Not unless she gave him a good reason to try.
And the only way to do that, it seemed, was to become his lover…and prove he could enjoy what they shared, even when it could only be for a short time.
She looked up at him, doubting the wisdom of her decision a little longer before deciding it was worth the risk.
She held his gaze, returning to him to boldly caress his broad chest.
His eyes widened a little in surprise. And this time when he drew closer, she didn’t try to evade the inevitable. She kissed him first—and then let him have his way.
As his tongue teased the seam of her lips, of their own accord her arms snaked around his neck to pull him closer. All her senses were alert at the warmth of his large body pressed against hers. Her entire body came alive again, vibrated with the need to get close to this man while she could.
Sullivan seemed to feel the same way. He wrapped his long arms about her and with one lift, carried her effortlessly toward the nearest secluded corner of the room. The papered wall was cold against her upper back, but it provided stability as the earl turned her world upside down with his hungry kisses.
Sullivan was no shy gentleman. He was a man of experience who knew just how to draw out their kiss to the utmost limits of decency and endurance. But the kiss had to end eventually, and when it did, he slid sideways to brush his lips against her throat.
“You should always be like this with me. Free.”
Aurora struggled to catch up her scattered wits and her breath again. She was utterly undone, despite every thought in her brain focused on how to end the encounter before he thought less of her. But she couldn’t seem to untangle her fingers from his dark hair yet.
“No matter what happens between us, I won’t marry you,” she whispered, struggling for control.
“Very well,” he agreed after a long moment of consideration. “So, you will let me kiss you but will not agree to marry me?”
“Yes.” She wanted Sullivan. His touch, his kiss, his previously hidden wild side, to be hers to enjoy for just a little while. Why deny herself this one tiny thing just to keep up the pretense of propriety?
Sullivan’s hand slid from her shoulder, down her side, and came to a stop on her hip. His grip was tight. Definitely possessive. Aurora felt a thrill that she’d been the one to draw out this side of his nature, even if it was wrong for a matchmaker to be seduced by her client.
But how glorious it was to be chosen as the first woman he wanted since his first wife had passed.
At that thought, she stiffened.
She was second.
Drew seemed to sense her distress and caught her face in his hands, then leaned his cheek against hers to whisper, “Don’t pull away from me now. I won’t ruin you or get a child on you.”
Aurora knew he couldn’t ever do that, and she didn’t bother to argue the point as his fingers slid round her body and closed over her rear. He pulled her hips to his, yanking her hard against him. He was already becoming aroused, obviously so, too. He pressed his hips against hers, rubbing her sex with his hardness, and Aurora loved it.
Sullivan, however, started to sink, kissing as he went, sliding out of her arms, and she realized he intended to kneel.
Fearing she was about to hear a proposal spill from his lips, she gasped and tried to pull him back up.
Sullivan whispered “trust me,” and lowered himself farther, catching the bottom of her gown and lifting the hem of her skirts to her knees.
He grasped her ankle, kissed her stocking-clad calf, and then his head and shoulders disappeared entirely under her skirts.
Aurora whimpered as he moved about under the blue muslin, kissing anywhere and everywhere it seemed he could reach. When he reached her upper thigh, Aurora took a steadying breath and wondered if she should end this madness. She couldn’t believe he was about to do what she hoped he might.
He hadn’t really seemed the type.
But he widened her legs with impatient hands, and at the first brush of his mouth against the curls at the apex of her thighs, she rose up on her toes. He grabbed her hips and pulled her back down, and tried to throw one of her legs over his shoulder, too. However, the gown she was wearing today made the task difficult unless she helped him.
He growled impatiently against her curls, and a rush of desire pulsed through her entire body. She wanted to hear him make that sound again. To feel the vibration of his frustration and impatience against her skin.
Aurora quickly hiked up her own skirts and put her bare thigh over his shoulder. Nothing should convince him more of her unsuitability to be his wife than this moment of unbridled lust. She accepted her shortcomings. Others would not. She’d become his first lover, and once he’d taken his pleasure with her, she’d turn him to look elsewhere for the proper wife he deserved.
A moan burst from her lips as his tongue swept the length of her sex, and then pushed between her lower lips. Hard and deep. Just the way she liked it. Aurora leaned against the wall for support and captured his head with one hand, holding him there. He lapped at her sex like a man starving for the taste of a woman.
Perhaps he was.