Page 51 of The Lord Meets His Lady

He bristled. “I kiss women.”

Of course he did. Lots of them.

“This is me,” she said softly. “Standing here with you. But you kissed me just now like you would any other woman. All because what you want is under my skirts.”

Light flickered in his eyes. Did her message ring true? Never did she believe she’d have this conversation with a man, much less Lord Bowles. Speaking her mind refreshed her, especially since the man in question listened intently.

“You’re better than most men. You know how to kiss, how to charm. And that gets you what you want, but nothing in your kiss was aboutme.” She stared past his shoulder. “I don’t want quick tumbles. I want a man to know me.”

She stood taller for saying what she wanted. Running away wasn’t escaping the old life; it was making a new one, and bawdy past or not, she’d defend what she wanted.

Thunder cracked outside. Pulsing want thrummed in her veins. Shoes damp and hands cold, she surprisingly wasn’t in a hurry to leave. Neither was Lord Bowles.

“And if a man wanted to know a woman?” he ventured.

He opened a door with his singular question. Genevieve swallowed a tickle in her throat and studied his coat’s weave before looking him in the eye.

“He’d pay attention to her. Find a place that needs kissing. One should never assume the mouth is the first place to kiss.”

His eyes darkened like a satyr about to feast. “Go on.”

She flattened a hand on his chest, her fingers spreading wide. Wool scratched her palm, but a profound, mysterious connection grew. “A kiss…a kiss ought to be unique. It ought to say ‘I’ve paid attention to you.’”

“How would you kiss me?”

His ragged voice rippled over her skin. More thunder rattled the heavens. Her heart thudded, renewing deep-seated aches.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t be a coward, Miss Turner,” he said softly. “You started this.”

His hand covered hers on his chest and gave her fingers a squeeze. Her nipples peaked inside her stays. She had started this the moment she stepped outside instead of hiding safely in her room. This was not a quick kiss in the barn. She wanted to rub against Lord Bowles, ease the torment, and whisper her thoughts to him.

How dangerous to have a man want to know a woman’s body and her mind.

Longing built inside her, surging, threatening to take control. Lightning flashed, and white light shot through a crack in the barn door. Her senses sizzled hot, needy. Both her hands slid up his coat. She freed one button from its mooring and another and another. Lord Bowles’s hands fell to his sides, silent permission for her to have her way with him.

She touched his forearm. “I’d stroke you there. Your tattoo.”

His intense stare traced her hand on him. Tense muscles relaxed under her hand…easing, giving in.

She inched closer, her breasts pillowing him. “Then I’d go higher.”

“All very nice, but not earth-shattering.” His thick voice shredded confident words.

“Want me to stop?”

Nostrils flaring, he locked his satyr’s gaze on her mouth. “No.”

Her hips wiggled. Between her legs, the fleshy folds were heavy with need. “Then I’d reach up here,” she whispered, hooking a finger in his neckwear. “Just enough to expose your skin.”

The rain-soaked cravat drooped lower, showing pebbled skin. “And?”

“I’d push this down.” The cambric gave another inch.

Lord Bowles’s gold-tipped lashes hovered low, leaving a crescent of his eyes exposed. Hazel eyes gleamed through his lashes. She rose on tiptoes, rubbing against him, taking her fill. The whiskers on his jaw. Sun-burnished skin from long rides. His tempting earlobe.

Her finger toyed with the golden curl. “You have a lock of hair,” she said against his neck. “You ask me what I’d do. I’d kiss you here.”