Page 25 of Til Death Duke Us Part
He snorted. “When flying horses inhabit London.”
She bit her lips, her cheeks flaming red. Then her laugh flew into the world like a bird flinging high, all joy and ease and light as she wrapped her arms around her belly.
He gave way, too, and though his laugh couldn’t fly quite as high, it sounded right twisting with hers on the wind.
7
ONE BED, LOTS OF KISSING
Persephone’s belly ached from laughing when they reached the next inn past nightfall. She enjoyed the duke’s company too much. She wanted to blame the rings, but they were dead. Attraction, enjoyment—all her own now. She had no excuse but for a heretofore undiscovered yearning for dangerous and morally questionable men. A moral failing, that.
Once stopped in the coaching yard, Morington jumped down from the brougham like an ominous shadow, greatcoat flapping behind him, big boots making an earthquake of his arrival.
She scrambled to follow, receiving a scowl before her foot could touch the ground. He wrapped big hands around her waist.
“I don’t need help,” she grumbled.
“Really?” He whipped her down. Well, almost down. He brought her high then lowered her against his chest, left her stranded there, feet dangling in the air. “Seems to me you can’t reach the ground on your own.
Every point her body touched against his, blazed to screaming life. And that was everywhere. At least on her front. Her back, for its part, seemed to kick and scream—not fair, I want to be touched, too.
She clasped his shoulders—rocks beneath her touch—and every breath pressed her breasts, her belly, against his hard torso. His hands engulfed her lower back, and her legs found a natural space to rest between his.
“P-put me down.”
“A kiss first. For your husband.”
She swallowed. Wanted to make a joke. Couldn’t.
So she kissed him. She meant to make it a quick, chaste peck, but as soon as her lips settled against his, he controlled it. Controlled her. Then she was clinging, wouldn’t have put her feet on the ground if he’d let her. She hadn’t talked about Percy since his death, hadn’t wanted to. She’d wanted to bury him and the rings and her marriage in a grave that cut much deeper than any she dug under a midnight moon. But you couldn’t bury a heart. Pouring dirt on it did nothing to heal the wounds.
But holding it up in the sunlight and sharing the wounds, letting someone else inspect your faults and fears and saying, See, it is a horrible thing, is it not, but it is mine. Holding and sharing and speaking—those things had felt like a funeral, a letting go, a proper postmortem.
And even though she shouldn’t. Even though this man was selfish and haughty and growly and likely without a single moral, she wanted to kiss him.
It was like a first kiss. Her first kiss after her unlikely rebirth atop the brougham.
And she wanted him to feel the same, like kissing her could make him anew, dig out all bitterness and replace it with hope.
Lips and tongue and teeth and something oh-so sweet. Nothing to do with alchemical magic. Nothing to do with pretending for a crowd.
Only true desire, no matter how ill-conceived. Sometimes the purest desire was also pure foolishness.
Very well then.
Call her a fool, call both of them fools.
But let them kiss.
The sound of a cleared throat. They froze. Another half cough. Morington growled, his hands soft claws on her back.
She patted his shoulder, opened her eyes. “I think we should stop.”
“I say when we stop.”
“Pardon me, sir?” The cougher. He was poking a lion, had no idea. “Are you and your, erm, lady in need of a room?”
She raised a brow. See? We must stop.
