. “You really are beautiful, you know.”
And then she closes her eyes and presses her lips to mine. They’re so soft, so tender. As if she holds all the silk in the world on her mouth. My stomach comes alive. Butterflies race and dance and twirl at a rate that make me breathless. I want to clutch my chest for fear of losing the ability to breathe.
Her touch fills my mind, her hands claim my body, my shoulders, my neck. She consumes me as if her kiss has swallowed me whole and I fell into paradise.
Her lips move over mine, my eyes fluttering shut as she presses herself against me. Her fingers wind their way into my hair, stroking the back of my head and threading it through her fingers. It is a delightful sensation, I’d love her to stroke my hair and run her fingers through the silken threads the rest of the afternoon.
She pushes my mouth open, sliding her tongue past my lips. I’ve never been touched like this. Never had a man kiss me the way she is. Only lips to knuckles and the backs of hands. But as her tongue moves into my mouth, I find myself pushing my own tongue over hers until we’re locked in a swirling snowstorm of caresses. Mouths and teeth and lips and tongues. A moan must escape me because she stops and smiles into my lips, kissing me with a peck, once, twice.
But I’m not done.
She has unleashed something and now I’m hungry.
Starving.
I want my fill of her.
So I pull her tighter, I grab her shoulders and draw her down onto the blanket with me. The food goes everywhere, the glasses spill. Everything trickles over my dress, her trousers.
Both of us stained and dirtied.
But neither of us care.
