A Royal Wedding(18)

And now, with his lips on hers, coaxing, bewitching, one taste wasn’t enough. One taste led to a hunger for more. He was addictive. Compelling. Impossible to deny.

Her body was his accomplice. Her skin rejoiced at his touch. Her mouth revelled in his mastery and his mystery.

Even when his hand slid to her behind, squeezed her and caused every muscle inside her to contract and then bloom, even when she felt a moment of panic and knew this was dangerous and foolhardy and reckless and so many of those things she had never been, she could not stop herself. For whatever he was awakening in her, whatever madness he was unleashing, she wanted more.

She gasped into his mouth and found no respite, for he claimed her lips in a savage kiss that fuelled her desires and quenched her now wafer-thin resistance. And, whatever he was doing, she knew it was well worth the price. For his kiss was a drug, pulling at her sensibilities, his touch on her flesh a sizzling brand.

Divorced from reality, she was his for the taking—almost. For when she felt his hands beneath her, lifting her, when she felt herself settled somewhere he could so deliciously insinuate his legs between hers, there came the tiniest glimmer of doubt—almost as if she’d lost hold of something she should remember in the firestorm of their mutual desire.

But no rational thought could find a way through this forbidden haze of primal need, and she gave herself up to the wanton pleasure of his hot mouth at her breast.

Until she reached back to steady herself against his pressing weight and felt her hand brush something aside—something featherlight that fluttered from the table.

She wrenched her mouth away from his, turned her head to see the centuries-old page flutter to the floor. With a mighty shove born of panic she pushed him away. ‘What the hell are you thinking?’

The words were directed as much as to herself as to him. She was madder with herself, because she should have known better. What a fool! She swiped a glove from the box on her desk, pulling it on as she knelt down. If her actions had compromised the page’s condition she might as well give up her job now. She would never forgive herself. Maybe she should give it up anyway, given she’d so easily disregarded her first responsibility. A paper that had survived for centuries only to be destroyed by a thoughtless couple behaving on top of it like hormone-driven teenagers—and one of them the person charged with ensuring its preservation. That would look good in her report. If she wanted to make a name for herself in this industry, a name nobody would ever forget, there would be no faster or surer way.

What the hell had she been thinking?

That was an easy one. Clearly she hadn’t been thinking— not beyond her own carnal desires.

‘It looks fine.’

Maybe to him. Nothing looked fine from her angle. Everything was off-kilter. Everything was wrong. She swiped sudden tears from her eyes, not sure if they stemmed from what had just so nearly happened on the desk or from relief that the page appeared to have survived its ordeal intact. But she was not about to risk dripping salty tears all over the page and add insult to injury. ‘Just go, will you?’

She slid a folio beneath the page, lifting it gently back to the desk, using the opportunity to take a few more steps and put the desk between them at the same time. She would have to check the page for materials and fibres picked up from the rug, but pulling out her tweezers and microscope would have to wait until the Count had gone and her hands had stopped shaking.

‘Dr Hunter …’

‘Haven’t you done enough? I asked you to go.’

His jaw firmed, his eyes grew hard edged. ‘You’re blaming me?’

‘I certainly didn’t kiss you!’

‘No? I distinctly remember there were two of us there. And I sure as hell don’t remember anyone complaining.’

She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering only too well her lack of resistance. ‘I think we both made a mistake. And now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.’ She curled her hands into fists, willing the shaking to stop, trying to make sense of this unfamiliar recklessness and get her scientific self back together while he loomed there, her very own dark cloud.

‘Have dinner with me tonight.’

Her breath caught. Dinner—and what else? Why the sudden hospitality? Unless he was looking to finish what he’d started?

‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.’

‘You have to eat.’

‘I’m very good at eating alone. Luckily, as it happens.’