His shirt was open.
He wore no cravat.
She was touching his chest.
Realizing the impropriety of the situation—and recalling she was angry with him—she attempted to draw away with such haste, she tripped over one of his feet and nearly went sprawling to the floor.
Hertford had quick reflexes, even in the lack of light, and he caught her, holding her to him.
“Steady,” he said, his voice low and delicious.
The rumble of it beneath her fingertips was temptation incarnate. Much like the man himself. Why did he have to smell so wonderful? Why did he have to be so solid and masculine?
“Forgive me my clumsiness,” she murmured, reluctant to extricate herself as the reminder of the word which had sent her fleeing from her chamber echoed in her mind once more.
Ruin.
There was so much at stake.
For her brother. For her sisters. For Eugie herself.
She should go. Turn and flee back to the safety of her chamber. But doing wrong had never been so tempting. Never so alluring. Sin had a face and a name, and it was the beautiful Earl of Hertford, enrobed in darkness.
“Eugie?” he asked, surprise coloring his voice. “I ought to have known it would be you.”
She was dismayed she had recognized him in the dearth of light when he had failed to do the same with her. “What do you mean, you ought to have known it would be me? I will have you know, I make no habit of wandering about in the night.”
“You had damned well better not,” he growled.
He sounded frustrated. The same way she felt. All the emotions and sensations rioting within her were heightened in the inkiness of the night, alone with the earl, his male warmth seeping into her.
“Why?” she whispered, a new, distinctly unwise ribbon of daring unfurling within her.
His hands were gliding over her lower back now, moving in a slow seduction she had no desire to stay. “A lady should never go wandering in the night. She could cross paths with the wrong man.”
She tipped her head back, trying to find the familiar planes and angles of his face. But there were no windows in this interior hall, no silver moonlight to aid her. She wanted his lips. His mouth was near enough, his breath fanned over hers in the fleeting promise of a kiss.
“Are you the wrong man, my lord?” she asked, keeping her voice low and hushed.
Anyone could come upon them at any moment.
Somehow, the knowledge made molten warmth pool between her thighs. Her body felt heavy and languorous, weighed down by desire. Her hands traveled too, tracing the strength and breadth of his shoulders. He was not wearing a coat or waistcoat. Nothing to separate him from her save the fine lawn of his shirt.
“Every bit as much as you are the wrong woman,” he rasped.
She reminded herself she owed him a harangue. That he believed the worst of her. He believed the baron’s lies were the truth. But somehow, not even that could keep her caress from wandering up his neck, or her fingers from sinking into his hair. It was silky and thick.
His head lowered.
Her lips parted.
He already believed her ruined. What was the harm in one more kiss? Just one. If she was to continue with her plan of ferreting out the suitors with sinful intentions from amongst the gentlemen in attendance, surely she could kiss the earl and then walk away, finding the library as had been her initial intention.
That was what she told herself until the moment his mouth slanted over hers. Until he took her lips with such possessive intensity, everything inside her melted. The resistance. All the ire. Even the pride, gone. All of it. And she was kissing him back, and his tongue was in her mouth, and her ability to think anything vanished.
There was only hunger.
Need.
Desperation.
In her hands, in his. They turned as one, until her back was against the wall, and his big, hard body held her there, his willing captive. He dragged his mouth down her throat. “Go back to your chamber, Eugie.”
The directive was as dark as the night. Tinged with danger. But with promise too, and it was the latter she heeded.
She grasped his hair. It was longer than it had felt beneath her gloves, softer too. The shape of his head seemed perfect beneath her wandering fingers. His mouth opened on her skin, his teeth gently nipping the vee of her shoulder and neck, just where her night rail’s prim collar ended.
“Perhaps you should go…” Her words trailed off when his thigh wedged itself between hers.
Instinctively, she rocked against him, and the sensation that exploded in her core was so intense, she could not resist moving again. Her dressing gown parted. Her night rail was a barrier she did not want. Too much fabric between her body and that rigid, warm thigh.
But she did not have long to worry, for his hand grasped a fistful of fabric, lifting it higher. Cool air kissed her bare calf, her knee, and then a hot hand glided over her skin, chasing the cold, making her flesh pebble with awareness. A shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with the December night and everything to do with the man set upon devouring her.
She loved his hands on her. His scent surrounding her. Loved how firm he was. All the places where he was so different from her: his strong arms, his taut abdomen, the coarse stubble of whiskers on his jaw. The contrast between man and woman had never before been so delicious. So decadent.
Why had she been determined to harangue him? Why had she promised Grace she would not kiss him again?
She could not recall. She did not care. Eugie was coming to life in the shadows, her body awakened in a way it never before had. The ache between her thighs became a steady throb. Her breasts felt heavy, her nipples tightening into hardened buds. The friction of her night rail against them felt wicked and wonderful as she moved. She wanted him to touch her there.
And then, the worst part of her imagined what it would be like for him to use his mouth upon her aching flesh. The thought made her hungry, but not in a sense she had ever known before. It made her ache for the maleness of him. All his sharpness and hard edges. His ridges and strength. She knew enough from her discussions with Lady Emilia and the naughty books Christabella had obtained that she understood what happened when a man and woman were intimate.
