Page 27 of The Duke is Wicked
Score one for gin,Sebastian determined, his smile growing. Levering off the cue stick, he pointed it at her. “This is progress when I didn’t expect to accomplish anything without beating you blindly at a sport of your choosing. But here we are, with you admitting to having an attic full of texts in your mind. One you’re able to control the look of. We’re finally getting somewhere. If you’d only tell me what you know about the chronology and your extortionist, that would be brilliant. We could then, truly, get to work.”
“Are you trying to trick me?” She spun a ball away from her, bouncing it off the side of the table with a thunk.
He lined up another shot, tilted his head and tapped the cue against the ball with too much force, nipping the top instead of the center. “No, Temple, I’m trying to recruit you.”
She drummed her fingers on her knee. “To this League of yours?”
“It’s Julian’s, but yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re gifted. And alone.” He braced his knuckles on the baize and leaned in, imploring her to meet his gaze, to fight it out with him, if that’s what gaining her trust required. “Your brother can’t help you, can’t possibly understand what being different is like. Not asupernaturaldifferent. He may want to, he may even think he can, but we know better, don’t we?”
She dipped her head, but he caught the tear tracking her cheek, dropping from her jaw to bleed into her silken bodice. A knot of longing, affection and sympathy twisted inside him, followed by a flood of anguish. Before he understood what he was about, he’d dropped the cue and was standing before her, his hands going to cradle her face, lifting her shining eyes to his.
Never had he been more taken by someone,withsomeone. Wanting to dash every pulse of sorrow from their heart. Wanting to protect, when he didn’t, as yet, trust.
“I haven’t kissed a woman, Temple, laid one greedy finger on anyone, in months. My mind wasn’t suited for a relationship, what with the opium and the dreams, even one lasting only a night. A stolen hour more than I could give while I repaired myself. But something about you,everythingabout you, is making me crazy.”
She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, holding on when she should have pushed him away. “You want to know one of my secrets, Tremont?” Leaning, her lips dusted his, hesitant, devastating. At her cautious touch, his mind went blank with hunger. “I’ve never laid a greedy finger on anyone. And no one has laid a greedy finger on me.”
He tilted her head, angling her eyes into the dim light shooting from the sconce, needing to see her clearly for this discussion. “Your reputation. Why does society think these things if—”
“Because I allow it.” Her lashes slid low, her nervous flutter spiraling through him. “Because what they think doesn’t matter. They ask fewer questions if they believe the lies. They stay further away.”
“One kiss,” Sebastian heard himself, unbelievably, say. “One. At my speed, by my direction. To satisfy your curiosity, and hell, let’s be honest, to satisfymine. Then you answer every question I place before you. Every…single…one.” He trailed his thumb over her lips, pulled them apart and watched her pupils bleed into gray, in response, his knees quivering in a way they hadn’t since he was a green lad climbing into bed with a woman for the first time. “Is it a deal? A kiss for your secrets.”
“Are your kisses worth my secrets?”
He hummed low his throat and moved in until a feather couldn’t have slipped between their bodies. “I don’t know. That’s for you to decide.”
Her sweet, hot breath struck his cheek. “I thought you didn’t like me.”
“I don’t,” he lied, and drew her lips to his.
* * *
His breath smelled pleasantly of lime, she reflected dreamily as he kissed the edge of her mouth, twice on each side before trailing his lips along her cheek to her ear. He must have bitten into a slice when he made her drink. His hand slipped to the nape of her neck, and with a gentle tug, her hair collapsed around her shoulders, over her breasts, down her back.
The ragged sound he made as he tangled his fingers in the strands had a dart of heat traveling directly from the earlobe he’d drawn between his teeth to the sweet spot between her thighs. His stubble grazed the underside of her jaw as he sucked on a wildly sensitive spot behind her jaw, sending a dizzying rush through her. Frustrated, she groaned and slanted her head, trying to set her mouth to his, a ridiculous ploy, when she didn’t even know what she wasdoing.
But he did.
He was dallying. Teasing her. Refusing to give what he’d given a thousand others. Thinking to make her beg. Embarrass her. Trying to win the wager, when he would win the wager, and everyone currently perched atop a billiard table in a duke’s gaming room knew it.
Where was the blasted kiss he’d promised?
“Patience,” he murmured against her cheek, his voice thankfully threadbare. At least some element of this evening, if it wasn’t her, was getting to him.
Then the word he’d whispered filtered through. Heavens, had he imagined her a patient person?
Do what you want with him then.
So she did.
Tunneling her hand into his luscious, wonderfully dense hair, Delaney pulled him toward her until their mouths brushed, leaving him no avenue to refuse. Once, twice, seeking the proper fit without the experience to know how to find it. It was only when she elected to sweep her tongue along his bottom lip that he moaned sharply, tilted her head for better access, his hipsfinallybumping hers, his hard length digging into her thigh. She’d read enough French texts to comprehend what his reaction meant.
This, she decided and swayed, falling against him, his heartbeat a steady rhythm against her breast, sliding in to clash with hers, their layers of clothing immaterial. My God, how would his naked body feel pressed to hers without cambric, silk, wool and cotton between them? His olive-toned skin in sharp contrast to her fair as they melded into one. Erotic images flooded her mind, and she struggled to save them for storage in her Oxford-duplicate of an attic.