Page 15

Chapter

Fifteen

I cannot…

"I shouldn't kiss you." Benedict pulled back, but something told him he would do the opposite of his words. He would kiss her, even here, in the shadowed gardens of Lord and Lady Cecil’s ball.

The moonlight filtered through the rose arbor, casting ghostly shadows along the flagstone path. The air was cool, laced with the scent of roses and something sweeter—perhaps Angelica's perfume.

What was wrong with him? That he did not know, nor could he answer, but right at this moment all he wanted to do was be with the woman at his side and damn the consequences.

You are not yourself around her...

She looked up at him expectantly, and his mind raced. He'd never kissed a woman before. How was a man to instigate and do such a gesture right?

He slipped his hand about the nape of her neck and pulled her close. Their lips were but a breath apart and something hot and turbulent rumbled in his soul. Instinct took over.

All his trepidation and fear vanished as his lips brushed hers.

So soft that he moaned at the feel of them after weeks of wanting this woman before him.

The taste of her—sweet, heady—made his head spin.

She was pliant and giving in his arms, her hands reached up to clasp the lapels of his jacket, holding him near.

Not that he was going anywhere. She need not hold on to him at all.

She kissed him back, pressed against his mouth and he tilted his head, wanting more of her, to revel in her kiss. She gasped and their mouths crashed together. The kiss, seeking and learning, soon turned into a firestorm of giving and taking.

She pressed her body against his, her breasts soft against his chest, and his ability to think straight vanished. He was lost at sea and did not know how to swim in this world of desire, of wants and needs that she made him endure.

Want clawed at him, a fierce, unfamiliar burn in his blood.

Desire shot through his body like a drug, and he drank from her, their tongues teasing, slipping against each other. He wrenched her close, almost on his lap, his hand sliding down her back to clasp the globe of her pert ass.

Sweet heaven, he was in hell.

No, Benedict—you’re going to hell after this.

So be it. If this was hell, he would burn for eternity to have one moment in his angel’s arms.

Her fingers spiked through his hair, holding him to her lips. Never had emotions stormed through him like they were now, and he knew what he'd been missing in his life.

Angelica.

She was the difference that he'd never experienced before.

Up until this night, a woman had never sparked anything above polite interaction.

With Angelica, he wanted her. He wanted to consume her, kiss every part of her body, relish her sweet, yielding flesh and drink from her mouth until there were no kisses left to have.

"Benedict," she moaned as his hand flexed on her bottom, grinding her against his body in a way that made him ache bone deep.

A sound—a voice, distant with its warning—pulled him from his haze and he wrenched away, standing and putting much-needed distance between them.

Angelica’s eyes went wide, her lips swollen and red from their kiss.

"Brother, I think you ought to let Lady Angelica return to the ballroom," Whitmore said not far behind him, casual and cautious so as not to draw attention.

Lady Angelica stood and adjusted her gown before she slipped past them both, moving into the light and away from him.

Benedict swallowed, rubbing a hand across his jaw as if to wipe away the evidence of his sin.

"What are you doing?" Whitmore accused, coming up to him, his tone demanding an answer that Benedict wasn’t sure he could give.

"I don’t know," he answered honestly. "I have no damn idea what I’m doing.

" His mind reeled, his body ached and he reached down and adjusted his hard cock that had decided to work for the first time in his life.

"I upset Lady Angelica during our dance and I followed her, to explain that I was sorry that I would not court her, and, well…

" He frowned, still unsure what had happened or how.

Damn it all to Hades.

"One moment I was apologizing,” he continued.

“And the next she asked me if I’d ever kissed a woman to see if the church was the right step for me, and then the next I was kissing her.

" He ran a hand over his jaw, feeling the prickle of stubble against his palm. "I couldn’t stop. Once I’d started—had you not arrived—I’m not certain where my madness would have ended. "

His brother’s seriousness broke and he grinned knowingly.

"As much as it pleases me that you may have found another use for your life, I doubt very much you would have tupped her on the stone bench. Even you are not so bold. But me, however, I will say that a stone bench is not the most comfortable place to dip your cock into a woman.”

"Hartley," Benedict scolded, shaking his head, and yet his mind ventured elsewhere, somewhere it ought not. To a visualization of him and Lady Angelica, her gown shuffled up about her hips, her lips on him, as she lowered herself over and, wonderfully, over again on his rigid member.

His cock twitched at the imagining and he sighed. "I must go, seek solace in prayer and speak to my church mentor of what I’ve done."

"Do not do that, Benedict—not yet. While I urge you to think over your actions, do not say a word until you’re certain your first kiss and your reaction to it meant more than it did.

You could have merely been overexcited that you were kissing a woman.

It may not mean that it was Lady Angelica who sparked this response. "

He frowned. "But you said in the ball that you thought I ought to pursue her. I do not understand you, brother—you’re as confusing as my own thoughts."

"What I mean is, you’re new to kissing or anything intimate.

And while I do think you care for Lady Angelica more than you want to admit, and perhaps she is the same after tonight’s little dalliance, just take a step back.

I do not want you to regret your choice, no matter what that ends up being. That is all."

"When did you become so serious in thought?"

Whitmore chuckled and slipped his arm over his shoulders.

"Believe me, I did not want to interrupt, and you certainly seemed to know what to do.

I was worried as an older brother that you would never know or enjoy what a kiss with a woman can feel like.

But then, Lady Angelica is the daughter of late Duke Ravensmere and the sister-in-law to the current one, and after all they have done for us—for you in Hampshire—I could not allow you to be caught and have her reputation ruined. "

Benedict’s chest constricted, the thought of causing any trouble for his angel unbearable.

He tried to shake that thought aside—she wasn’t his angel.

She was Lady Angelica. But he did not want to take a choice away from her.

What if after their kiss she realized he was nothing exceptional?

That she had changed her mind and did not want him to pursue her? Then what?

His kissing her would have removed that choice. And his, too, would have been impacted. His decision to become a priest stripped from him before he could really decide if that was the true course of his life.

"I ought to apologize for my lack of manners and the kiss, should I not?

" he asked. "I should not have kissed her—I know.

And I did not follow her out into the gardens to do such a thing, but then in the shadows, with the hum of the music filtering through the fragrant garden, with Lady Angelica looking at me expectantly, longingly—well, I could not help myself. I had to taste her."

His brother chuckled as they came around the corner and started toward the terrace doors.

"Oh yes, women have their wiles. But you cannot kiss her again until you’re sure of your choice.

Now you have a taste of what both lives would be like, and you must see which one you’d prefer.

" His brother opened the terrace door, holding it wide for him.

"I know which life I would choose." He grinned wickedly.

"And I hope you do as well. How else is the name of Whitmore to continue without heirs? "

Benedict gave his brother a withering glance. "You too will have to find a woman whom you do not want to stray from and marry to beget one of those. You cannot rely on me, and we have no other brothers to do the job, so as eldest, that does in fact fall on your shoulders—not mine."

"A shame that it does, do you not agree? I think you suit fatherhood far better than I would myself." His brother’s lips turned up in revulsion. "They cry all the time and want feeding far too often for my liking. I do not want the responsibility."

"That’s what a wet nurse is for."

Whitmore sighed. "True. But still—wife and children are not for me."