His amber gaze didn’t waver. “Not to see.” Slowly, his gaze lowered to her lips. “To discover.”
His voice had dropped again, to an even deeper, more resonant note. Her lips throbbed; she could feel her own breath passing over them. And knew she had to ask. “What? What is there to find?”
She’d wanted, expected, the words to sound dismissive, derisory; instead, confusion and her damning curiosity colored them.
The heavens answered her. A deep rumble growled through the night, followed by a sharp crack as lightning split the sky. The first flare was followed by others, flashing behind the screen of the roiling clouds, a display of elemental energy.
The light lit his face, every chiseled angle, each rock-hard plane. Gave her fair warning when he moved closer yet, when he raised his large hands and framed her face.
Tipped it to his.
“This.” The word feathered through her mind, dark and tempting.
He bent his head; she was so tall he didn’t have to bend very far before his lips hovered over hers.
She drew in a breath, held it, every muscle tensed and quivering.
His lids lifted; his eyes trapped hers. “Don’t fight.” It was a warning. “Don’t try to break away.”
His lashes lowered as he closed the last inch. “Don’t try to pretend you don’t want to know.”
The last word was a seduction, a whisper staining her lips, a promise-one he instantly fulfilled.
His lips closed over hers, no light caress but a proper kiss-one she’d been waiting for all her life.
Or so it seemed. One part of her seized, grabbed, gloried.
The rest felt stunned, shaken out of her world and into some other.
She was kissing him back before she’d thought. Moving into him in the same instant his hands fell from her face and he reached for her.
Then she was in his arms, locked to him. His lips were hard, demanding; she parted hers, not to appease but to know. To discover. To see.
What she hadn’t imagined might be.
There was heat and sensation, from him, of him-and within her. Not fire, not true flame, but a warmth that was every bit as elemental, as potentially powerful, as tangible as the heavy muscles of his chest beneath her hands.
She sank against him, not because she was boneless, helpless, but because she wanted to.
And the heat merged, his and hers, and flowed about them.
His tongue swept her lower lip, then slid into her mouth, touched hers, and she shivered. Sank closer still, her hands fisting in his coat as she welcomed him in and he drank.
Strength surrounded her, to her more potent than any drug, one so few could give her. She counted the world well lost as he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her as if she were not just a drug but the breath of life to him.
He angled his head, deepened the kiss-and hunger burst through. Elemental, powerful, pure. His, hers-one fed the other, quickly escalating, with every heartbeat spiraling higher, spreading, out of control.
Until it roared through them, ravenous, greedy-insatiable.
Gervase had stopped thinking. In the instant she’d moved into his embrace, when his arms had closed about her and she’d offered her mouth, he’d stepped over some edge-into a world ruled by desire.
But not any simple desire he recognized. The heat was familiar, but every touch was heightened, every glow brighter, every aspect keener, deeper, broader, tighter-infinitely more compelling.
Infinitely more addictive.
He had to have more-and whatever he asked for she gave. Surrendered.
Her lips were his, her mouth, her body supple and curvaceous filling his arms.
Craccccckk!
They both jumped, clutched each other as their senses rushed back and the world returned.
Lightning forked down from the sky; a raking gust swept the terrace, hurling leaves stripped from nearby trees.
“Madeline? Gervase? Are you out there?” Lord Porthleven stood in the open French door, peering down the terrace.
Gervase drew a deep breath, felt his reeling head steady. The shadows hid them. “We’re here-watching the storm.”
“Ah.” Nodding, his lordship looked out at the sky. “Quite something, ain’t it? But you’d best come in-there’s rain on the way.”
Madeline had stepped back, out of his arms. Placing a hand under her elbow, Gervase turned and paced beside her as they strolled-nonchalantly-back along the terrace.
Other guests were pressed to the windows, staring out at nature’s show. Madeline paused before the French door.
Halting beside her, he glanced at the sky, then looked at her. “It’s…mesmerizing. Wild, exciting.”
She met his eyes. “And dangerous.”
Turning, she stepped through the door. He followed, fairly certain that, like him, she hadn’t been talking about the storm.
The following morning, Gervase sank into the leather chair behind the desk in his library-cum-study. Leaning back, raising his legs, he crossed his ankles, balancing one boot heel on the edge of the desk, and gave himself over to the latest reports his London agent had sent him.
Barely ten minutes had passed before the door opened.
“Miss Gascoigne, my lord.”
Surprised, Gervase looked up to see Sitwell step back from the open door, allowing Madeline to march into his library.
March, stalk, stride-definitely nothing so gentle as walk.
“Thank you, Sitwell.” With a crisp nod, she dismissed his butler.
Sitwell bowed, and glanced inquiringly at Gervase. At his nod, Sitwell slid from the room, closing the door.
Madeline halted midway across the room, tugging rather viciously at her gloves. She was wearing a carriage gown, not her riding dress; she must have driven over. She had to have set out-Gervase glanced at the clock on the mantel-immediately after breakfast.
Swinging his feet to the floor, he rose. “Perhaps the drawing room-”
“No.” She shot a frowning glance his way, her eyes the color of a storm-wracked sea. The recalcitrant button finally gave and she stripped off her gloves, then glanced around. “This is your lair, is it not?”
Bemused, he answered, “So to speak.”
“Good-so we’re unlikely to be disturbed. I do not wish to have to exchange polite conversation with Sybil and your sisters-that’s not the purpose of my visit.”
She stuffed her gloves in a pocket, then started to pace back and forth before his desk, all but kicking her skirts out of the way as she turned. From what he could see of her face, her expression was set in determined, uncompromising lines.
“Perhaps you should sit down and tell me the purpose of your visit.”
She halted, looked at him, then at the armchair he indicated. She shook her head. “I’d rather pace.”
Inwardly sighing, he remained standing behind the desk, and watched as she resumed doing just that.
She glanced his way, saw, and scowled. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, sit down!” She pointed to his chair. “Just sit and listen. This time it’s I who have something to say to you in private. And I do mean say.”
He dropped back into his chair. “Discuss.” When she threw him a confused look, he elaborated, “Last night I said we had to discuss something in private-and we did.”
She blinked, then nodded. “Indeed. Which is precisely why I’m here.” She flung around and paced back past the desk. “What we discussed last night is not something we are ever going to discuss again.”
He’d wondered how she would react; now he knew.
Energy poured from her in great waves with every stride. Her fingers, now free of her gloves, linked, twisted, gripping convulsively. Combined with her forceful strides, the signs were impossible to mistake. She was agitated, not angry.
