Regency Rumour: Never Trust a Rake / Reforming the Viscount

Well, that dealt with any last lingering shreds of girlish excitement she had not so far managed to squash. She opened her eyes and glared up into his mocking face.

It was all very well accepting she was ignorant and in need of tuition, but that did not mean she would sit back and tamely let him mock her.

‘That’s it,’ she snapped. ‘I have changed my mind.’

When she made as if to get up he reacted astonishingly swiftly, seizing her about the waist and pulling her back down. Then he took hold of her chin with his free hand.

‘Don’t fly into the boughs because I laughed,’ he said sternly. ‘You should not have pushed your mouth into that absurd little shape. It made you look ridiculous. Never do it again.’

‘How dare you speak to me like that!’

‘I dare because you asked me to teach you how to be more feminine, sweet tempest,’ he pointed out.

It was strange he should have spoken of a tempest, because it really did feel as if some kind of tempest was raging through her. It was making her breathless. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage. But it wasn’t, at least not all of it, the product of outrage at his high-handed attitude towards her. A good deal of it stemmed from the determined way he was holding her captive, which was having the peculiar effect of making her want to sink into his strong embrace rather than make any attempt to struggle free of the confines of those muscular arms.

‘You should let your lips relax,’ he instructed her. ‘Perhaps part them a little for me. Moisten them, if you wish.’

He licked his own, then, as if demonstrating what she ought to do.

She couldn’t have torn her eyes from his mouth if her life had depended on it.

‘R-relax,’ she stammered.

He smiled and gently caressed her lower jaw with his gloved hand. A flash of something very like electricity struck her midriff as he angled her head into a position of his own choosing.

‘By all means close your eyes, if you wish.’

He was lowering his head towards her. Any second now …

‘I find that absence of sight heightens the other senses.’

Immediately, she screwed her eyes tightly shut. Though it wasn’t about heightening her senses, since hers were pretty over-stimulated already, so much as hiding. She did not want him looking into her eyes when they kissed, in case he saw …

What? That she had never felt like this? Could never have imagined feeling like this? That, in short, he was right, damn him? That just having a man of his reputation holding her so close was making her all soft and melting and more aware of her femininity than she had ever dreamed possible?

Particularly since he was so hard and demanding, and masculine.

She swallowed.

And felt his breath, hot against her cheek. Then he nuzzled her ear. And breathed in, deep and slow, just as though he was … What was he doing? Smelling her? Why would he want to do that? Although, hadn’t he said something about heightening the other senses? And it was very … affecting, having him just breathe in and out like that, as though he was inhaling her very essence.

She couldn’t help being extremely aware of the scent of him, too. It was incredibly intimate—yes that was the word, intimate—to be so close to a man that she could identify the unique smell of the shaving soap he’d used, overlying freshly laundered linen and what she suspected was just him. Spice and musk. Masculinity.

Oh, bother the man. What was he waiting for? Why did he have to make such a meal of it? Why could he not just get on with it?

His hand went to the nape of her neck. His fingers speared upwards, into her hair, massaging her scalp. He nudged at her jaw line with his nose, as though he wanted her to tilt her head back still further.

And because it felt rather as though her spine was melting, she had no problem with letting her head loll against the back of the sofa.

He buried his face in her neck.

‘Oh!’ He was still not kissing her. Instead, he was very gently nipping along the length of her neck. And now not only her spine, but every single bone in her body was melting.