Properly. He was finally kissing her properly!
This wasn’t the chaste, knightly kiss she’d always imagined. It was something hotter, darker, forbidden. The culmination of six long years of yearning.
She wanted more.
Heloise groaned as his hand slid down and covered her breast, but before she could assimilate the incredible sensation, his fingers slipped inside her bodice and cupped her, bare skin to bare skin. All the breath left her lungs in a rush. She arched up into his touch with an incoherent gasp as she felt her nipple pebble against his palm.
“Jesus,” Raven murmured against her lips. “Hellcat—”
Another firework screamed up into the sky and burned away in a blaze of glittering sparks. With a supreme effort Heloise dragged her mouth away from his. Her lips were wet, tingling.
“We can’t!” she protested.
He shut her off with another demanding kiss that made her blood sing and her head whirl.
“This is—” She panted.
“—long overdue,” he finished roughly.
In one swift movement he caught her hips and lifted her up, onto the edge of the sarcophagus. Heloise gasped in mixed arousal and alarm as he pushed himself between her open thighs. She could feel him, his stomach, his hips, andoh God,him,hard and thick and demanding, through the fabric of her dress and layers of petticoat. She wanted this, wanted him, with a sudden desperation that was terrifying.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he ordered, and she complied without thought. And then his hand was at the hem of her skirts, dragging them up, past stocking and garter and knee. His fingers slid over the heated skin of her outer thigh and he caught her whimper of protest with his mouth.
She shouldnotbe doing this. Absolutely not. But it felt so good.
With another muffled curse, Raven pushed her backward so she was half lying on the stone. Another firework burst overhead, fizzing and crackling downward like sparks from a celestial anvil. Heloise threw her arms around his neck. God alone knew why he’d suddenly decided to touch her now, after all this time. He probably had some fiendish, ulterior motive, but right now she didn’t care what it was. She kissed him again, deeply, desperately, drowning in the wicked red blackness, raking her fingers through his thick hair, reveling in the silky texture of it. God, the taste of him, like—
The shatter of glass broke her concentration. Raven swore, and her first confused thought was that someone had dropped a wineglass. And then he shoved her roughly onto the floor. One second she was in his arms, the next she was sprawled inelegantly on her stomach behind an orange tree.
Heloise yelped as her elbows made painful contact with the flagstones. She started to get up, to berate him, but Raven covered her with his body, squashing all the breath from her lungs. His arms curved protectively around her head.
A second explosion came, like someone clapping their hands right next to her ear, and chips of terra-cotta exploded from the planter next to her. She tried to lift her head but Raven pushed her back down.
“Shut up and stay down,” he hissed.
Her heart was racing. Raven’s dizzying shift from passionate lover to ice-cold professional was disorienting. Her hands were trapped beneath her body and the stone was cold against her cheek. She felt him tense; his weight increased then suddenly eased as he sprang to his feet and bolted into the garden.
“Don’t move!”
And then he was gone.
Heloise became aware of her own panting breath, choppy and panicked. She pulled herself onto her hands and knees and stared dazedly at the glass shards littering the floor around her. They glittered like ice crystals in the moonlight, tinkling like dropped hairpins as they fell from her clothing. She glanced up at the two broken panes in the tall window opposite. Each had an intricate spiderweb of fractures surrounding an ominous central hole. Cold air was blowing in, and she shivered as her brain struggled to accept the evidence in front of her eyes. Every thought seemed slow, like treacle.
Someone had shot at them.
Raven had left her.
She had to move, get back to the house. Warn people.
Where the hell had he gone?
Her legs were shaking but she staggered to the door just as a shadow loomed out of the darkness. Her squeal of terror was stifled by a hand across her mouth and a strong forearm that snaked around her ribs and robbed her of breath.
“Keep still,” Raven ordered gruffly, and Heloise sagged against him in relief, stilling her struggles. He bent to her ear but didn’t release her. “Are you hurt?”
She managed to shake her head.
He released her mouth and she took a deep breath in. “What on earth is going on?”