Her head came up, eyes blazing. “He did
not
wound my feelings. I was merely explaining why his compliments were insincere.”
“Even if he didn’t marry you, that doesn’t mean his time with you was all a lie.”
“Doesn’t it?” She looked at him a long moment, and then a mask came down over her generally open features. “Oh, you wouldn’t understand. Not an
honest
man like you.”
He could swear he heard sarcasm in her voice.
She went on quickly. “Compliments that sound perfectly natural and unstudied don’t trip off
your
tongue as they did off your brother’s.”
“I thought my compliments tripped off my tongue very well just now,” he snapped.
“Yes, but not when compared to your brother. You’re too honest to comprehend how a deceitful man can flatter so sincerely that a woman can’t help but trust him.
You
rely on stock phrases like ‘your hair is the color of spun gold’ and ‘your skin is soft as swansdown,’ which is natu
ral for a man whose experience with women is so limited.”
By thunder, the woman knew how to prick a man’s pride. Stock phrases, indeed. “See here, those weren’t
my
compliments—they were examples of what other men might say. And ‘limited experience’ doesn’t mean I’ve spent the past thirty years in a monastery, for God’s sake. It merely means I haven’t run after every woman in petticoats.”
“Of course,” she said with a dainty wave of her hand. “And I’m sure the women you meet out here don’t mind if your compliments aren’t smooth or clever—”
“So now I’m an imbecile, am I?” he growled.
She whirled away, but just before she did, he could have sworn she smiled. “I’m merely saying you’re not adept at deceiving women with flattery the way your brother was. It takes a certain sort of man to manage that—”
“A
clever
man, I suppose,” he ground out.
“A man of the world. You wouldn’t aspire to that sort of cleverness, would you?”
“Devil if I know.” He rubbed his temples. This entire conversation was giving him a headache. Why was it whenever she started comparing his two selves, Sebastian came off as a boring provincial idiot and “Morgan” as an unfeeling Continental blackguard? Neither of his incarnations escaped unscathed. And she did it so casually, too, as if oblivious to how she left him licking his wounds.
He’d think she was doing it on purpose, except that Juliet could never be that wily. Could she?
She stopped at the checkered marble table that held his grandfather’s onyx and silver chess pieces and began to move them about, reminding him of how well she’d played chess two years ago in the cottage. Hmm.
His eyes narrowed. “Let me see if I have this straight. You find me to be a proper, respectable imbecile—”
“I didn’t call you an imbecile.
You
said that, my lord.”
“Forgive me. A proper, respectable
gentleman
so lacking in cleverness that he spouts only clichés, and so inexperienced with women that he kisses very dull indeed—”
“Nor did I call your kisses dull.” She faced him warily, apparently beginning to sense the dangerous shift in his mood.
He stalked closer. “You called them ‘adequate,’ which is only one step above ‘dull’ as far as I’m concerned.”
She backed up a step. “I didn’t mean to insult you—”
“The devil you didn’t.” When she half stumbled over the chess table, he hauled her into his arms. “It’s only fair, madam, that you give me another chance to show you I’m not the inept idiot you take me for.”
Her cheeks reddened, and alarm spread over her pretty face. “Really, my lord, there’s nothing for you to prove.”
“Ah, but I think there is.”
He clasped her chin, but as he lowered his mouth to hers, she laid her small hand on his chest. “We agreed to no kissing.”
“
You
agreed. I agreed only to let you slap me. And so you may. After we’re done.” Then giving her no more time to protest, he covered her mouth with his.
He kept the kiss gentle at first, savoring the taste and scent of her…until he realized she wasn’t responding. Her stiff posture and clenched teeth were a measure of her determination to resist, but he wouldn’t let that stop him. His experience with women might be “limited,” but it was quality experience, and he’d be damned if he’d let her think otherwise.
He tried to deepen the kiss, but she wouldn’t let him. Only her fragile throat trembling beneath his splayed fingers gave any indication that he affected her. So he caressed it slowly, enjoying a moment’s triumph when she swallowed hard.
