Page 65 of A Tempest of Desire
Twisting around, she leaned over and kissed her former lover on the cheek. “Goodbye, Hollie.”
His grin was small, as he nodded. “Be happy, Marlowe.”
She knew he understood as well as she did that they were well and truly done.
She shoved herself out of her chair and began wending her way quickly through the crowd. A gentleman stepped into her path, and she skirted around him. He dogged her heels, waving a piece of paper at her side.
“I’ve written out all I would provide for you—”
“I’m not interested.”
“I’ll be very generous.”
“No, thank you.”
“Women praise my bed play skills.”
“Leave me the hell alone.”
She quickened her pace, going at a faster clip, almost a run. He was halfway to the door. “Langdon!”
He stopped, held still for three of her heartbeats, before finally turning around. Reaching him, she staggered to a stop. She had a thousand questions for him. But suddenly not a damned one mattered.
In spite of having just lost at the gaming table, he was looking at her with desire in his eyes. She wondered if he’d always have desire for her. She would for him. It was the reason tonight had been such torment. She could choose any man in this room. But her decision had been made before she’d ever arrived here tonight.
Her smile came slowly, almost bashfully, small at first until it bloomed full, brilliant, and, she dearly hoped, inviting. In spite of the dimness of the lighting—why were pleasurable pursuits always wrapped in shadows—she could see the fire of desire igniting over his features.
His hand cradled the side of her neck, his thumb stroking the underside of her jaw, tipping her head back slightly as he pulled her near and captured her mouth with a low growl that reverberated against the fingers she pressed to his chest and quietened all the other sounds surrounding her.
He was all that mattered. He’d always been all that mattered. From the moment she’d awakened to the sight of his bare backside—no, from the moment he’d sat down across from her at a gaming table all those months ago. She’d been restless since then, not certain why she was suddenly so discontent with her life.
Now she knew it was because he hadn’t been part of it. Not for any length of time.
As he’d promised, the kiss wasn’t gentle. It was hungry, starving in fact, his mouth feasting on hers as if in celebration of some magnificent discovery. She loved the taste of him, plaited through with scotch, a dark promise of desires to be fulfilled.
His arm came around her, crushed her against his chest. His mouth left hers to travel along her throat until he pressed his heated, moist mouth just below her ear. His breaths were coming in and out like heaving bellows. “I want to bloody audition.”
As though he needed to, as though anyone could compare.
“Take me to your residence,” she ordered.
She’d thought they’d separate and he’d offer his arm. Instead, he lifted her off her feet and cradled her against his chest. As he strode from the room, she wound her arms around his neck and settled her head into the curve of his shoulder. She cared not one whit that there was certain to be gossip on the morrow.
In a far corner, at a card table where he had promised not to cheat, and had kept to that promise for three dealt hands, Stuart Langdon was sorry to see the most entertaining aspect of the evening come to a close as his brother carried Marlowe from the room where every gentleman had gone completely still and stared—most of them enviously, he was rather certain—the moment his brother’s mouth had landed on Marlowe’s.
“Now, gents,” he began, hoping to snap themback to attention, “at last you know why I didn’t make a play for Marlowe. And for those of you silly enough to wager that you’d be going home with her tonight”—he snapped his fingers and held out his hands—“I’ll collect what I am owed on the wagers I made with you that you wouldn’t.”
Groans echoed all around as he gathered up his winnings. Just as he’d known none of them would go home with her, he’d known she’d choose none of them. He’d seen the way she looked at his brother when they were at the estate in Cornwall. He was rather certain Ollie had ruined any other man for her.
He was also rather certain she’d ruined any other woman for Ollie.
What he didn’t know, and wasn’t yet ready to wager on, was what they were going to do about their fixation with each other in the long term.
As his carriage traveled through the London streets, Langdon paid no attention to anything other than the woman on his lap and the mouth moving so provocatively over his. As he had that night at the estate, he began locating and removing her hairpins until her tresses tumbled down around her shoulders. He knotted his fingers in the long strands, pulled her back slightly, and took his lips along a heated exploration of her throat.
“I am so grateful you didn’t cut your hair when it was so tangled the night of the storm,” he growled.
She laughed, and he thought he’d never tire of hearing her laugh.
