But deeper even than her physical reaction was her love. Which told her that though he might play at being a villain, though he might be trying to frighten her a little, to punish her for hurting him, for taking the easy way out when she should have stood by him, he was not a villain at all. He would not have offered to suffer public censure so that she could walk away with a spotless reputation, if he was.
If anyone was being wicked here, it was her. Her reasons for being here were utterly selfish. And improper. And possibly a bit perverse. She was sure she ought not to feel so thrilled that he was pinning her down, intent on punishing her.
‘I won’t scream,’ she said. Although to her guilty ears, her voice sounded almost like a purr.
‘No?’
She shook her head. Cleared her throat. ‘I can see, now, that I have made you angry with me, which is why you are being a bit brutish about the way you are going about this. But I have nobody to blame but myself. If I didn’t want you to kiss me, the way an experienced man wants to kiss a woman, then I should not have come here.’
‘You won’t scream for help, no matter what I do?’
She shook her head again, then somehow found herself raising her free hand to cup his lean jaw.
Damn. He might have known he couldn’t frighten her into conforming to the predictable pattern any other female would follow.
So that was the end of hoping for her indignant aunt to come bursting in to her rescue, preferably bringing one or two witnesses to confirm public speculation about his evil intent, which would have resulted in him offering to make reparation by marrying her. She would not have refused him on those terms. For some reason, she was particularly protective of his reputation.
Something like a short laugh escaped his throat. ‘I should have known you would never do anything so missish,’ he said, catching the hand she’d laid against his cheek and drawing it to his lips. ‘It makes you irresistible.’
She looked sad. ‘Please don’t bother with insincere flattery. Not now. There’s nobody here to listen.’
‘When will you get it into your head that I am completely sincere? I have not said one word to you that I do not mean. And I never shall.’
He might resort to extreme lengths to bend her to his will, he might disappoint her in a thousand ways, but he would never lie to her.
Quickly, before the trusting look in her eyes could make him relent, he silenced whatever she was about to say by kissing her again.
Henrietta surrendered to the heated urgency of his mouth with a sigh of bliss. She stiffened in surprise when he took advantage of that sigh to thrust his tongue into her mouth, although it was not at all unpleasant to taste him in such an intimate way, as well as making her feel—well, not to put too fine a point on it, invaded, in a totally shocking and yet completely delicious way.
Lord, she wished she knew what to do with her hands. The rest of her body seemed miraculously to know
exactly what to do. Instinct, she supposed. The totally natural reaction of a woman to the man she loved. Her heart was pounding, her bones were melting and that secret place between her legs was swelling and softening in preparation for the invasion that his tongue was mimicking in her mouth. Her body was completely uninhibited. Only her hands remained shy, buttoned up in gloves that would make the undoing of masculine attire a clumsy affair that would only be frustrated in the end by the inability to feel bare skin. Even if she plunged her fingers into his hair there would be a barrier of silk to mar the experience of sifting through the dark silken curls. Why had not she had the forethought to remove them, as he had?
Because on his side, it was not love at all. He might be kissing her with an urgency that felt like passion, but she’d seen the look in his eyes before he’d started the kiss. It had looked very like determination.
And a man in love should not have to steel himself to kiss the woman he was with.
A little sob rose up in her throat. When she tried to suppress it, it escaped as a frustrated whimper.
He gentled his kiss at once, nipping at her lower lip with his teeth, then soothing it with his tongue as he withdrew it from her mouth.
Terrified he was going to end the kiss so soon, she flung her arms round his neck and pressed her mouth fervently against his, hoping to atone for her lack of experience with enthusiasm.