But that was all she gave him, standing there rigid in
his arms, refusing to unbend. His arousal thrummed heavily between his thighs as he pressed closer, hardening into her softness, seeking the essence of woman that had tantalized him for hours. Yet still she remained immobile, unmoved. It drove him insane.
He needed to distract her from whatever was making her determined not to respond. Because he was fairly sure it was a foolish reason, easily gotten over.
He drew back to find her gazing at him with an expression of false nonchalance. He knew it was false, because her chin quivered and her breath came decidedly faster than before. Besides which, she hadn’t slapped him.
“Are you…quite done?” she murmured shakily.
That was worse than any slap. By thunder, he’d breach her defenses if it took him all afternoon. “Not yet.” Reaching around her to the chess table, he grabbed three of the heavy silver pieces, then closed her hand around them. “Hold these. If you can.”
“Why?” she asked, even as her fingers automatically clutched them.
He smiled and seized three of the onyx pieces to press into her other hand. “Because I intend to prove that I can make your heart race and your bones melt.”
Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!
No glory lives behind the back of such.
William Shakespeare’s
Much Ado about Nothing,
embroidered onto a handkerchief by seventeen-year-old Juliet and given as a Christmas gift to her sister Rosalind, who loved the handkerchief and ignored the quotation
M
y bones melt?
Juliet thought in a panic, as Sebastian lowered his head again.
Then God help me.
His first kiss had sent her reeling. She’d tried blotting him out, thinking of complicated embroidery patterns and chess maneuvers. That had provided only a little relief. When he’d drawn back, she’d congratulated herself on her success.
She should have known he wouldn’t let it drop. His mouth was now even more of a temptation, despite his veering away from her lips to lavish kisses over other
parts of her—her pounding temples, her heated cheeks, her vulnerable neck. That he felt free to kiss every bare inch while she held his silly chess pieces made the whole thing seem indefinably more seductive. She should just drop them. She really should.
Yet she didn’t. For one thing, she refused to give him the satisfaction. That’s what he wanted, wasn’t it? To make her react? So if she stood here acting unaffected, surely he’d grow humiliated and give up.
Unfortunately, it was very hard to act unaffected when a handsome, virile man feathered kisses along one’s throat…trailed openmouthed caresses up one’s jaw line to one’s ears…then laved one’s ears with his tongue in a most outrageous manner.
Dear me, it was hot in here. And the room was spinning.
“You have the tastiest earlobes, Juliet.” When he actually nibbled at them with his teeth, it sent a surprising jolt right down her spine. His warm breath in her hapless ear spiked her pulse up a notch.
“Thinking with your st-stomach again?” she stammered as he kissed a path from her ear across her cheek and down.
“Not exactly.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “Though your lips are tasty, too. They’re so plump and tender, they make me very, very hungry.” He proceeded to outline them with slow, gentle kisses, never fully kissing her. It drove her mad.
“For a man who excels at firing pistols, your aim is very bad.” She’d meant it to be a dry, witty insult of his kissing that would stop the torture. Instead, it came out all husky and sensual, like an invitation.
And he took it that way, for he chuckled. “Then I’ll have to improve my trajectory,” he said, and moved the necessary inch to seal her mouth with his.
He wasn’t gentle this time, or sweet.
Hungry
was the word, so hungry it roused her hunger, too. This kiss demanded respect, no doubt about it. His mouth took, and
she gave, as simple as that. Already primed by his other tempting kisses, she fell into this one with ridiculous ease. And when he sought again to deepen it, she could no more stop him than she could stop snow from falling.
That’s when it got interesting. He seduced her mouth so expertly, he had her uttering sounds she didn’t know she could make, going soft in parts of her body that had never done so. The longer he kissed her, with those deep, stunning kisses that stole her will, the more she craved them. Sebastian had certainly perfected this intimate kissing business. He mightn’t be a rake like his father, but he was still his father’s son.
Suddenly, his hand slipped up to gauge the madly beating pulse at her neck. “I believe your heart is racing, sweeting,” he murmured against her mouth. “Check.”
