mouths in lieu of taking further liberties.
As Joseph kissed Winn, his nostrils were filled with her flower-sweet scent. The taste of her was a surprise, rather like cinnamon, as if she'd been chewing spiced gum. As he enfolded her in his arms, he forced his kiss to remain gentle, swallowing the sounds of rising amourousness that wanted to murmur from his throat. The smooth cool texture of his own gabardine jacket across her shoulder blades created a desire to jerk it from her and feel her warm skin instead. But she clutched the lapels as ordered, and Joseph thought, thank God.
He kissed the way he flirted-persuasively, skillfully, beguilingly. He was a head mover and a tongue teaser. A stroker. A talented refined stroker, she could tell already, though it was only her tongue receiving his rapt attention, only her shoulders he caressed. He'd had plenty of practice at this, she was certain. But maybe that's what made him so adept.
The hand on her neck was doing delightful things to the soft hollow up its center, then behind her left ear, and he'd managed to insert his fingers within the lace about her throat. But with its limited space the edge of the opening cut tightly at her Adam's apple, as if someone were tightening a single string about her neck.
She reached up to pull his hand away, for the cinching was making it more difficult than ever to breathe normally. But in the middle of the motion she changed her mind and did what she wanted to do more than anything else in the world at this moment: she flung her arms about his neck and sent the jacket falling to the dusty floor.
Surprised, he lifted his head for a second. His eyes were only two dim circles of shadow, but his breath was warm upon her nose. 'Damn that man of yours,' he muttered. 'Doesn't he know better than to turn you loose on a night like this? Especially around a man like me?'
The reminder of Paul brought common sense rushing in, but before she could withdraw, Joseph embraced her again, tipping his head and meeting her lips with a series of brief plucking kisses, at the end of which he stroked the hollow beneath her lower lip with his tongue. Upon her back his hands wandered freely, inside the slitted lace, up her shoulder blade, under the spindly spaghetti strap, then back down, inside the dress top.
She trembled and tried again to pull away, but his head followed, and his tongue moved along the secret valley just inside her upper lip, tickling the sensitive frenulum, then sliding along her gums. She shuddered harder and raised up on tiptoe, wishing he'd tighten his grip around her waist. But he held her lightly, as if not trusting himself to totally eradicate the narrow space between their hips. She felt his hands shift, then both of them went to the nape of her neck, and he slipped the hook from the eye. Her lace drooped. He eased it forward and lifted both his hands to her elbows, forcing her to drop her arms from around his neck so the bodice could fall free, all the time nibbling and teasing her lips. When she stiffened and began to pull back sharply, he commanded her to stay, clasping the back of her head, pushing the lace overbodice down.
She felt his warm palms slide down the angles of her neck, across her shoulders, easing from them the thin straps that fluttered, then hung loose across her biceps.
She pressed a palm to his ruffles and freed her lips. 'Joseph, stop. This is madness.'
'Yes, I know…' He kissed the crest of her cheek. He nipped her earlobe. He whispered directly into her ear, 'Winn, you smell like heaven. Forgive me if I can't help wondering what you taste like.' The tip of his tongue wet the skin just behind her ear. Goose bumps shimmied up her belly, and she dropped her jaw onto her collarbone to free her neck to his warm lips and tongue.
His fingertips skimmed up her bare arms, jumping over the straps, then finding her warmth again and riding it around the perimeter of her dress top to the back zipper.
'Joseph, please stop,' she pleaded.
'In a minute… shh.'
Her head felt weightless, but her lower extremities suddenly grew as heavy as if she were experiencing labor pains. Everything surged and thrust against the juncture of her legs and left her wanting a corresponding upward pressure to relieve the burdensome weightiness. She felt the liquid musings of her body and heeded their warning, turning aside, backing away, denying herself the pleasure she knew could be found beneath Joseph Duggan's hands.
He clasped her elbow to stop her from running. 'You're not married to him yet.'
'But I'm promised. And I'm breaking that promise.'
'Maybe it should never have been made.'
'Don't try to justify this, Joseph. It's wrong.'
'I want to touch you.'
'I know, but if you do…' She left the thought dangling, but more explicit than if she'd completed it. She gasped faintly. 'Oh, Joseph… please don't…' But she was adrift in ecstasy, and her voice fell still as her head tolled slightly to one side and back. How could a single finger raise such stirrings of desire?
He slipped it inside the stiff cup of her merry widow and trailed it along, from just under her armpit to the heart-shaped dip at the center of the garment, not quite touching her nipple as he passed.
'You have wonderful skin. Hard, firm, toned-I love the feel of it. I'd begun to think there was no part of you that was soft, but I've found one soft place.' The finger made its return journey but stopped at the nipple and bent the stiff cup downward as he rubbed the erect tip with the backs of his fingers only. 'Mmm… I spoke too soon.'
She was shriveled and goose bumped-it was cold in the March air, and what Joseph Duggan was doing wasn't helping matters at all. She conjured up a picture of Paul's face and backed away, taking Joseph's hand from her breast, folding it between her palms.
'Put my dress back the way you found it. I don't want to walk around with a guilt complex for the next three months.'
'Why should you feel guilty? Engagements are meant to give a man and woman time to decide if they've made the right choice. Maybe you're learning here.'
'And maybe you're just justifying again.'
His warm palms now contoured her ribs. 'I'm enormously attracted to you, Winn Gardner. What should a man do about a thing like that? Let it go unexplored? What if-'
'And what if this were just a… a passing urge? It's part of the mood of a wedding, wouldn't you say? People get caught up by romance when they see a bride and groom walk down the aisle. They do as Rodgers and Hart put it-'falling in love with love.' And we were more susceptible than most because we walked down that same aisle ourselves.'
'Winn, your first impression of me-'
'Shh. Let me finish. You and I are different today than we'd be on a normal day. We're wearing luscious clothes that carry us away from the present and sweep us to the past, just as the ride in your car did. At times today I've even experienced the weird feeling that I'm living in my second life, that I've been reincarnated, and this-' she gestured and looked up '-this gazebo and your Haynes and my Gibson Girl look are all part of the time in which I lived before. That's why it felt so familiar, returning to it again. But, Joseph, that's not true. You and I have to be more careful than most on a day like today. We have to see things for what they truly are.' She slipped her spaghetti straps up. 'You know what they say about spring and a young man's fancy, don't you?' She turned her jaw aside, not quite glancing back at him. He rested his hands on her hipbones.
'No, I've forgotten. What do they say?'
'You know perfectly well what they say, but I'll repeat it, anyway, since it applies. 'In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.''
He watched as she inserted her arms into the lace overbodice, dropped her chin to her chest and lifted her arms. Joseph moved to find hook and eye and close them. As he did, her fragrant hair brushed his nose, and it took stern discipline to obey her wishes. But he bent and retrieved his jacket from the floor and draped it across her shoulders again. She clutched it from inside as before, then turned to face him.
'I'm your spring fancy tonight, Joseph Duggan. And before either one of us gets carried away any further, I think we'd both better admit this is more mood than anything else.'
He considered her words. She might very well be right. He'd never been affected by a woman quite this suddenly, quite this strongly. He was twenty-seven and had sampled his share of feminine companions, and the one before him now raised his sexual thermometer more rapidly than any he'd met. Was it the occasion? The hat? The hair? The dress? The car? Even his own tuxedo and ruffles and shiny shoes, so different from his usual mode of dress?
