She closed her eyes. “Yes, I think I did notice.”
“But it’s wrong. I mean, for both of us. As a gentleman, shaky as that term is at the moment when applied to me, I still feel I need to point that out.”
“I believe most of the world would say so.”
He released her hands, to rest his on her shoulders. “Which begs the question—do we care what the world says?”
Now she looked at him, her indigo eyes looking black as the deepest part of the sea. “I should say we do, that I do. Would you mind if I didn’t?”
“No,” he breathed, just before finally closing the gap between them. “I don’t mind at all.”
HIS LIPS WERE cool against hers—for what else could cause a shiver to run down her spine at his merest touch?—and Dany instinctively pressed her body closer to his, to take in his warmth.
The heat was sudden and intense.
Gone was the teasing, the pleasant camaraderie. Friendship had nothing to do with what she was feeling now. It couldn’t.
This was something new, different.
This was desire.
And she liked it.
Maybe it is the red hair, she thought before she decided not to think anymore. She much preferred to feel.
Coop’s kisses were short, teasing, testing and tasting, as if gauging her response, her willingness.
She wanted to grab on to his ears and pull him firmly against her, because if he were testing her, he’d soon learn that he was politely driving her mad.
So Dany wrapped her arms about his neck, lifted her feet off the floor, swinging them onto his lap, and deliberately propelled herself backward.
Down they went, onto the tufted velvet squabs, their mouths still locked together. Coop somehow sorted out arms and legs until he was lying half-beside her, their lower limbs comfortably entangled, holding her securely so that she didn’t topple to the floor, which would be embarrassing as well as probably putting an end to this exciting interlude.
He was kissing her face now, more of those quick, tantalizing kisses.
And talking.
Good Lord, why is he talking?
“You’re so beautiful.”
Aren’t you sweet? Now hold still and kiss me again. Kiss me a thousand times. Yes, like this. Just like this. Kiss me all night long...
Her mouth opened half in shock, half on a sigh, when she felt his hand on her breast. Cupping her. Rubbing his thumb over her until her nipple responded by going taut, sending unsettling sensations throughout her body, but mostly spreading low, to her belly, and beyond.
He was kissing her. He was touching her. His breath had become fairly ragged, just like hers. She’d dug her fingertips into the cloth of his jacket, able to feel his shoulder muscles, and now wished the jacket gone, even his shirt gone, so she could press her hands directly against his strength.
It had to be the red hair. Or Coop.
They were two people in the most awkward of physical positions, in the most complicated of contrived engagements, behaving like any other two people who couldn’t be close enough, couldn’t hold back, were no longer in control of the situation they had created.
Something else had taken over, and was apparently very much in charge.
And I’ve known this would happen from the first moment I fell into his arms. Two days, two weeks, two years. What did time matter? Because I knew. I think he did, as well...
Dany couldn’t hold back a soft, anguished moan when Coop broke their kiss, moved his hand from her breast.
But then he was kissing her again, trailing those kisses along the side of her throat, down onto her chest, at the same time managing to slide her gown from her shoulder.
When he took her into his mouth, Dany knew that whatever she had felt before this moment in her life had been nothing. Not happiness, not sorrow, not pain nor pleasure. Nothing compared with the waterfall of feelings pouring through her now. Hunger. Joy. Fulfillment. Conquest. Surrender. Chinese rockets exploded behind her eyes, filling her world with color.
She pressed her lower body against his, raising herself up because it felt natural to do so, and encountered his strength, his ardor.
He wanted her.
She wasn’t the baby sister anymore, the too-inquisitive one, the impetuous one, the dare-anything, risk-everything, trust-too-easily bane of her mother’s existence.
Or maybe she was in the process of proving that she was all of those things.
Coop lifted his head, slid her gown back in place. He looked down at her in the near darkness.
“You’re right,” he said, as if he’d read her mind. “We’re not ready for this.”
“We aren’t?” She hoped he didn’t hear the mix of relief and disappointment in her voice.
He kissed her, a long, drugging kiss, the sort that had started all this in the first place. She’d remind him of that, except then maybe he wouldn’t do it again.
“We won’t give this up,” he said as he broke the kiss, long enough for them both to breathe, and then took her mouth once more, even as he righted them on the squabs.
“Stay right there,” he said, dropping a kiss on her nose before shifting to the facing seat, in order to open the small door and tell the coachman to proceed to Portman Square.
And then he was back.
And she was waiting.
Each kiss was better than the last, his strong arms around her, her hands on his shoulders, holding him close.
Each time they broke a kiss, she felt a stab of loss go through her, until he healed her with another kiss.
All night. Kiss me all night.
But when the coach came to a halt and the flambeaux outside the earl’s mansion turned the interior of the coach brighter, it was time to say good-night.
Dany’s bottom lip trembled, and she felt tears stinging behind her eyes.
“Until tomorrow,” Coop promised in a tone so sincere her toes curled in her evening slippers.
He kissed the palms of her hands; he pulled her close to take her mouth one last time.
“I don’t want to leave you here.”
He may as well have told her he loved her. Dany nearly burst into tears, something she never did.
“I don’t want you to go,” she whispered, astonished at her feeling of loss, even as she could still look into his eyes. “One more?”
She could see his smile as he tilted his head and took her in his arms again.
The door opened, and the tiger reached in to let down the steps.
“You have to go.”
“I know.”
“Give me your hand so I can help you down.”
Dany nodded. Her throat was too full to speak.
Together, the backs of their hands brushing against each other, they ascended the steps to the door of the mansion, where the light was brighter and Society’s conventions most definitely ruled.
He kissed her hand as a footman opened