Page 40 of The Secret of Flirting
“Gregory.” Holding her gaze, he lifted her hand and peeled back her sleeve to expose the love bite he’d left on her wrist. “Call me Gregory, at least when we’re alone.” Then he licked the place he’d marked her, watching her cheeks flush and her eyes turn sultry.
“Gregory,” she breathed.
It was one more intimacy between them. He tried to tell himself these were necessary steps to get her to lower her guard and admit the truth, but that was just a lie meant to preserve his sanity. Because deep down, he knew this was no strategy or scheme.
He wanted her to be his, simple as that. And the sound of her melodic voice crooning his Christian name was turning him as hard as the marble-topped table behind them.
Seizing her mouth once more, he plundered it with ruthless intent. She wanted him. He would make her want him enough to be honest with him, no matter the cost.
As she returned his kisses with ungoverned passion, he backed her toward the table, then swept her hat off it so he could lift her onto the marble. She didn’t make so much as a mew of protest, which emboldened him to do what he’d been wanting to do all afternoon—unfasten the hooks down the front of her bodice so he could slip his hand inside to fondle one breast.
She tore her lips from his to stare at him wide-eyed. “Gregory, you shouldn’t,” she chided in the dulcet tones that had captivated him from the moment he’d met her.
But she didn’t push his hand away, and when he pulled her corset cup down enough to thumb her nipple through her shift, she gave a throaty gasp that sent his blood into a frenzy.
“Why shouldn’t I?” he ground out. “You like it.”
An uncertain smile crossed her lips. “Perhaps a little.” When he kneaded her breast and a moan of pure pleasure escaped her, she rasped, “All right, perhaps more than a little.”
He bent his head to kiss her again, but she turned her head. “My uncle—”
“I don’t give a damn about your uncle,” he said as he turned to kiss her heated cheek, her elegant neck, her perfect ears, “since he clearly doesn’t give a damn aboutyou.” His fury that the man might be using her as a pawn made his words come out harsher than he’d intended.
She threaded her fingers through his hair as if to pull him away, yet she didn’t stop him from exploring the delicious fullness of her breast with his fingers and palm. “Butyoucare, I suppose.”
The hint of sarcasm in her tone inflamed him. “Enough to want to make sure nobody harms you.” His voice roughened in spite of himself. He tongued her bared throat. “Do you have any idea what it did to me to realize some arse was firing upon you? Yet your ‘uncle’ won’t even acknowledge that it happened.”
“He’s not as bad as all that.”
“Really? Because it looks as if he only cares about whether you become queen, and naught else.”
She swallowed convulsively, and he felt the motion against his lips.
It only made him angrier at the count. “I hate men who use women, who hurt them. Men like your uncle.” And his bastard of a father. “You deserve better.”
A desperate laugh escaped her as she met his gaze once more. “How do you know what I deserve?”
He paused in his fondling to regard her with a serious look. “I’m not blind. Yesterday I watched you cleverly and articulately convince a roomful of men that you could rule Belgium. Today I watched you bravely keep your head as Flora screamed on the back of the carriage.”
“But on the inside I was terrified,” she admitted.
“Good. You have enough sense to recognize the danger. Or I hope you do, anyway. After I saw those holes in your sleeve...” The memory of it made his throat tighten. “Do you realize how close you came to death?”
“But you were there to protect me.” Her features soft, she reached up to stroke his cheek with a tenderness that uncurled something wild and reckless within him.
“I didn’t do a very good job of it,” he said hoarsely, “considering how close the first shot came.”
“Yet here I am. Safe. With you.”
“Yes. And I mean to keep you safe with me until this is over.” This time when he took her mouth, she let him, rising to the kiss like a swan taking flight. And when he resumed fondling her breast, she pressed it against his hand.
So, once more he slid down into the insanity that was Monique.
Monique knew she was courting danger, but his words about her bravery and cleverness had seduced her. Perhaps that was what he’d intended, but she didn’t want to believe it. Because what he was doing made her feel alive, young, free. Every inch of her responded to the excitement of it.
He kissed a path down her neck. “I want to taste you.” He rubbed her nipple again. “Here. Now.”
“Oh yes,” she breathed. “Please.”
