Page 42 of The Rogue's Last Scandal
“Were you spying on the Continent?”
She was far too perceptive. She asked far too many questions. He moved closer. “Never did I doubt your intelligence, Graciela.” He slid a finger under her chin and tilted her head up. “But from the moment you fainted at your betrothal ball, I knew you were also a woman of great drama and passion.”
He pressed his lips to hers, finally.Finally.She was soft and warm and smelled like woman.
He kept the kiss tender and brief, and set his forehead against hers. “And when I saw you in Lord Kingsley’s kitchen covered in blood, I knew you were resourceful and brave.” One hand slid to the back of her head, the other around her waist, and he swept her into a kiss that tasted like sweet mint.
She didn’t pull away, wonder of wonders.
He eased closer and deepened the kiss. Her lips opened only a fraction, enough for him to touch his tongue to hers, and he fought the urge to wrap her up and enfold her, to devour her, to force her.
She turned her head and opened her neck to him. His touch there made her shiver and he knew she enjoyed it.
“I should like to hear about your spying, Mr. Everly.”
“Call me Charley,” he mumbled against her neck.
She huffed out a breath. “Charley.”
No fight about that? When he looked, her lips had formed a dreamy half-smile, and he was instantly alert, the brain in his head trying to master the smaller one between his legs.
It was the same expression on a lady he’d met in Vienna, right before she’d stabbed him.
“Will you tell me?” she asked.
A Spanish woman, wealthy and beautiful, the key to a spy.
He hadn’t felt any weapons. “I would rather kiss you awhile first.”
Her eyes darkened, and her lips opened and closed. The spy, if she was that, would want information, but the woman would rather kiss than talk.
And the woman really did want respect. That pronouncement had been heartfelt. He pressed his forehead to hers again and breathed in her scent.
Egad, but she was lovely.
“I was a mere secretary to an official delegation. Discussing treaties and what not. Of course, I was there on behalf of England, and what I heard in the course of social events, I must pass on.”
“Passing on gossip. That is all this spying is?”
The incredulity in her eyes told him she was merely a curious woman, not a spy. He pulled her head onto his shoulder and worked his fingers under the plaited hair, loosening it, massaging her scalp. “It is a boring life.”
He became aware of her arms circling his waist, and sliding up his back. With no coats, only the fine linen of his shirt separated his hot skin from her cool touch. The minx. Perhaps shewassome sort of seductress, but for whom, and after what?
“I don’t believe you, Mr. Everly.”
He nuzzled her neck and felt a shudder go through her.
“Graciela, it is a matter of honor to keep secrets entrusted to one.”
“And you are a man of honor.”
“Yes. And I have a great deal of respect for you.”
“Especially in this moment.” Her voice shook. “You are holding me quite closely and you are...aroused.”
Her breathless declaration stirred him anew. Pressed against her like this, the need to rip her clothes off and enter her pounded through him. There was a sofa here. But her poor back—no, he could lift up her skirts, bend her over a desk, part her legs and...
And he would be no better than Carvelle. And she was too young, and no matter the state of her virginity, too inexperienced, too worthy of a kinder introduction. Such ravishment should come later, when she truly knew he respected her. When she trusted him.
