Passion for Him

throat. “Don’t you think about the kiss we shared?”

“I cannot cease thinking of it.” He pounced and caught her hard against him, as if something in him had broken free of its bonds. “Waking. Sleeping.”

She felt his gaze heating her mouth. She licked the lower curve and breathed in the scent of his skin. He smelled exotic, spicy, purely male animal. Something instinctive inside her stirred in response.

“Do it,” she goaded, her chest moving against his with rapid pants.

Montoya whispered a low curse. “You do not love him.”

“I wish I did.” Tentatively, her hands slipped beneath his coat and settled at his waist. His skin was hot, so feverish, she could feel the heat through his garments.

“Is your heart already taken?”

Her exhale was shaky. “In a fashion.”

“Why me?”

“Why the mask?” she retorted, hating the feeling of being stripped bare by his questions.

He stared down into her upturned face. “My visage is not one you would wish to see.”

She was deeply disquieted by the finality in his tone. The feeling of incertitude disturbed her to the point that she released him and attempted to step back. He held fast.

“Let us settle this now,” he said, reaching up to brush callused fingertips along her cheekbones. “What do you want from me?”

“Did you approach me because of St. John?”

Montoya shook his head. “My motives were simple. I saw a beautiful woman. I lost all sense of manners and stared, which made her ill at ease. I attempted to apologize. That is all.” His hands cupped her spine and stroked downward, arching her into him.

He was so hard, so solid, Amelia wanted to cling to him and touch him without impediments. Only one man had ever held her this closely. Only a short time ago, she would have said her ability to enjoy such an embrace with every fiber of her being had passed with Colin. Now, she knew that wasn’t true.

How extraordinary to have found Montoya.

Or more aptly, how extraordinary that he had found her.

“That night…You recognized that others were coming,” she pointed out.

“I did.” The line of his lips hardened. “I am a man encumbered by a tainted past. It is why you should not send for me.”

“You did not have to come.” A tainted past, one that allowed him to recognize covert signals that most aristocrats would fail to notice. Who was he?

The corner of his mouth twitched with amusement, and she touched it with her fingertip. She could not see any deformity through the eyeholes of the mask or around his mouth. What she could see were dark eyes of a slightly exotic slant and a mouth made for sin. The curvature, shape, and firmness were perfection. She could imagine hours of kissing him and never growing bored. Whatever else may be wrong with him, she thought she might be able to bear it.

She touched the edge of the mask. “Let me see you.”

“No!” He pushed her hand away roughly, then caught it again and kissed the back. The press of his lips left tingles, even through her glove. “Trust me. It would be difficult to bear the truth of it.”

“Is that why you will not court me?”

Montoya stilled. “Would you wish me to?”

“Do you feel this way about many women?” Her gaze dropped to his throat where she watched him swallow hard. “I have felt this way about only one other man, and he is lost to me, as your love is to you.”

Suddenly his embrace tightened, and he pressed his lips to her forehead. “You have mentioned a lost loved one before,” he rasped.

“Sometimes it feels as if a piece of me is missing. It is unbearable. I do not understand why I feel so vividly about him after all these years, as if he might return, as if some part of me expects him to.” Her hands fisted in his coat. “But when I am with you, I think only of you.”

“Do I remind you of him?”

She shook her head. “He was vital and unrestrained; you are more subdued, but in a…primitive way.” Her smile was sheepish. “That sounds silly.”

“The primitiveness comes in response to you,” he said, nuzzling his jaw against her temple. He was so close, the smell of him inundated her senses and made her giddy. Joy, hot and sweet, filled her. The sensation of being alive after years of numbness. She felt guilty for that, burdened by a sense of betraying Ware, but she could not fight the attraction to Montoya. It was too strong, too heady and intoxicating.

“I would be willing to explore it…” she offered shyly.

“Are you propositioning me, Miss Benbridge?” he asked with a low laugh that she adored from the moment she heard it. It was the kind of laugh one worked to hear again. Already her mind was sifting through anecdotes she could share that might make him merry.

“I want to see you again.”

“No.” He cupped her nape and held her cheek to his chest, wrapping his big body around her. It was safe in his embrace. Warm. Delightful. Could two people spend hours hugging? A derisive snort escaped her. Hours of kissing and hugging. She was deranged.

“Was that a snort?” he teased.

She flushed. “Do not attempt to change the subject.”

“We should part,” he said, sighing with what sounded like regret. “You have already been absent from the festivities too long.”

“Why did you not say something when I first arrived?”

Montoya tried to retreat, but she held him to her. There was power in her proximity, she thought. The two halves warring within him-the part that wanted to hold her and the part that wanted to push her away-seemed stalemated when she was near.

Amelia smiled a woman’s smile. “You could not allow me to walk away, could you?”

“Is that vanity I hear?”

“Is that evasion?”

The flash of a rakish dimple made her stomach flutter. “If my circumstances were different, nothing could keep me from making you mine.”

“Oh?” She looked up at him from beneath her lashes. “Would you come bearing honorable intentions, or would you seduce me as you are doing now?”

“Sweet…” He laughed again. “The only seduction at work here is yours.”

“Truly?” Her breasts were full and heavy, pressing uncomfortably against her corset. Her mouth was dry, her palms damp. She felt seduced. Could it be that his body was responding to her as well? “What am I doing to you?”

“Why?” His smile was charming. “So you can do more of it?”

“I might. Would you like that?”

“When did you become so flirtatious?”

“Perhaps I have always been so,” she rejoined, batting her lashes coyly.

Montoya turned pensive. “Can Ware manage you?” He caught her wrists and pulled her hands away from his waist.

“I beg your pardon?” Amelia frowned as he evaded her and moved toward the door.

“You are mischievous baggage.” His gaze narrowed as his hand wrapped around the knob.

“I am not baggage.” She set her hands atop her pannier.

“You will forever land into trouble if not watched carefully.”

She arched a haughty brow. “I have been watched my entire life.”

“And yet here you are, luring strangers with tantalizing miniatures and holding a highly inappropriate assignation.”

“You did not have to come!” She stomped one slippered foot, irritated by his condescending tone.

“True. And I shan’t come again.”

His tone was too familiar. He had asked her if he reminded her of Colin. Up until this moment, he had not. They