And Then She Fell(37)

He watched her lips curve, then she murmured, “Sadly, it’s nearly over.”

That was true, which meant . . . he was running out of time. The evening had gone perfectly to this point, but he couldn’t risk not capitalizing on the opportunity Lady Hamilton and fate had, it seemed, conspired to hand him. If he didn’t take the risk, accept the challenge, and take one more step forward, tonight and all the ground he felt he’d regained might well be for naught.

He had to push on, or his advance, and all advantage, might dissipate like mist come the morning.

This, he suddenly realized, was the moment. His moment of truth with her. If he took the next step, he might be damned, but if he didn’t, he almost certainly would be.

Yet if he took this next step, there would be no going back, at least not for him. And if she approved and accepted . . . then there would be no going back for her either, even if she didn’t, immediately, recognize that . . . but he didn’t have time to think and rethink.

His time was now.

Relaxing against the sofa, he glanced at her face. “There’s one more thing we’ve yet to do—one more experience we’ve yet to enjoy.”

“Oh?” Shifting to face him, she widened her eyes. “What?”

“This.” He reached a hand to her nape, cupped the delicate arch, and drew her face slowly to his. They were both wearing half masks; they didn’t need to take them off. He gave her plenty of time to resist if she wished.

She didn’t. Instead, he heard her quick, indrawn breath, saw her gaze fix on his lips.

He lowered his gaze to her mouth, then drew her the last inch and covered her luscious lips with his.

And kissed her.

Properly, this time, yet still with restraint. He set his lips to coax, to tempt, to tease, and waited . . . until he sensed her tentative response, felt it well and swell and burgeon.

Until the pressure of her lips against his grew to be both invitation and incitement.

Only then did he take the next step, the first tiny step beyond innocent. Even then, he didn’t want to frighten her with any too-precipitate glimpse of the passion he held leashed, yet this time he had a point to make, a claim to stake, and he wasn’t going to retreat before he’d accomplished that. Slowly straightening, sliding his thumb beneath her jaw, he tipped her head up, angled his, and sent his tongue cruising over the fullness of her lower lip, tracing the seam . . . and she parted her lips, opened for him, and invited him in.

He wanted to plunge in, to dive deep into the heady delights she offered, but he hauled back on his reins, deployed all the expertise at his command, and smoothly, seductively engaged, traced, stroked, and tantalized.

Steadily, step by step, he led her deeper into the dance, into the subtle play of dueling tongues, the evocative delight of claiming her mouth, and the surprising pleasure of her questing response.

He introduced her to the complementary joys of him tasting her, and of her in turn tasting him.

Any thought that she wasn’t enjoying this, that she wasn’t as wholly engaged as he was, was shattered by her first more definite foray. Then she shifted; a moment later he felt her fingertips gently caress his cheek, and his awareness fractured.

Henrietta sensed it; she didn’t know enough to put a name to what she sensed—a sudden break in his control, of his careful leading—but something in her leapt with a never-before-experienced delight, a sense of victory. Of feminine triumph.

Yes—this was right.

Kissing him and being kissed by him felt inexpressibly right, in a way that resonated to her bones. She wanted to rush ahead, to learn more—much more—all that he could teach her, yet simultaneously she wanted to linger, to savor this, to exalt in this, to drag every iota of simple pleasure from this—to learn the ways how.

He showed her. He didn’t rush forward but lingered with her, savored with her.

They shared even that, openly and completely.

She had no space for thought in her mind, no scintilla of awareness left for reason, and certainly not for detached observation. She followed where he led, and when he paused, once she was certain she’d absorbed all there was to experience to that point, she pressed, and he responded, and they moved on.

So completely immersed in the kiss were they that neither reacted to the warning swissh.

But the explosion of the first rocket jerked them both back to the present—to the sofa in the orangery. They blinked across the shadowed room; looking through the glass doors, she saw the milling crowd now filling the terrace.