Page 12 of The Risk of Rogues
He gazed down at her—at her cheeks reddened from the cold and her cheery hat shielding too much of her pretty face for his taste—and he couldn’t resist her temptations anymore. He pressed her against one of the pillars so they were hidden from view of the house in case anyone happened to be looking.
As she blinked up at him, her amber eyes darkened to brown in the shadows. “Hart?”
Then he bent his head beneath her enormous hat and kissed her. He had to. He’d die if he didn’t get a taste of her right now.
She paused only a moment before her mouth opened, allowing him to sink his tongue inside its silken warmth. God, but she was sweet. And so delicious. He could stay here all day kissing her, holding her, the cold weather be damned.
When she made a little mew of pleasure he hardened instantly, and his kisses turned rougher, deeper. He couldn’t get enough of her mouth, but she might not still be the Anne who wanted him. And suddenly he desperately needed to remind her that she had once. That she hadn’t cared about his reputation or rank or aspirations or any of that rot.
He kissed along her jaw and down her throat, and her eyes fell closed as she clutched at his shoulders with a sigh. His hands deftly unwrapped her scarf and opened her cloak so he could get to the lush bounty beneath. But when he paused long enough to tug his gloves off with his teeth, her eyelids parted to slits.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a slumberous voice, as if he’d put her in a trance.
It was only fair. She’d puthiminto one. “My hands are cold.” He slid them inside her cloak and filled them with her breasts.
Her eyes shot open, and she covered his hands with hers. “So you plan to warm them by putting them somewhere you shouldn’t?”
He thumbed her nipples through her gown and watched as her mouth formed an astonished O. “Shall I stop?” he rasped, using his palms to knead and tease.
She gulped. “We... we’resupposed... to be talking...”
“We can still talk.” He pushed in closer, then bent his head to suck her earlobe. “I’ll just... warm my hands while we do.”
“Ohhh,Lord...You always were wicked. But not...thiswicked.”
He choked out a laugh. “I wanted to be.” With a nip of her earlobe, he whispered, “I imagined you in my bed so many times that I thought I’d go insane from desire. Did you think of me that way, too?”
Her breathing grew labored. “I thought of you touching me... all over. Kissing me all over.” She slid her hands inside his greatcoat to rest on his waist. “I wondered... what you would look like... naked.”
As his cock gave a full salute, he jerked back. “Anne!”
She smiled. “Well, I did. Women do think of such things, you know.”
“I suppose. I just... I didn’t expect thatyou...”
She looked embarrassed now. “Does that make me awful?”
“No! Not in the least. I’m merely... surprised.”
And aroused beyond endurance. If he kept “warming his hands,” he was going to do something foolish like shove her up against that pillar and make love to her until she cried out her pleasure loud enough for the whole world to hear.
Regretfully releasing her, he backed away. “We should probably return to the house before we... er... go too far.”
With a nod, she began putting her clothing to rights and restoring the hat he’d mangled by pressing her against the pillar.
That reminded him of what they’d been talking about before. And what he reallyoughtto be discussing, if only to keep his mind off what he wanted to be doing to her.
“So,” he said, “you’re egalitarian in your fashion choices.” He must handle this very carefully. “Are you also egalitarian in your choice of men?”
A minxish look crossed her face. “Do you mean, am I willing to marry a second son?”
“Or a man who owns no land?”
“What!” she said in mock protest. “I thought second sons all owned enormous estates!”
“Be serious. You know perfectly well that while some second sons have property left to them by their mothers, I don’t, or else your father would probably have welcomed my suit. Down the road I might afford an estate, but at present—”
“Papa didn’t start out with land, and I believe he found owning an estate far more troublesome than owning a house in Stilford. Since I’ve lived both ways, I can honestly say it doesn’t matter to me.”
