stinctive response was so illogical, she’d have laughed if she could have eased the knots in her stomach long enough to do so.
Jack stared at the back of Kit’s wig, his frown only partly due to physical discomfort. He could hardly miss the effect his words had had—Kit sat as rigid as a poker, all her alluring warmth gone, an icily disapproving aura cloaking her slender frame. Inwardly, he swore. He wished she’d stop vacillating—first hot, then cold; steamy one minute, frigid the next. Every time he alluded to their inevitable intimacy, she pokered up. Maidenly virtue was certainly not the cause. Which left the irritating conclusion that her strange behavior was her idea of playing vixenish games.
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “A word of advice—if you wish to secure Lord Hendon as your protector”—what a joke—she was going to have him as her protector regardless—“you’d be better served by curbing your hoity ways, dropping your manipulative playacting and relying on your beaux yeux to take the trick.”
Kit’s jaw dropped.
It wasn’t the shock of why he thought she was interested in Lord Hendon that held her in raging silence—after her initial surprise that struck her as exquisitely funny. But that he had the nerve to suggest the effect he had on her was assumed, presumably to attract him, to suggest that she was manipulative, sent her temper into orbit. Her larynx seized; her ringers curled into claws. She’d seen manipulative females aplenty in London—tizzy, dim-witted women with more hair than wit. And she’d laughed over their theatrical and frequently transparent antics with her cousins. To be classed with their kind was the lowest form of insult.
“My manipulative propensities?” she inquired silkily, as soon as she’d regained control of her voice. Her tone would have sent Spencer for the brandy, but Jack had yet to experience her temper unleashed. “That, my good man, is certainly a case of the pot calling the kettle black.”
My good man? Jack’s scowl was as black as the night sky. “What the devil do you mean by that?” Had he said hoity? The damned woman ought to be on the stage. Now she was pulling rank on him like a bloody duchess!
To Kit’s ears, Jack’s growl was pure music. She was spoiling for an argument with him, infuriatingly arrogant oaf that he was. “I mean,” she said, enunciating carefully, “it hasn’t escaped my notice that anytime I’m in danger of winning a point, you wield that…that thing between your legs like a bloody sword of Damocles!”
Jack choked. “Winning points? Is that what you call your little exhibition on the yacht the other night?”
Kit shrugged. “That was just curiosity.”
“Curiosity!” Jack hauled on the reins and brought Delia to a halt. “When you’d been waggling your tail at me for weeks?”
“Oh!” Kit shifted about to half face him, “I only did that because you were acting like a solid lump of cold stone. And you call me manipulative? Huh!”
Jack had had enough. How could he argue when all she had to do to demolish his arguments was wiggle her hips? He swung his leg over Delia’s neck, taking Kit’s along with it. Together, they slid to the ground.
Kit shook off his restraining hand and rounded on him. “When it comes to being manipulative, I’m a babe in the woods compared to you! You pretended to be totally indifferent to me, just so I’d feel piqued enough to try to capture your interest. I’m not manipulative—you are!”
Her accusation passed Jack by. One of her phrases had lodged in his brain, overwhelming it, obscuring all rational thought.
“Indifferent?” Jack stared at her. How the hell did she think he could possibly pretend to be indifferent to her? He hurt like hell, and she accused him of…He reached for her hands, still bound together with his neckerchief. “Does that feel indifferent?”
Kit’s gasp at her first overt contact with an aroused male member never made it past her lips. Fascination smothered it. Between her hands, Jack’s manhood pulsed, radiating heat through the corded stuff of his breeches. It felt hard, ridged, and curiously alive. Involuntarily, her slender fingers curled around it.
It was Jack who gasped. Unprepared for the outcome of his wild and undisciplined action, let alone her totally unexpected response, he closed his eyes and let his head fall back, hands fisting at his sides while he fought for control. In dawning wonder, Kit glanced up and saw the effect of her touch. Maidenly modesty did not rear its head as, her eyes straining to catch any change in his expression, she slowly slid her fingers up the long shaft until her questing fingertips found the smooth, rounded head.
She heard Jack’s breath catch, saw the tension that already held him tighten its grip. His breathing faltered. Instinctively, she reversed direction, following the rigid rod down to its source amid flesh much softer. Her fingers discovered the round fruit within the soft pouches; she felt them tighten.
The groan Jack gave delighted her, thrilled her. Then he moved.
Jack gripped her shoulders between his hands. His mouth found hers unerringly, all manner of wildness unleashed by her bold touch. One arm slid around her back to gather her to him. The other hand slid into her curls, dislodging her wig. It fell to the ground, a pool of shadow in the moonlight, ignored by them both.
For the life of him, Jack couldn’t regain control. Years of rakish plunder had hardened his heart; he was always in control of his senses, not the other way around. But her blatant yet oddly innocent touch had reached deep, to find something buried beneath layers of sophistication and stroke it to life, something buried so long ago he’d forgotten how it felt to be totally consumed by passion.
Urgency coursed through his veins. Experience told him the woman in his arms was far from the same state. He bent his considerable talents to rectifying the situation.
Kit was stunned. She couldn’t move; her arms were trapped between their bodies, her hands still pressed intimately against him. But she’d forgotten all that. Her lips were on fire. And the heat came from him. She tried to appease the demand in the hard, hot lips pressed to hers; her lips softened but that wasn’t enough. Then his tongue flicked along the swollen contours, and she shuddered and yielded the prize he sought.
She expected to be revolted, as she had been before. Instead, as his tongue stroked hers, flames flickered to life, warming her from within. His slow, sensuous plundering of her mouth shook her, draining the strength from her limbs. She wanted desperately to hang on to him but couldn’t.
Totally engrossed in her responses, Jack sensed her need. He raised his head and thanked heaven for instinct. Distracted by their argument, he hadn’t paid any attention to their direction, yet he’d stopped Delia beneath the spreading branches of a tree, shielded from any chance observer. Disengaging from Kit, he stepped back, lifting her tied hands around his neck. He straightened and pulled her hard against him.
Kit had no time for thought. No sooner had she been released than she was trapped again, this time breast to chest, pressed firmly against Jack from shoulder to thigh. His lips recaptured hers, and his tongue took up where it had left off, frazzling her defenses.
Defenses? What a joke! Her head was swimming, but her body seemed alive. Alive as it had never been before. Kit felt Jack’s arms ease from about her and wondered at the warping of her senses. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t hear. She couldn’t have strung two coherent words together. But she could certainly feel. His large hands came to rest just behind her shoulders. For one unnerving moment, she thought he intended to end the kiss. A shudder of relief ran through her as his palms swept her back, down over her waist, tracing her curves with authority. When his hands cradled her bottom, her fevered flesh burned.
With a low growl of satisfaction, Jack shifted his hold and lifted her, taking two steps to set her back against the trunk of the tree, bringing her head level with his. He let her slide slowly down until her feet just touched the ground, one of his thighs wedged firmly between hers.
Fire raged through Kit, leaving her scorched, parched, thirsty. Her lips clung to his, as if the passion in his kiss was her only salvation. Little riv