Page 22 of Let Me Be Your Hero
“Perfect. That’s what I’ll do.”
They lapsed into silence. After a moment, Izzie chuckled. “Look at us. I didn’t drag you out here so we could sit here, feeling morose.”
His heartbeat ratcheted up a notch. “Why did you drag me out here, then?”
She looked up at him, her eyes both eager and shy. “I dragged you out here hoping you would kiss me aga—”
His lips were on hers before she could even finish the sentence.
CHAPTER 10
The first time Archibald had kissed her, it had been so good that Izzie wondered if she’d dreamed the whole thing up.
She hadn’t. This time was just as good. Although it was… different.
It took her a moment to pinpoint what it was. His lips were still hot and greedy against hers, making her head swirl.
But he wasn’t touching her anywhere else.
She peeked down and saw that he was gripping the sides of the stone bench with white knuckles.
“Touch me,” she whispered, stroking her fingertips across his jaw, which felt smooth but was already showing a touch of shadow.
He was breathing hard. “I can’t.”
She trailed kisses up his jawline toward his ear. “You can. I want you to.”
He gasped. “I can’t. I want you”—he moaned as she nipped his earlobe—“too much. I’m afraid I’ll forget myself again, the way I did last night.”
She smiled against his cheek. “I liked it when you forgot yourself.”
“It wasn’t… wasn’t proper.”
She pulled back enough to give him a wry look. “Do I strike you asproper?”
He didn’t seem to have an answer for that, which was just as well because she was already kissing him again. But this time, she had a new purpose.
She was going to make him break.
“You don’t mind,” she said between kisses, “if I touch you, do you?”
“No,” he gasped. “No, that’s fin—”
He moaned instead of finishing his sentence because that was the moment she slid into his lap, pressing her body against his.
He wasn’t wearing a coat, as he’d given it to her, which meant that his perfectly sculpted torso was separated from her eager fingers by only the thin linen of his shirt.
“Izzie,” he gasped as she explored absolutely every inch of his magnificent chest and arms. When she reached his forearms, she found them hard as iron as he clung to the bench for dear life. Smiling into his neck, she tickled the inside of his wrist, and he let go for a fraction of a second. But he managed to wrap his fingers around the edge of the bench again.
She was already moving on, sweeping her hands over his bulging biceps to the breadth of his shoulders.God, she wanted to see what he looked like without a shirt on. Just the thought had her squirming in his lap.
His waistcoat was in her way, so she unbuttoned it, leaving it to sag open. She trailed her fingers across the broad planes of his chest and down to his stomach, which was as hard as the stone bench and covered with fascinating ridges. By now, he was gritting his teeth and moaning as if he were in agony. And perhaps he was, but she hoped it was agony of the very best kind.
She tugged the hem of his shirt free from his breeches and slipped her hand beneath the linen. She could feel a trail of hair running down the center of his stomach, but otherwise his skin was warm and as smooth as satin. Fascinated, she shifted her leg so she was straddling him, all the better to explore this brave new world with both hands.
His eyes were squeezed shut as she slid her hands higher and higher, and his body had gone as hard as sculpted marble. When she found his nipples beneath his shirt and traced them with curious fingers, he made a sound that was more animal than human. She stayed there a moment, torturing him, then continued to sweep her fingers over his magnificent shoulders.
She stroked back downward, fascinated by the bulges that covered his stomach. Although… those weren’t the only bulges that interested her. From her vantage point in his lap, she could feel a certain part of him straining toward her beneath the falls of his trousers.
