Page 37 of All Scot and Bothered

“Miss Teague?”

“No, might you call me Cecelia?”

“Cecelia.” He drew out the syllables, letting his tongue linger over them. Learn them.

She closed her eyes, seeming to savor the word with the same vigor as the truffles. “Again?”

An invisible restraint shackled his bones, this one not of cold hard iron, but of velvet. It tugged him toward her. Drew her name out of his chest like a poem, and then a prayer.

“Cecelia.”

Her lips parted.

And he was lost.

Lost to the thundering of his heart. To the pull of her body, as powerful and unavoidable as the influence of the moon on the tides.

Their breath mingled. Her scent tangled with that of the lilacs, unbearably lovely.

His lips hovered. Met hers. Stilled.

For a heartbeat, or maybe an eternity, he stood like that. Paralyzed. Not from fear. Not exactly.

A hunger crawled through him like a beast with many claws. A beast locked away for a time longer than infinity. Raw, uncontained sexuality that had no place in suchorderly, sedate gardens roared to life and threatened to rip his self-control to shreds.

As though she sensed the beast, Cecelia made a small, intimate sound.

One dangerously close to surrender.

Don’t, he silently begged.Don’t make me want you this much. Don’t give me something else to fight. To crush. To contain.

But contain it, he did. Just as he always had. As he always would.

He locked it away in a trunk of iron. Chained it. And threw it into the dark void where his heart should be.

She didn’t reach for him, nor did she do anything else wanton or wicked. She just accepted his mouth with a sweet sigh, tilting her head to receive more of him.

He lifted his hands to her face, intent upon gently holding her still so he could extricate himself from a kiss that shouldn’t be.

His thumbs drew up the line of her jaw and over her cheek, finding no angles, no hard lines. Somehow, he was cupping her face. Tilting it back. Drawing her in rather than pushing her away.

The roaring of his blood in his ears became a growl and then a purr.

He satisfied his hunger by licking his tongue through the seam of her lips as though trying to get at the cream in a pastry.

She opened for him with a sigh. Never had he found something so sweet. So decadent.

Had he expected any different from her?

She was soft beneath his kiss, but not passive. Her lips melted against his, her face tilted into his palm, giving over to his strength. Giving over to the experience.

She was an innocent. She kissed like a woman unused to kissing. Her little motions instinctive rather than practiced. Her tongue ventured forward, then darted away. Her breaths hitched and trembled.

His restless tongue enjoyed her. Coaxed her. Stroked and slid inside her mouth in a velvety dance of desire.

He closed his eyes as he supped on her lower lip, then her upper before delving to taste her once more. He explored her features with his fingertips, employing the butterfly-light strokes of a blind man, memorizing her topography. Absorbing the details of her—the divot in her chin, the supple skin over her cheekbones, the distracting shell of her ear, and the silken trails of her brows—before returning to cup her face.

Warm. She was so warm. Her mouth, her skin, her soul. It chased the constant chill from his bones, replacing it with a distressing, delectable heat.