“I’ll convince you when you reach for me, and I’m no longer there.”
“I hope that day never comes.”
That statement sounded uncomfortably like commitment. Even while her aching heart opened to his words, her conscience shrieked. He tilted her chin with his other hand. His eyes conveyed a message she didn’t want to acknowledge.
“You don’t mean that,” she challenged. “You’d say anything to win.”
He arched his sleek black eyebrows. “What do I win?”
“Your own way,” she snapped, jerking her chin without managing to break free. His hold was gentle but unbreakable.
“More than that, surely. You underestimate yourself, my love.”
How she wished he’d stop calling her that. Warmth trickled through her veins every time she heard those two evocative words in that velvety baritone. She told herself he’d whispered that sweet endearment to a thousand women and never meant it.
Hard to believe that when he looked at her as though she was more precious than gold.
Because she was so close to weakening, she made herself scowl. “Let me go.”
He laughed, and his hold didn’t shift. They were both aware if she really wanted to escape, she’d struggle a bit harder. She doubted he’d hold her against her will. But her will was as pliable as a willow twig.
He knew it, the cocky scoundrel.
“You promised to kiss me good-bye.”
“I promised to show you the door.”
“Temper,” he whispered, and his mouth touched hers with a soft tenderness lacking in his earlier kiss. That had been all command, meant to demonstrate who was in the ascendant.
She kept her lips closed, even as the heat of that fleeting contact seeped into her bones, oozing like honey all the way down to her toes. He thought she’d collapse in panting desire after the merest encouragement. He wasn’t far wrong, but she meant to fight all the way.
Then collapse into his arms…
Oh, Diana, what happened to sending him away forever for his own good? How did that determination turn into this silly, arousing game?
The hand on her chin shifted to stroke her jaw, trailed down her neck to rest against her collarbone. Her frantic pulse leaped as his fingers drifted across the base of her throat. Her breasts tightened and swelled against her bodice, yearning for the touch of his hand, the benison of his lips.
She’d wanted him from the first instant she’d seen him, but unaccountably what they’d done over the last days fed that desire instead of satisfied it. It was as though, having got what she wanted, all she wanted was more.
God save her, he was like opium.
He kissed her again, tiny busses to the corners of her lips, in the philtrum, on her chin, across her nose. She knew this was war. He sought surrender, and he intended to get it. To that end, she’d expected him to employ the passionate arts he wielded to such devastating effect. Instead, he seemed set to tickle her into willingness.
Except every kiss knocked a chip off her defiance.
He kissed her fluttering eyelids, between her brows, her temples. Her lips tingled for the touch of his, but he avoided anything deeper than these playful kisses.
Could one die of sheer frustration? If so, her days were numbered.
She growled softly. Her fists tightened so hard that her nails dug into her palms. The sting helped maintain a shred of resistance. “I won’t change my mind,” she said in a husky voice, spoiling the impression by tilting her head to prolong his lips’ contact with one cheekbone.
“I see you’re an unshakable rock of determination,” he whispered against her face, resting one hand
on her nape. He wasn’t even pretending to compel her to accept his kisses anymore. More galling, she wasn’t pretending she didn’t enjoy his attentions.
He continued in a wry voice. “Nothing will make you relent. Not wind. Not rain. Not ice. You’re like a great monolith of the ages. People will come from miles around to admire you. Like Stonehenge.”
He was impossible. She couldn’t contain a muffled giggle at the idea of Diana Carrick rising in solitary glory from Salisbury Plain to the amazement of onlookers.