He would put himself inside her. And she wanted that. It was the reason for the ache, the hollowness which needed to be filled. She moved over his thigh, seeking relief. Seeking something only he could give.
“Eugie.” Her name was part groan. Half prayer.
In his decadent baritone, it rumbled with carnality. She felt like a goddess. And he was worshiping at her altar. Touching her, leaving fire in his wake. The knot holding her dressing gown in place loosened. The garment gaped, and then her hem went higher still, while his nimble fingers worked the buttons on the modest neckline of her night rail. One by one they slid from their moorings. His lips chased each new inch of skin he revealed, kissing down her throat, past her collarbone.
His thigh moved, and she mourned the loss of him between her legs until his hand was there, his fingers delving into her tender flesh where she hungered for him most.
Two gasps rent the night, one his, one hers.
“You’re drenched, darling.”
And she was. And he had called her darling. He did not mean it. She did not care. His blunt-tipped fingers parted her and made the most astounding revelation: a place on her body capable of more pleasure than she had imagined existed. He found a particularly sensitive spot, swirling a caress over it that made her knees give out and a sob flee her lips.
He was there to catch her. To kiss her. To swallow her cry and keep her from falling to the floor. She kissed him back, clutching him with all the desire flooding her. Until she felt him stiffen, and he tore his mouth away.
A low curse fell between them.
“What—”
He pressed a finger over her lips, stilling her words. “Hush. I heard a door open. Footsteps. Come.�
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Somehow, her fingers connected with his, and they interlaced just before he began tugging her wildly through the hall. She hoped he knew where he was going better than she. A creak in the hall somewhere behind them alerted her they were not alone. Her heart was pounding, her body peculiarly alive with a combination of fear and desire.
In a blink, they reached a door with a thin slat of light glowing beneath it. He hauled it open and pulled her over the threshold, closing the door quickly, almost soundlessly. She stood at his side, their fingers still entwined. In the warm glow of the brace of candles left burning in the chamber, she could not help but to admire the figure he cut. He was taller than most gentlemen, with long legs encased in breeches. In nothing but his white shirt, he looked almost raffish.
Like a highwayman of old.
“Hertford,” she began, but he hushed her with a finger to her lips.
Beyond the door, the unmistakable creak of footsteps sounded down the hall.
Someone else was definitely awake despite the lateness of the hour. And that particular someone else was wandering the halls. Which meant their chances of getting caught were greatly increased.
Still, she did not care for the manner in which he had silenced her. Perhaps it was the revelation of their encounter in the hall, perhaps it was the lack of sleep making her bold. She did not know. But the pad of his finger remained firmly upon the center of her lips.
So she did the only thing she could think of doing as she stood in a chamber—Lord knew whose it was, but she hoped it was his—thoroughly kissed, half-undressed, and teeming with unanswered desire.
She licked his finger.
His attention had been toward the door, but she had all of it now. That hazel gaze was upon her. Searing her. At last, she had what the murk had denied her: the masculine beauty of his face. She could not look away.
And then, her tongue darted out once more. The taste of him was musky. His eyes grew hooded. The air between them was once more filled with tension, rather like the summer sky before a bolt of lightning tore across the stormy blue.
His finger slipped past her lips, into her mouth. She sucked on it.
A low sound emerged from him. “Do you taste yourself?” he whispered.
Surely this was the height of wickedness. She was alone with the Earl of Hertford, his finger in her mouth, the same finger he had used to pleasure her in the hall. The muskiness on his skin was hers.
She ought to be disgusted. Ashamed. Shocked.
But his eyes were burning into hers, and he withdrew his finger from her mouth, then used the wetness of her saliva to paint over her lower lip. “You should not be here.”
No, she should not. She should not have done any number of things with this man. Kissed him. Been alone with him. Allowed him to lift her skirts. To touch her intimately. To believe the worst of her, which he still surely did. Somehow, it did not matter that much, not with longing coursing through her veins, wickedness making her weak, her heart pounding, her body aflame. Not when he was near, when her ability to think dissipated.
With great effort, she reminded herself he thought she was ruined. He thought the rumors which had been spread about her were true. But then, she remembered, so did half of London.
“Whose chamber is this?” she asked instead of stopping him. Instead of putting an end to this madness.
“Mine,” he told her softly, his finger still gliding from left to right over her lip, his gaze yet burning into hers.
His.
Which meant no one would interrupt them.
Which meant…
Danger.
Temptation.
“I should go,” she whispered.
“You should wait,” he countered. “Whoever is moving about in the halls could return at any moment.”
He stepped closer to her.
She met him. Their bodies collided. And then he was cupping her jaw, kissing her sweetly. Tenderly. Deeper. He licked past the seam of her lips, running his tongue along hers.
Eugie’s arms wound around his neck. She was not going anywhere. Did not want to. Her tongue ran against his. They were moving again, but this time it was not toward a wall. It was toward the rumpled bed her frantic eyes had spotted in the shadows.
