What Happens in London

His hands were back in her hair, and her back was to the wall, and he was kissing her. Madly, passionately, bone-meltingly kissing her.

“Harry!” she gasped, when his lips left hers to nibble on her ear.

“I can’t help it,” he said, his words ticklish against her skin. She could hear the smile in his voice. He sounded happy.

She felt happy. And more.

“You were there,” he said, one of his hands moving down her side, around her back. “You were there, and I had to kiss you, and that’s all there was to it.”

Forget the flowery words of Miss Butterworth’s mad baron. That was the most romantic thing Olivia had ever heard.

“You exist,” he said, his voice deepening with desire. “Ergo, I need you.”

No, that was the most romantic thing.

And then he whispered something in her ear. Something about lips and hands, and the heat of her body, and she had to wonder if maybe that was the most romantic of all.

She had been desired by men before. Some had even claimed they loved her. But this-this was different. There was an urgency in his body, in his breath, in the pulse of his blood under his skin. He wanted her. He needed her. It went beyond words, beyond anything he might try to explain. But it was something she understood, something she felt deep within.

It made her feel deliciously powerful. And at the same time powerless, because whatever it was that was racing through him, it was spreading to her as well, causing a quickness inside in her veins, an inability to draw breath. It felt as if her entire body were rushing through her, moving from the inside out until she could do nothing but touch him. She had to grab him, squeeze him. She needed him close, and so she reached around with her hands, entwining herself around his neck.

“Harry,” she whispered, and she heard the delight in her voice. This moment, this kiss-it was everything she’d been waiting for.

It was everything she wanted.

And a million things more.

His hands slid down her back, pulling her from the wall, and they turned and swirled across the carpet until they both fell over the arm of the sofa. He landed atop her, the warm, solid weight of his body pinning her to the cushions. It should have been the strangest sensation. It should have been terrifying-her body compressed, her movement diminished. But instead it just felt like the most normal, natural thing in the world, that she would be on her back, and this man on top of her, hot, powerful, and hers.

“Olivia,” he whispered, his mouth trailing fire down the side of her neck. She arched beneath him, her pulse jumping when his lips found the thin, sensitive skin over her collarbone. He was moving lower, lower, to the wispy, lacy edge of her bodice. And at the same time his hands were moving higher, sliding along her side, catching her in the cradle of his thumb and forefinger until he reached her breast.

She gasped with shock. His hand had slid around to her front, and now he was cupping her through the thin muslin of her dress. She moaned his name, and then she moaned something else, something unintelligible and completely without thought or meaning.

“You’re so…good,” he groaned. He squeezed her gently, closing his eyes as his entire body shook with desire. “So good.”

She grinned. Right there in the middle of her seduction, she grinned. She loved that he didn’t call her beautiful or pretty or radiant. She loved that he was so out of his mind for her that “good” was the most complicated word he could manage.

“I want to touch you,” he whispered, his lips moving against her cheek as he spoke. “I want to feel you…on my skin…in my hand.” His fingers stole upward until they reached the edge of her dress, and he pulled, tugged gently, and then not so gently, until the fabric slid over her shoulder, and then down-down more-until she was bared to him.

She didn’t feel wanton. She didn’t feel wicked. She just felt right. Like herself.

His breath-hard and fast-was the only sound. The air around them seemed to crackle with urgency, and then she didn’t just hear his breath, she felt it on her skin, cool at first, and then hot, as his mouth grew closer.

And then he was kissing her. She nearly screamed-from the shock of it, then from the fire of it, and the curls of pleasure it brought forth from within. “Harry,” she gasped, and now she did feel wanton. She felt wicked, utterly and thoroughly. His head was at her breast, and all she could seem to do was sink her fingers into his hair, not sure whether she was trying to pull him away or bind him to her forever.

His hand moved to her leg, squeezing, stroking, moving higher, and then-

“What was that?” Olivia shot up into a sitting position, knocking Harry right off her. There had been a tremendous crash. It had sounded like wood splintering and glass breaking, and there had definitely been a scream.

Harry sat on the floor, trying to catch his breath. He looked at her, his eyes still hot, and she realized her dress was awry. She yanked it up, quickly, and crossed her arms protectively over her, each hand clutching the opposite shoulder. It wasn’t that she feared him, but after that noise she was terrified that anyone might come running in.

“What happened?” she asked.

He was shaking his head as he rose to his feet. “It came from the drawing room.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded, and her first thought was relief, although she had no idea why. Her second thought went in quite the opposite direction. If she’d heard the crash, then other people in the house would have heard it, too. And if this other person happened to be upstairs, as her mother was, she might come running down to investigate. And if she did that, she might enter the wrong room.

Finding her daughter in a state of considerable dishabille.

But in truth her mother would probably head first to the drawing room. The door would be open, and it was the first room one came across at the bottom of the stairs. But if she did that, she would find three gentlemen, a hulking bodyguard, the butler, three housemaids…

And no Olivia.

She jumped to her feet, immediately awash in panic. “My hair!”

“-is remarkably intact,” he finished for her.

She looked at him with patent disbelief.

“No, really,” he said, looking somewhat astonished himself. “It’s really almost”-he moved his hands near his head as if to indicate…something-“the same.”

She hurried over to the mirror over the fireplace and stood on her tiptoes. “Oh my goodness,” she said. Sally had outdone herself. Barely a lock was out of place, and she could have sworn that Harry had pulled the whole mass of it down.

Olivia pulled two hairpins out, repositioned and fastened them, then stood back to inspect her reflection. Aside from her flushed cheeks, she looked entirely respectable. And really, any number of things could have caused that. Plague, even, although she probably needed to start coming up with a new excuse.

She looked over at Harry. “Do I look presentable?”

He nodded. But then he said, “Sebastian will know.”

Her mouth opened in shock. “What? How?”

Harry gave a one shouldered shrug. There was something elementally male about the gesture, as if to say- a woman might answer your question in exhaustive detail, but this will do for me.

“How will he know?” Olivia repeated.

He gave her another one of those looks. “He just will. But don’t worry, he won’t say anything.”

Olivia looked down at herself. “Do you think the prince will know?”

“What does it matter if the prince knows?” Harry returned, a little snappishly.

“I have my-” She had been about to say that she had her reputation to consider. “Are you jealous?”

He looked at her as if she was slightly deranged. “Of course I’m jealous.”

Her legs started to feel rather liquid, and she sighed. “Really?”

He shook his head, clearly impatient with her sudden dreaminess. “Tell everyone I’ve gone home.”