She barely had time to ponder that odd comment before his hands began roaming, skimming down her waist and hips, traveling back up to dance along her ribs. In long, slowly widening strokes, his hands learned the contours of her body as surely as his lips and tongue learned her mouth. Soon she craved not only his kisses, but his caresses, too. He made her want to caress him back, to smooth her hands over his arms and chest and—
The soft thuds at her feet warned that she’d dropped the chess pieces. She didn’t care. She just wrapped her arms around his neck and held on.
He smiled down at her triumphantly. “There go the bones melting. That would be checkmate.” Then he proceeded to kiss her senseless again.
Even his arrogant comments didn’t dampen her enthusiasm. Delighted to have her hands empty once more, she took advantage of it to slide them inside his coat, between the layers of superfine and silk. It was warm in there, and his waistcoat fit him so well she could feel his muscles flex beneath the fabric, beneath the touch of her fingers.
Her hands grazed his ribs, and he groaned, then kissed her more fiercely.
But everything changed when he swept his hand down from her neck to cup her breast. At first, she was too lost in the kiss to notice. Then he began to knead and stroke her through the muslin, which was enough to drag her to her senses.
“Sebastian, stop that!” she cried as she shoved him away from her. “Whatever do you think you’re doing?” She backed up instinctively and knocked over the chess table. It hit the carpet with a muffled boom, pieces scattering everywhere.
He ignored it. His breath was labored, his eyes an intense, predatory black that made a wanton shiver snake down her spine. “I believe, madam, I’ve been proving I can kiss well enough even to suit your finicky tastes.”
She could hardly deny it. She’d responded to those kisses with all the enthusiasm of a wicked demi-rep. “That didn’t mean you should…that you could—”
“Even a respectable dullard of a gentleman gets carried away when a woman is letting him make her bones melt.”
Oh, how mortifying. She could already feel the blush rising in her cheeks.
He shoved his hands in his frock coat pockets as if afraid to leave them out where they might touch her again. “Or perhaps I’m simply not as ‘respectable’ as you took me for. Which should make our future lessons far more useful to you.”
“There will be no more future lessons of
that
sort,” she snapped.
“Is everything all right in here?” barked a voice from the doorway.
Juliet swung around to see Griff standing in the doorway.
Please don’t let him have seen us kissing,
she prayed.
She shot Sebastian a glance, only to find his gaze probing her face, as if he waited for her to tattle. But this was between the two of them and always had been. She’d handle this in her own way, in her own time.
Griff entered, his eyes shifting back and forth from her to Sebastian, whose grim expression showed a man determined to face the consequences of his actions.
It was a little late for that, she thought testily. He should have done it years ago.
“Hello, Griff.” She fought to sound normal, to scour the husky need from her voice. “We were just playing chess.”
When Sebastian glanced sharply at her, she answered him with a warning look. What did he expect—that she’d admit before her brother-in-law that she’d been allowing Sebastian to put his hands all over her?
Griff regarded the table and the scattered pieces with suspicion. “Chess?”
“I was winning.” Sebastian fixed his heated gaze on her. “I called checkmate and got Lady Juliet so agitated that she dropped some pieces. When she went to retrieve them, she knocked the table over. Now we’ll have to play again.”
Leave it to Lord Arrogant to trumpet his victory any way he could. And in the process make her sound like a ninny. “Considering my clumsiness, I don’t think that’s wise, do you?” Oh, why must she sound so breathy…and…and wanton? “I wouldn’t want to destroy your table.”
“I’d happily risk a broken table to make you feel at ease in my home, Lady Juliet.” Sebastian’s smoky voice swirled round her like a fragrant Oriental incense, offering temptation…oblivion…satisfaction.
She swallowed, reminded of his similar statement in his study:
I’ll risk a little pain to get what I want.
Why was that? He acted as if he wanted her when she
knew he didn’t. Was he simply too proud to accept that she mightn’t welcome his advances? Or was he trying to throw her off balance so she wouldn’t unmask him?
Lord knew he was devious enough for any such machinations.
Griff frowned at Sebastian. “My coachman tells me it’s warming sufficiently today to melt some of the snow. We ought to be able to leave by the day after tomorrow at the latest. I know you’re glad to hear that.”