“In the first place,” Whitney retorted, drawing a long, suffocated breath while trying to calm herself, “Paul Sevarin is a gentleman, which you are not! And, as a gentleman, he would never dream of kissing me the way you do. He—”
Clayton’s mouth twisted in sardonic amusement. “Wouldn’t he indeed? Apparently, I’ve been giving Sevarin more credit than he deserves.”
Whitney’s palm positively itched to slap that self-satisfied, mocking grin off his face. Why bother arguing with him, she told herself furiously, when he would only twist her words around until they suited him! Of course she’d responded to the wild, forbidden passions Clayton so skillfully aroused within her. What gently reared, unsuspecting female wouldn’t be momentarily carried away by the newness of his practiced caresses?
Gently reared, unsuspecting females! Why, half the most sophisticated flirts in Europe had apparently fallen victim to his skill at lovemaking! Compared to them, she was a mere babe in arms!
“What?” Clayton chuckled maddeningly. “No arguments?”
If she’d had a knife at that moment, Whitney would have plunged it into his chest. Instead she chose the only means available to her to retaliate. Looking at him with just the right degree of amused scorn, she said, “If I do respond to you, there’s a very simple explanation for it, but you aren’t going to like it. The truth is, I find your intimate caresses not only sordid but boring! The only way I can endure them is by pretending you’re Paul and—don’t!” she cried out in panic and pain as his hands tightened punishingly on her upper arms.
With a vicious jerk, he brought her crashing against his chest. Whitney’s head snapped back from the impact, and she saw his eyes glittering down at her like shards of ice. Her throat muscles constricted, choking her frantic apology. “I—I didn’t mean it! I—”
Ruthlessly, his mouth swooped down, slanting punishingly back and forth over her lips until they parted from the sheer, cruel pressure. When she tried to tear her mouth away, his hand clamped the back of her head, holding her against the bruising assault of his mouth. Tears of pain sprang to her eyes, and still the agonizing, endless kiss continued.
“Lie to anyone you please,” he growled savagely into her mouth. “But never again lie to me! Do you understand?” His arm tightened sharply, underlining the warning and cutting off her breath at the same time.
Wildly, Whitney struggled, trying to draw enough air into her lungs to tell him yes! Her ribs felt as if they were being cracked; he was suffocating her and growing more enraged at her helpless, involuntary silence. She forced her hand up along his chest, futilely trying to wedge some space between them, until her fingers finally encountered the male lips locked fiercely to hers.
She didn’t realize it was the unintentional tenderness of laying her hand against his face that made him release her so abruptly. All she knew was that she could finally draw great, gulping breaths of air into her aching lungs.
“I bow to your better judgment,” he drawled with icy contempt. “That was both ‘sordid’ and ‘boring.’ In fact, I would be hard put to decide which of us found it more distasteful.”
Irrationally, Whitney was stung. She stiffened her spine, meeting his cold gaze with as much proud defiance as she could muster. “I don’t suppose you found it distasteful and disgusting enough to consider letting me go?”
What Clayton felt was not disgust, it was fury! Her announcement that when he was kissing her, she pretended he was Sevarin, had so incensed Clayton that he actually considered yanking her into the pavilion and taking her right there on the floor. Since the day she’d returned to England, he’d been tolerating her rebelliousness and overlooking her temper. On the floor of the pavilion, she would learn the folly of pushing him too far. Unfortunately, she would also learn to hate him with a virulence that might sustain her for years.
With deliberate insolence, Clayton inspected her slender, voluptuous form and her classic profile with its flawless camellia-like skin; the color on her cheekbones was heightening because she knew he was looking at her. The sun shone on her mahogany-brown hair, gilding it with red-gold. She looked incredibly beautiful in that dusky pink gown, framed by the wide sweep of emerald lawns behind her: a single, breathtaking rose blooming in a garden of green. But for once, her vivid beauty annoyed, instead of pleased, him, particularly because she was now blithely examining her manicure as if he didn’t exist.
Miss Stone, Clayton decided coldly, was in dire need of a lesson. He considered her spiteful inquiry as to whether he had found the last kiss distasteful enough to let her go home, and an idea took shape. He’d let her go home all right, but before he did, he was going to teach her that his passion was a gift to be shared and enjoyed—a gift that he could give or withhold, when and if he pleased. First he was going to make her kiss him, and then, when he had her desire fully aroused, he would simply disentangle himself from her arms and walk away.
As if there had been no interval of several minutes since she’d snapped the question at him, Clayton answered it. “As a matter of fact, you’re wrong. With the proper incentive, I would let you go.”
Whitney’s head snapped around, her heart leaping with elation, even though her common sense warned her that he was too high-handed, and too confident, to give up the idea of marrying her and let her go. “What sort of incentive did you have in mind?” she asked cautiously.
“I want a kiss from you. A good-bye kiss to take the chill off our parting. And if it is good enough, I’ll let you go. It’s as simple as that.”
“I’m not certain I believe you. Why should you suddenly decide to let me go?”
“Let’s say that these last few . . . unrewarding . . . minutes have convinced me of the wisdom of the idea. On the other hand”—he shrugged indifferently—“my generosity is not without a price.”
A price? Whitney thought joyously. Why, it was no price at all! To be free of this betrothal she’d be willing to kiss his horse! “I am to kiss you good-bye, nothing more?” she said, watching him very, very closely, while she restated the terms of the bargain. “And you are giving me your word that in return, you will let me go?”
He nodded curtly. “Yes. In fact, I won’t even accompany you home. I’ll have my man drive you.” Impatiently, he added, “Well, have we a bargain?”
“Yes!” Whitney said quickly, lest he change his mind.
They were standing almost within arm’s reach, but instead of reaching for her, as Whitney expected, he leaned his shoulder against the pavilion wall, folded his arms across his chest, and said, “As you can see, I am completely at your disposal.”
Whitney blinked at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that the next move is yours.”
“Mine?” she gasped. Dear God! Did he intend for her to take the initiative? She stared uncertainly at his arrogant features and mocking gray eyes. That was precisely what he meant for her to do. And how like him to take this last, final, petty revenge! The breeze ruffled his dark brown hair as he glanced tranquilly up at the trees overhead, then serenely contemplated the azure sky. Leaning lazily against the pavilion with his arms crossed over his chest, he looked so insufferably arrogant that she positively yearned to give him a swift kick in the shin, and the devil fly with his bargain!
Without warning, he straightened as if he were tired of waiting and were about to call the bargain off.
“Wait!” Whitney stammered quickly. “I—I—” She gaped at him in angry consternation, feeling unutterably self-conscious. “It’s just that I—”
“—don’t know how to begin?” he finished sardonically. “Permit me to suggest that you take a step closer.”
Drowning in resentful embarrassment, Whitney complied.
“Very good,” he mocked. “Now, if you will put your lips on mine, you can get it over with.”
Whitney expelled her breath in a long, humiliated rush, glowered at him, and clutching his rust-colored jacket by the lapels, she levered herself up high enough to reach hi
s mouth and pressed a chaste kiss on his lips. Then she stepped back, poised for flight to blissful freedom.
“If that’s the way you kiss Sevarin, I can understand why it’s taken you all this time to bring him to the point of offering,” he remarked with lazy cynicism. “If that maidenly peck is your best effort, I’m afraid the bargain is off.”