She knew it. Did not stop it. In fact, she wanted it.
All her life, she had lived in the shadow of being a Winter. Wealthy but reviled. Scorned for her name rather than who she was. And later, thanks to the baron, scorned for lies he had invented to humiliate her after she had denied his suit.
But here she was, the wickedest of the Winters, desired by an earl. The reasons were all wrong, but the desire was not. The desire was real and strong and overwhelming. And so, when they traveled all the way to his bed, and when the backs of her thighs connected with the giving edge of the mattress, she did not protest, because it—he—was what she wanted.
His kisses, his touch, him. Everything. Whatever it would mean.
The Earl of Hertford had the most unusual ability to set her aflame, and she did not want it to end. Not his touch. Not his kiss. Not this night.
They were still kissing as they fell to the bed together. He braced himself over her on his forearms, keeping the full weight of his body from slamming into her with their undignified landing. She giggled up at him, linked her arms around his neck, and then the time for levity was done.
His mouth swooped back down on hers. He kissed her as if he could not resist, as if he needed to drink from her lips. It was a union of tongues and mouths, the scrape of teeth. Primal. Powerful.
A new wave of sensation hit her, like the crashing furor of the ocean in the midst of a maelstrom. Dev had taken them all to Brighton once, and a storm had been brewing, which had rendered bathing in the ocean entirely impossible. But watching the waves had been beautiful. Shocking. Life at its rawest and fullest capacity.
Which was how she felt now, in this moment. She was a tempest which had been brewing for years. The Earl of Hertford was the powder keg that had been sparked into flame. And she was burning for him. Alight and so very alive.
Either she would douse his flames, or he would burn her up, for they were not meant for each other. She knew it. He had said it. And yet, they could not resist each other. She could not return to her chamber as she ought. And she could not stop touching him, kissing him.
But she was in good company, for neither could he.
Somehow, they wrestled her free of her dressing gown while she was still on her back. Then his shirt, too, was gone, pulled over his head and tossed to the floor. His chest was a revelation. In the soft glow of the light, she could at last see what she had felt in the hall. Dark springs of curls dotted his chest. His muscles were clearly delineated bands on his abdomen.
She ran her hand up and down his bare chest, absorbing every sinew, every rigid slab. He was warm and smooth and vital, his body tensing beneath her questing touch.
Wrong had never felt so deliciously, wickedly right.
Chapter Seven
Cam had to stop kissing Miss Eugie Winter.
He would stop kissing her, he promised himself. After just one more. And another.
Soon.
Or perhaps later. What was the harm in lingering with her just a bit longer? In allowing just a few more liberties after so many boundaries had been crossed between them, not just this night but on previous occasions?
Besides, she felt far too good in his arms. Far too right in his bed. Her lips were made for his, and they were currently kissing him back with all the need firing his blood. Her tongue touched his, and he was nearly gone. About to spend into his breeches like a callow lad.
He forgot about propriety. Ignored the rules. He had devoted his life to living above reproach. He had cultivated his reputation. Had never brought one moment of shame upon his mother, upon himself.
Why, then, should he utterly lose control now? It made no sense, the power this woman had over him. The power to change him, to make him want to take
every risk just to keep her here in his arms, in his bed, her lips and body beneath his just a bit longer…
It was dangerous, to be sure. She was temptation incarnate.
Her body beneath his was supple and welcoming, her thighs bracketing his. She was learning his bare chest, setting him aflame. Her small hands, her delicate fingers, the tentative yet sure manner in which she touched him… Christ, it was enough to make him lose himself.
His ballocks were already drawn tight, his cock rigid against the fall of his breeches from their encounter in the hall. The way she had moved on his thigh, coating his breeches with her dew.
He groaned into her mouth as he kissed her. Bloody hell, he would never forget the night he had met Miss Eugie Winter in a darkened hall and had nearly taken her then and there.
He wanted to take her now.
God, how he wanted.
But he knew he must not.
He would stop this madness.
Except his hands seemed to have a mind of their own. They wanted what they wanted. Eugie’s skin. They fisted in her night rail, and then pulled it up. She writhed beneath him, helping him to draw the diaphanous fabric over her head. And then she was naked in his bed.
Her breasts were even larger than they had looked, trapped in the confines of her bodice. Pale and round. Her nipples were hard little buds prodding the air like offerings. He lowered his head, drew one between his lips, and sucked. The moan that left her sent another arrow of need to his cock.
He flicked his tongue over her, swirled it around the peak of her breast, as if he had all night to savor her. Which he did not. And this was wrong. He must put an end to it. The Earl of Hertford did not dally with unwed females. He bedded seasoned courtesans. He avoided scandal.
His hand craved the velvet softness of Eugie’s curves. He found her other nipple, nipping it with his teeth, as his fingers dipped into her folds. She was wetter than she had been in the hall, her essence coating him, taunting him. He teased her pearl, petting it in light strokes until she jerked against his hand, straining for more.
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