Seduced at Midnight

more of him. She'd known he looked like adventure, smelled like adventure. Now she knew he tasted like it as well. Like a foreign land she'd always longed to explore but never thought she'd have the chance to visit.

His hands came forward to cradle her face, holding her immobile while he kissed her senseless. Breathless. She mimicked his every gesture, gliding her tongue over his, reaching up to touch her fingertips to his face-only to lament the fact that she couldn't feel his skin through her gloves. Any worry that her technique was lacking dissipated when he growled low in his throat and pressed his lower body into hers.

Heat whooshed through her at the feel of his hardness pinning her to the tree. Her entire body felt as if it had been awakened from a deep, cold sleep, and for the first time in her life she knew the overwhelming power of desire. She began to tremble, shake with this heady, incredible assault on her senses.

Engulfed in a haze of lust, Gideon deepened their kiss, his mind empty except for the single word pounding through him with every rapid thump of his heart. Julianne. Bloody hell, she tasted so damn good. Felt so damn good. Smelled so damn good-like a sweet treat he wanted to gobble up in two big bites.

A shaking sensation worked its way through the fog of want enshrouding him, clouding his better judgment, and he realized it was her. A small corner of his mind had noted with grim satisfaction her initial gentle shivers, but somewhere during their kiss they'd clearly grown into full-fledged shakes. He could feel them vibrating against his thighs, where his body pinned her against the tree. Beneath his hands, which held her head immobile. Against his lips that roughly ravaged hers.

With a groan of self-disgust, he broke off their kiss and stepped back. The instant his hands fell from her face, she slid several inches down the elm's trunk. Muttering an oath, he clasped her shoulders lest she slither all the way to the ground.

Bloody damn hell, now he'd done it. One touch, and he'd completely forgotten the sort of gently bred hothouse flower she was. Scared her to the point she couldn't stand up. What the devil had he been thinking?

Problem was, he hadn't been thinking-a constant difficulty around this woman. Bad enough he'd been such an idiot as to kiss her at all. But then he'd kissed her like a pillaging barbarian. No finesse, no gentleness-just taking. It had gone exactly the way he'd known it would if he were ever stupid enough to touch her: ten seconds of tenderness touching her face, then a total loss of the control he prided himself upon. And now he'd clearly frightened the bones from her knees.

He peered at her through the darkness, hoping to hell she wasn't going to fall victim to the vapors, and another groan rose in his throat. Rapid breaths puffed from between her kiss-swollen, moist, parted lips. She just looked so damn… kissable.

Yet her eyes remained closed, and tremors still racked her body, arousing his conscience-an inner voice he'd thought long dead-which lashed him with recriminations. For not sending her back to the party the second he found her. For that instant of weakness, of giving in to his overwhelming desire to touch her, taste her. For allowing himself to be drawn into an impossible situation.

That kiss, the feel of her softness pressed against him, her sweet scent surrounding him, her delicious taste flooding his senses, had all but brought him to his knees. That kiss had done nothing to appease his hunger for her. No, instead, his previous cravings paled to nothingness compared to the ravenous appetite for her now scraping at him.

What a bloody idiot he was.

Her eyes blinked slowly open, and she gazed at him with a glazed expression. She was still shaking, but at least she hadn't swooned. Yet. She slowly moistened her lips, a leisurely lick that tightened his fingers on her shoulders and swelled him against his breeches-something he wouldn't have thought possible, as he was already harder than a brick.

'Why… why did you…'

Ruthlessly pushing away the desire clawing at him, he braced himself for a barrage of outraged recriminations-which, in spite of his warning to her, he deserved for the way he'd all but mauled her.

'Stop?'

He blinked. 'Why did I stop?'

Again she licked her lips-a fascinating gesture he longed to study at length-and gave a limp-necked nod. 'Why did you stop?'

'You were shaking. I frightened you.'

'I was shaking… but you didn't frighten me.'

Realization dawned with another swift stab of lust. She hadn't trembled with fear but with desire. Before he could fully wrap his mind around the idea, she reached out and grabbed his lapels. Yanked hard, but certainly not hard enough to move him had he chosen to remain in place.

But the knife-sharp desire to feel her again cleaved through his common sense, and he stepped forward. His body brushed against hers, and if he'd been capable of levity, he would have laughed at how profoundly that whisper of a touch affected him.

She tilted her head back and looked at him with those beautiful eyes, glowing with what he now recognized as arousal, and whispered, 'More.' The word was half tremulous request, half impatient demand.

'Given my penchant for summing things up in one word, I must admit that more is an excellent choice.'

Indeed, perhaps there was a living, breathing man capable of refusing her, but Gideon sure as hell wasn't that man. And even if desire wasn't compelling him to this madness, his own pride would have done so. He simply had to kiss her again if for no other reason than to redeem himself-to prove to himself that he could do so without losing control. And to teach this temptress a lesson: that dangers lurked in the dark. That in the future she needed to remain within the safe confines of the drawing room.

Pulling her away from the tree, he turned them so that his back rested against the rough trunk. Spreading his legs, he drew her into the V of his thighs, a place where she fit so perfectly and felt so damn good it seemed as if she were molded precisely for him. He ran his hands down her back, pressing her closer, then lowered his head.

He brushed his lips over hers, once, twice, forcing himself to gently explore where last time he'd simply plundered. He circled her full, parted lips, drinking in her breathy sighs. Shoving back the urgency nipping at him, he slowly sank deeper into the kiss, his tongue savoring the sweet taste of her. Her arms slid over his shoulders, and she seemed to simply dissolve into him, wax melting from the inferno burning inside him.

She squirmed, and his erection jerked, effortlessly breaching the control he'd only seconds ago thought fully reinforced. His hips thrust slowly forward, a movement he was helpless to stop-a fact that irritated and alarmed him. Bloody hell, what was happening to him? What was this woman doing to him?

Grasping her shoulders, he set her firmly away from him, then released her as if she'd turned into a pillar fire. Which it seemed she was-and he was kindling.

'Enough,' he said in a rough voice he didn't recognize. She swayed a bit on her feet, and he moved several more steps away lest he be tempted to hold her again-like a spider falling into a deadly web. Damn distracting woman. He narrowed his eyes at her. 'I don't know what game you're playing, princess, but I assure you it's one you don't want to play with me.'

She stared at him for several seconds, and he could see her gathering herself. Wrapping her arms around her midsection, she lifted her chin to a regal angle. If he'd allowed it to, the unmistakable hurt in her eyes might have taken the edge off his annoyance. But it was far wiser for him to concentrate on that annoyance. At her, for coming out here and tempting him with her incomparable beauty and sweet scent and judgment-stealing kisses. And at himself for allowing her to do so.

'I wasn't playing a game,' she said quietly, then added in a flat voice, 'And I'm not a princess.'

Without another word, she turned and walked away. Keeping to the shadows, he silently followed her, his inconvenient conscience insisting he make certain she arrived at the house safely. She