Page 27 of To Pleasure a Prince
He blotted out the words with a fiercer, bolder kiss. He didn’t want to hear her lies. He didn’t want to think about those bastards in the drawing room. He only wanted to kiss her again.
She made a token resistance, pushing feebly against his chest. But she didn’t pull her lips from his, and soon her hands flattened against him. That left him free to really kiss her, to linger over her mouth, driven by the impulse to prove her wrong about him, to make her acknowledge him as something more than a loutish beast.
But that wasn’t all he wanted. He wanted to eat her up, get inside of her, figure out why she drove him insane with just a look.
God help him. He’d expected kissing her to be like kissing a marble Venus, the lips cold and unyielding, her body stiff against his. Instead, her lips were warm and trembling, her body fluid in his arms and growing more so by the moment.
When she actually clutched at his coat lapels, triumph surged through him. He drew back to stare at her smugly. “Now, tell me again that I don’t know how to please a woman.”
Her closed eyelids drifted open to reveal dove gray eyes dazed with need. “You know how to be impertinent,” she said in a throaty voice. “I’ll give you that.”
“You haven’t begun to see me impertinent.” Cupping the back of her neck in his hand, he drew her close for another kiss. This time he dared to deepen it, thrusting his tongue against her parted lips until he gained entry to the heady warmth of her mouth.
Great God, what a seductress’s mouth she had, as sweet and bewitching as any siren’s. He wasn’t idiot enough to question why Lady Lofty was letting him kiss her so outrageously. He merely took advantage of the fact that she was, relishing the heartfelt moan she made in response to his bold forays.
She lifted her dainty arms to encircle his neck, and that emboldened him further, until he was plundering her soft lips over and over, drinking in every richly perfumed breath. How many chances did a man have to taste the elusive Belle Dame? To bury himself in the hot silk of her mouth and stroke the eloquent contours of her waist and hips with his greedy hands?
Not until he had her boneless and limp in his arms did he tear his mouth from hers. “Nowthat’simpertinent.”
Her breath came in staccato bursts. “It certainly is,” she said, but without rancor.
“So is this.” He brushed a kiss to her blushing cheek. “And this.” He explored other parts of her with his mouth—her fragile eyelids, the throbbing pulse at her temple, the delicate curve of her ear.
But when he traced it with his tongue, she gasped. “Lord Draker—”
“Marcus,” he corrected. “If we’re courting, you should call me Marcus.”
She hesitated, then breathed, “Marcus,” in that seductive whisper that drove him insane. There was nothing for it but to kiss her again.
Pressing her back against the bookshelves, he ravished her mouth the way he wanted to ravish her body, until the taste of her so filled his senses that he actually contemplated lifting her skirts and—
She pushed hard against his chest. Only then did he stop kissing her.
“We should not be doing this, Marcus. Someone might find us here.”
Frustration made him growl, “And that would not do for my lady, would it?”
“If my brother found us, it would not do foryou,either.”
He smiled grimly. “It might. Foxmoor would demand satisfaction on the dueling field, and I could—”
“Don’t even think such a thing!” she cried, covering his lips with her fingers.
They stood frozen a moment. Then she traced his mouth with a gentleness he wasn’t used to from anyone. He dragged in a ragged breath, but didn’t stop her.
Until she ran one finger along his scar.
“Don’t,” he murmured.
Curiosity glinted in her eyes but she changed the direction of her exploration, slipping her fingers down to caress his jaw. “Your beard is soft. I expected it to be prickly.”
Her tenderness unsettled him. “It’s no different from other hair,” he said gruffly. “It’s only prickly after it’s shaved off. But I’m surprised an elegant female like you would even touch a man’s beard.”
A coy look crossed her face. “Believe it or not, sometimes elegant females try things they’re not supposed to.”
“Right.” That was why she’d let him kiss her. Apparently even La Belle Dame craved excitement occasionally and couldn’t get it from her idiot suitors. He bent his head to nibble her earlobe. “Try anything you want with me,” he whispered. “I won’t tell a soul.”
She jerked back, her face aflame. “I didn’t mean—” She broke off at the sound of the doorknob turning, then wriggled out of his arms just as the door swung open.
