Page 39 of Making of a Scandal
She blinked, staring at the coin in bemusement. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple. You are asserting that a kiss can only be enjoyable with Lewes because you admire him. I daresay you even fancy yourself in love with him. Am I wrong?”
“N-no, not really. I cannot say I love him just yet, but … I know that someday I could. I will.”
He watched her as if searching for more of an explanation. Perhaps he wanted to know why she felt that way. Calliope couldn’t explain her feelings, aside from the fact that Martin Lewes was everything she’d ever wanted in a man. He was everything Dominick was not.
“I think it safe to also assume that you don’t like me very much. There is no need for you to protest, I’m fully aware that I unsettle you. You find me crass and arrogant, and you only endure my presence out of necessity. However, I know something you’ve yet to be made aware of. Attraction and desire can exist between two people whether they like one another or not.”
“Are you saying you want me, but don’t like me?”
It was an absurd question of all the things she might have asked. Yet, the words had come tumbling out before she could think better of them.
He tweaked her nose with a playful grin. “I never said that. I like you just fine, goddess. But I think you would sleep just fine each night were I to fall off the face of the Earth. Anyway, this isn’t about whether I like you, but if you are prepared to test your theory.” The coin waved before her face, before he settled it onto his bent thumb, prepared to flip it. “Heads, you let me kiss you to prove my point. Tails, we leave right now, and I never mention it again.”
Calliope crossed her arms and glared at him. “You are mad if you think I’m willing to make such a wager.”
“What does it matter when you are secure in the knowledge that you dislike me? If your theory holds true, my kiss will prove as unpleasant as the others and you can walk away from me content in the knowledge that you were right. If you care so deeply for Lewes, then you oughtn’t worry that a single kiss will be enough to sway you.”
“It won’t,” she snapped, annoyed with him for challenging the deeply-held beliefs that had put her on her present course. “Besides, Martin has never kissed me, so there is no basis for comparison.”
“There will be. If I haven’t missed my guess, there will be the chance for you to make the comparison in the very near future. Now … what do you say? One coin flip, one kiss … or perhaps not. Maybe fate will smile on you.”
Calliope glanced over her shoulder, secure in the knowledge that the door was firmly closed and all the drapes of the windows facing the garden had been shut tight. How long could a single kiss take—if he even won this absurd wager?
“Very well. I accept your terms.”
Dominick took a step away from her and flipped the coin. Time seemed suspended as it flew upward, turning end over end on its descent. Calliope held her breath and waited for the desired outcome. Which was, what exactly? For her to win and not have to allow a kiss? For him to win so she could prove that he was wrong about her?
The breath left her on a swift sigh when it landed in his palm. Her throat constricted when he slapped it onto the back of his opposite hand, uncovering it to reveal that it had landed heads-side up. Dominick’s predatory gaze flicked up to meet hers, and she felt his intent a second before he moved with a speed that left her reeling.
The coin clinked to the ground as he closed the distance between them and took hold of her face. His lips slanted over hers with such tenderness Calliope was left reeling. She had expected rough handling and a cruel mouth, a kiss that took but did not give. Instead, he shattered her presumptions with the first press of his mouth, firm but gentle. His thumbs stroked along her cheekbones, his lips pushing and prodding as if trying to coax something more out of her.
This was no soft peck, no sweet overture. It was an outright assault, one made with plush lips and heavy breaths, each pass of his mouth over hers chipping away at the resistance she found it increasingly difficult to cling to.
She brought her hands up to cling to him, her fingers curled in the fabric of his coat as she began losing control of her knees. As if he sensed this, he smoothed his hands down her face and neck, past her shoulders, over her waist. Then, he was hauling her against him, every masculine ridge of him pressed to her. A breathless sound of shock escaped her throat, answered by a deep, rumbling murmur from him. Then, his tongue slid shockingly along her bottom lip, warm and wet, stroking at the seam of her mouth. A tingling sensation spread from where he lapped at her as if tasting some sweet delicacy, and Calliope could bear it no longer.
She melted in his arms, her head tipping back and her lips parting without a fight. She was dizzy and out of her mind, every part of her coming alive as his tongue slid into her mouth and rasped against hers. He repeated the motion again and again, licking at her with an urgency that prompted her to respond.
Reticence melted away, timidity forgotten as she mimicked his motions and caressed his tongue with hers, pushing back against him with tentative swipes and then surer strokes. A deep, guttural groan floated up from him, shattering the near-silence of the peaceful garden. The sound was wild, completely unrestrained, darting through her like an arrow, stabbing into her belly and exploding in a sudden rush of fluttering heat.
Her back arched against the brace of his arms, her breasts thrusting against his chest. Her nipples pebbled tight, agitated by the friction of their bodies. Each hot stroke of his tongue seemed to exacerbate it, while simultaneously creating a pulsing sensation between her legs.
It was the most embarrassing feeling, yet was somehow made all the more decadent and thrilling because of it.
He panted against her mouth, the kiss growing wilder and more heated, finesse giving way to something raw and primal. Calliope could not blame it all on him, for she was behaving in the most wanton fashion, mewling into his mouth and going up on tiptoe to capture more of the bliss he fed her with nothing more than the touch of his lips and tongue.
Shock pierced through the haze that had stolen all her good sense at the press of something hard against her lower belly. Diana had explained enough that she knew what that part of him was, what its turgid state meant for the man pillaging her mouth like the most wicked of pirates.
He wanted her, and at the moment she could not delude herself into pretending his kiss hadn’t made her want him back.
They both seemed to realize it needed to end at the same time, for they wrenched apart with a flurry of harsh breaths, wide eyes, and stumbling legs. Dominick’s lips were flushed and slick, and shame overwhelmed her as she realized she’d put that glistening sheen there with her tongue.
She’d behaved abominably, kissing and pawing at him like a shameless harlot. It had been one thing to submit to the rules of their wager and allow him to kiss her. It was quite another for her to have kissed him back, with no regard to who might come upon them or the man waiting for her in the carriage out front.
She lowered her gaze while trying to convince herself that nothing more need come of this. It didn’t have to mean anything. She didn’t have to acknowledge that Dominick Burke had just torn her to shreds with a kiss.
A gentle hand tilted her chin up, and she had no choice but to meet his gaze. His eyes had gone heavy-lidded, but still burned with the hypnotizing intensity that seemed to hold her in its thrall every time she looked at him.
