“No, that would be my friends, and my own mother,” Coop said, hoping she could hear the smile in his voice.
She squeezed his hands. “The others weren’t with you, or perhaps they’d feel the same. Your life changed that night, didn’t it?”
Her conclusion was something he’d considered. He’d learned that with enough money and position, a person could be bought out of being charged for murder, and that some lives apparently meant less than others. All he could say for certain was that, although they were all of the same age, he’d felt older than his friends after Ferdie than he had before Ferdie.
“At least I didn’t swear off strong spirits, or my own mother wouldn’t speak to me,” he quipped, drawing a smile from her before they could both sink into solemn silence.
“You can’t turn him over to the courts,” she pointed out, her mind leaping ahead. “Not without exposing Mari, or yourself. So how will you stop him? Really, it’s a shame he has no secrets you can reveal, turnabout being fair play and all of that.”
“What did you say? No, wait, I heard you. Turnabout is fair play. Dany, you’re a genius!”
“I am? Oh, good, at last someone has recognized what I’ve always believed.” She leaned toward him. “How am I a genius?”
“I’m not quite sure yet, but we’ll think of something.”
“Before I’m too delighted, I’d like you to clarify something for me. When you say we, do you mean you and the viscount and Rigby? Or do you mean we, as in the way I’d prefer you say it? As in you and the viscount and Rigby and the genius?”
“I wouldn’t take a step without you. I don’t think I’d dare.”
“Wonderful, because I’d hate having to run to catch up. Still, and even as friends, I think perhaps we should shake on it. You know, to seal the bond, as you men do?”
He saw an opening and, crass as he could consider himself, he took it.
“I’d rather seal the bond the way men and women do.”
Or perhaps it was the opening she had sought. With Dany, he knew he would never be sure which one of them, as it were, was driving the coach.
“Well, for goodness’ sake, Coop, it’s about time. I was about to begin wondering if I’d become repulsive to you now that we’re supposedly betrothed.”
He relaxed...but he certainly wasn’t comfortable. “Or that I’d become too comfortable?”
“Yes, that, as well, I suppose. I fear I may share some of my sister’s romantical failings, and would really like it very much if you were to kiss me.”
Apparently both of them had a hand on the reins, and seemed to be heading in the same direction.
He closed the gap between them to little more than scant inches. “If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been of the same mind all evening.”
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