A Dash of Scandal(89)
She moved closer to him, pressing her thigh against his. “You have pursued me from the moment we met. Why would you refuse me now that you have caught me?”
It was difficult to deny the ache in his loins, but he managed to whisper, “I didn’t pursue you to violate you.”
She smiled and lifted one arm to cup the back of his neck with her hand and bring his face even closer to hers. “What a harsh word for what I am asking of you. How could your touch, which pleases me so much, dishonor me?”
Chandler’s breaths were so shallow he could hardly get his words out. “You are an innocent and should remain that way.”
“No. Do not deny me, Chandler.”
He moved his hand from her breast and cupped both sides of her face in his palms. He dipped his head toward hers so that their breaths mingled in heated passion that stirred inside them. His body was painfully betraying him.
“Don’t tempt me this way, Millicent.” It’s not fair. “I want you too badly.”
“I know this is what I want tonight.”
She sounded so earnest, so sincere, so natural. “No. You are a lady. I told you my reputation was far worse than my behavior. I’ve never taken a virgin to my bed. Yes, there have been unmarried ladies I have taken, but only after I was convinced that I would not be the first.”
He looked deeply into her eyes as his desire for her mounted fiercely. He didn’t know how much longer he could refuse her.
Chandler knew instinctively that she was an innocent, but his need for her was so strong he asked, “Be truthful with me, Millicent, would I be the first for you?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will not presume on your wedding night.”
Her eyes glistened and Chandler knew his words wounded her. He thought she would be pleased he’d had the courage to resist her bold offer. It was killing him to do so.
“Why did you pursue me if you didn’t want me? Was it only a game?”
“A game? No,” he answered with all honesty. It had been a game in his younger years when he’d pursued other young ladies into gardens and in Town, but with Millicent he had done it because he had wanted to see her and be with her. He still did. “Of course I want you. How can you doubt that?”
“Now that I want to be yours for a night, you don’t want me?”
“Damnation, no.” He took her lips in a long, hard, savoring kiss that left them both breathless and him mad with desire to forget the foolishness of trying to talk her out of what they both wanted and take her now. “I want you more than ever, but I don’t take virgins to my bed.”
Millicent gave no heed to his words but kissed his eyes, his cheeks, his lips, and his neck all the way down to the top of his neckcloth, then started back up over his chin again. When she touched his lips with her own, she whispered, “Then forget the bed and take me here on the settee, for I fear I will faint if you don’t return my kisses soon.”
All rational thought fled his mind. Chandler gathered her up tightly in his arms and moaned into the crook of her neck. To hell with what was right.
“Yes. How can I resist such a demand when I have wanted to make you mine from the moment you turned and looked at me in that darkened hallway?”
His mouth closed over hers with such fierce hunger he knew it startled her, but he didn’t relinquish his hold on her. Their mouths and tongues clung together and the sounds they made were soft and struggling.
He laid her back into the curve of the settee so that her head and neck rested against an arm. She reached up and circled his neck with her arms and threaded her fingers through his hair, teasing him with her light touch.
They were charged by an awakening and neither of them wanted to let go of it. Their bodies pressed, their lips met, their tongues played together, stirring heated passions that were already on fire.
Chandler’s lips left hers and he kissed her neck below her ear and down to where her chest expanded with each breath and lifted her breasts up for him. She arched her head back to give him access to wherever his lips wanted to go.
In answer, he slipped the capped sleeves of her gown off her shoulders and exposed the plump swell of her breasts where they rested in the cups of her corset. He gently pulled the rosebud tips from beneath their bindings of cloth. He looked down at her beauty, and though he would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that he could not grow any larger or harder, he did. How could he have thought about resisting her? He must have been a madman.