Page 62 of The Countess Caper

“Well, Roarke?” she asked. Teasing and challenging. “Now what?”

A beat of silence. A flare of those eyes.

And then she was plucked from the ground, weightless, before being deposited on his lap. She had barely a moment to relish the feel of her legs spread on either side of his strong thighs, her heat pressing against his hardness. She was pretty sure a small whimper escaped her, but he was kissing her, digging fingers into her hair and securing her head at an angle that allowed him the best access. The rest of her threatened to go boneless. She was going to turn to smoke, and they were still wearing every stitch of their clothing. How did he always manage to do this to her?

His mouth took hers, hot and hungry and demanding every bit of her attention. The carriage rolled over the uneven road, every bump pushing them closer together, sliding his hardness against her core. Desire throbbed, desperate and dangerous.

He licked into her mouth, dragged his teeth over her throat, sucked on the sensitive spot behind her ear until she could not catch her breath. Who needed to breathe, anyway? She would just die here, a puddle of wants and needs, and be perfectly happy.

When he growled, trying to pull her closer, she made a tiny sound that she had never made before in her entire life. He smiled against her skin. She wondered if she ought to be embarrassed, and then decided she’d rather make him growl again.

He knew it too.

“Devil,” he murmured when she writhed against him, pulling at the buttons of his waistcoat.

“Buttons are the devil,” she said.

He caught her wrist in his hand and brought it to his mouth. “I couldn’t agree more.” He used his teeth to loosen the button on her short traveling gloves.

“Roarke.” Was that her? Panting his name?

A lady did not pant.

As she had already drowned the rules of polite Society in a punch bowl, she was quite happy to pant again. And again. He pulled the offending glove away and set his mouth to her inner wrist. Where apparently a thread of fire lived, connected to her core, to the heat between her legs.

“This is taking entirely too long,” she moaned.

“Patience, little devil.”

“Roarke—”

“Every single part of you was made to feel pleasure. I intend to prove it to you.”

“I think you’re trying to kill me.” Why wasn’t he inside her already? Did he not want her as much as she wanted him?

Was she right back where she started? In a house that was not meant for her? In rooms that did not want her? Doubt was a tiny cut, like a rose thorn. She shifted.

“Where are you going?” Roarke caught her chin and forced her face up to meet his. His tone was patient but implacable. “Whatever put that look on your face stops right now.”

She tried to look away. He wouldn’t let her.

“Tessa.”

“It’s nothing.”

“You’ll tell me this. This is yours to tell. Not one of the secrets of Magpie House.”

She exhaled. “I’m afraid.” There was something horrible about saying it out loud. Something freeing, too.

Roarke froze. He may as well have turned to stone beneath her. “Of me?” he asked quietly.

“No.” She snorted despite the weight of the moment. And the fact that snorting was not generally considered alluring. It was honest, though, and he believed her. And since he had confessed his own fears to her through the tightening of his jaw and the abrupt relief now softening his spine, she could confess hers. “I’m afraid you don’t actually want me.” She said it too quickly, but she said it. “You don’t have to pretend.”

“You think I’m pretending?”

“People always pretend.” Until they didn’t. And it would hurt so much less if they just didn’t pretend in the first place.

“Tessa.” He said her name like it was cake in his mouth. Sweet, delicate, tempting. Soft.