distinctly curvaceous figure encased in aqua silk, the coruscating hues created with every movement reminiscent of the shifting sea.
Pulling a face at the sight, at her bosom mounding above the low-cut, tightly fitting bodice, she wished that, on coming to London, she’d thought to resurrect her bluestocking look. That might at least have spared her the most deadening aspect of her emergence into the ton’s ballrooms-the relegation to superficial young miss, to being nothing more than a face and a body in gentlemen’s eyes.
They certainly looked, but they didn’t see.
They looked at her face and saw only her perfect features. They looked at her figure and saw only her sumptuous breasts, the evocative and graceful lines of her hips and thighs, her long legs.
They didn’t see her. Not as Dillon saw her…
For a long moment she stared at the mirror, then, lips tightening, she turned away. She was not going to weaken in this; she wouldn’t alter her stance, not even for him. If she couldn’t find it in her to harden her heart against him, then she’d simply have to harden her head-and think faster and more quickly than he.
She caught a few glances from the other ladies, many of whom had entered after she had. She couldn’t hide here, and she was simply too noticeable to fade into the background, for instance in the card room.
An instant’s consideration warned that if she waited too long, Dillon would ask Adelaide to come and check on her. That would be embarrassing.
Resolutely she headed for the door. There had to be some other way.
The door closed behind her; pausing in the poorly lit corridor, she looked along it to where, twenty yards away, light and gaiety spilled through the ballroom doors giving onto the foyer at the head of the main stairs.
There was no one in sight. A situation that wouldn’t last long. She could hear ladies’ voices in the withdrawing room; soon, they’d step out and return to the ball.
She swung around. Beyond the withdrawing room the corridor was unlit. A little way along, it reached a corner, then turned down a wing.
Glancing back, she confirmed that she was still alone in the corridor. The sound of ladies approaching the door at her back decided her; lifting her skirts, she hurried away from the ballroom. The withdrawing room door opened, and a wash of chatter rolled out just as she slipped around the corner.
Into darkness, and peace.
She started down what she guessed would be a wing of bedchambers. Behind her, the ladies’ voices faded and died. She glanced back-and halted.
And smiled; she could barely believe her luck. The other side of the wing, beyond the main corridor from where she stood, ended in a room, recessed so its door wasn’t visible from the main corridor. The door to that room stood open; faint light glowed from within.
Such rooms were often left prepared in case a lady needed to retire in privacy and peace.
A lady such as herself; in the circumstances, she felt she qualified.
Retracing her steps, she peeked around the corner. She waited until two giggling young ladies disappeared through the withdrawing room door, then scurried across the corridor to the recessed door, and her haven.
Quietly, in case some other lady was already there, she walked in. It was a small parlor with two large armchairs angled before the hearth. A fire burned in the grate, more for show than for warmth. On a side table against the wall, a lamp was turned low; it shed enough light to see that neither chair was occupied.
She heaved a sigh of relief and quietly closed the door. She looked at the key sitting in its lock, then turned it. The loud click faded, taking with it some of the rather odd panic that had been brewing inside her.
Feeling strangely alone, she walked to the hearth, then, more out of habit than any real need, bent to warm her hands before the blaze.
She sensed him draw near the instant before his palm cupped her bottom and too knowingly caressed.
With a smothered oath, she shot upright-straight into his arms.
He smiled down at her as if she were his next meal. “I wondered how long you’d be.”
He turned her more fully into his arms. Stunned, she braced her hands against his chest, drew in a huge breath.
Before she could release it in the tirade he so richly deserved, he bent his head, sealed her lips. And kissed every thought from her head.
19
He kissed her until she was gasping, until the scent of him, the taste of him, had overwhelmed and seduced her, until she had to cling to him to stay on her feet. The melding of their mouths, the twining of their tongues, was hungry, ravenous-ravishing. Every particle of her parched being seized, clung, and yearned, drinking him in as voraciously as he did her.
Regardless…she retained enough sanity to grasp the moment when his lips slid from hers to feather along her jaw. Sinking her fingers into the hard muscles of his arms, denying the compulsion to slide her arms up and twine her fingers in his hair-and hold him to her-she closed her eyes and whispered, “Let me go.”
“No.” He gathered her more securely, more fully against him.
Every nerve leapt at the contact. Her head spun as her body reacted to the hard promise of his. But…“Why?”
Her most urgent question. She opened her eyes, caught his, only inches away as he lifted his head. She watched as he studied her, both saw and sensed his search for words, for how to answer with the truth.
Then his lips firmed. “Because you’re mine.”
The words should have sounded merely dramatic, but his tone made them much more. Even more than a statement of fact-his flat implacability made them a statement of certainty, of life as he saw it.
She caught her breath, searched his eyes, struggled to put a name to what she saw in the dark depths. “This is madness.”
He paused, then closed those last few inches. As his lips brushed hers, he murmured, “And more.”
Dillon took her mouth again, laid claim to all she couldn’t deny him. She was right; having her was a madness, a humor of the blood, an addictive ache that only she could assuage. Having her was a madness he now needed and craved, knowing he could, knowing she would. That no matter her denials, her disbelief, when it came to him and her, together, alone like this, their needs and wants converged and became one.
One compulsion, one hunger, one overwhelming craving to taste the wild and reckless, the soaring, greedy, fiery, all-consuming passion that only with each other could they reach.
Her father had remarked to him that when it came to her, he possessed an advantage no other had ever had- he understood her. Not completely, but in many ways he thought as she did, felt as she did.
Wanted with the same fire and passion that coursed through her wild and reckless soul. And felt the consequent lash of desire every bit as keenly.
In this, always, they were as one. Well matched. The ladies had it right.
Yet even while she met him, matched him, even while he sensed the passion rising and welling and building inside her, he also sensed her confusion, her lack of understanding-her need to understand. Her struggle to hold against the inexorable tide, her innate caution holding her back until she’d learned where he was headed, until she knew what giving herself to him again would mean, until she understood where the road down which he was determined to lead her led.
He could sweep her resistance away; if he wished, he could simply overpower her senses and drive her into intimacy. She might be able to stand against his passion, but not his and hers combined. He knew well enough that telling her simply what his ultimate goal was would only lead to more arguments, to more resistance, not less. If he wanted to win her quickly and surely, before he revealed his goal, he had to establish the truth, as he’d set out from Flick’s parlor to do nights before, to state his reality in a way she couldn’t misconstrue.
But this was Pris-she, like he, mistrusted words. Deeds spoke louder, and more truly. And that was why he was there, with her alone, so he could show her the truth. So he could start revealing to her what she was to him.
They were both heated, the engagement of lips and tongues no longer sufficient to meet the rapacious hunger spiraling up within them. He spread his hands, let them rove, over her back, over the aqua silk screening her
