As the Devil Dares (Capturing the Carlisles #3)(68)

“Do you have an understanding with him?” He pressed himself along the length of her, leaving her no choice but to entwine her arms around his neck. When she did, he rewarded her with a slow caress of his hands up her body that left shivers in its wake.

“Whitby is…just a friend,” she forced out between increasingly shallow breaths, then gasped as his thumbs stroked the undersides of her breasts.

“I don’t believe you,” he murmured against her ear, then swirled the tip of his tongue along the outer curl and sent a hot shudder shivering through her. “I saw the way you two danced together.”

She would have laughed at the jealousy behind his accusation, if not for the fire flaming in her belly at the way his lips placed sultry kisses along the side of her face.

“We were only dancing.” She fought to keep her voice steady. To keep from whimpering with the need to have his mouth possessing hers. “Talking.”

“I’m certain of that. He whispered all kinds of scandalous things to you, didn’t he?” His words were surely meant as an accusation, yet the jealousy behind them stirred the growing ache inside her and sent her head whirling. That Robert Carlisle was jealous over her—unbelievable. “Like how beautiful you look when you dance, how lithe and graceful…”

She bit her lip. If she denied it, he would stop, and the last thing she wanted was for him to stop. Not when his hands were caressing over her in slow, heated strokes. Not when she could close her eyes and fantasize that he wasn’t making accusations but murmuring words of seduction.

“How much he wants to kiss you,” he whispered as his lips finally found hers. “Like this.”

She lost her breath beneath his heated mouth and melted so bonelessly in his arms that she had to tighten her hold around his shoulders to keep from falling away. When his tongue teased her lips apart and slipped inside, she tasted the burning jealousy in his kiss. And she thrilled with it.

Unable to deny herself the pleasures of being in his arms, she twined her fingers in his silky hair and welcomed the deep, steady thrusts of his tongue between her lips. The heady way he kissed her made her feel as light and dizzy as if she were drunk on champagne, the flavor of him on her lips just as sweet.

Then his kiss changed. He cupped the back of her neck to hold her head still as the thrusts turned into exploring little licks that delved into the secret recesses of her mouth, swept over her inner lip, and teased at her tongue until she dared to lick back.

He groaned at her boldness and pressed closer. The rough bark scratched and snagged at the cashmere of his jacket between her shoulder blades. But she simply didn’t care. She arched herself against him, reveling in the decadent feel of his hard body against hers, craving more of the delicious ache that coiled inside her—

And moaning with satisfaction when his hands cupped her breasts.

Smiling against her temple at her reaction, he teased her nipples through the smooth satin with his thumbs until they puckered into hard points. Her flesh warmed beneath the heat of his hands, as if no barrier existed at all between his palms and her bare skin. She dragged in a deep, jerking breath. Thank God that the jacket prevented him from unbuttoning her dress and baring her breasts to kiss them as he did before, or she would have been begging him to do just that. And with that, cross the line they were rapidly approaching when they would have to stop.

As if he realized that, too, he reluctantly released her. Placing one hand on the trunk over her shoulder while the other slid down her side to her waist, he paused only a heartbeat before slipping his hand between their bodies and resting it on her lower belly. Just inches from the throbbing ache between her legs.

She caught her breath. Apparently, the rake inside him didn’t understand lines of demarcation at all.

“Did he tell you how alluring he finds you, Mariah?” he murmured hotly against her temple in a throaty rasp. “What an absolute challenge you pose? How great a temptation to his sensibilities?” His mouth slid down to hers, to nibble featherlight kisses against her lips that were even more erotic for all their chasteness, even as his hand brushed slow circles over her abdomen. “Because you are all that, minx. And so much more.”

Her heart pounded fiercely. Each slow circle over her belly brought his hand tantalizingly closer to the throbbing ache waiting between her legs for his touch.

She squeezed her eyes shut in a desperate attempt to fight back the longing rising inside her to give over completely to her desires. No matter how much pleasure he gave her, he was still her enemy…wasn’t he?

“You’re wrong,” she forced out in a breathless whisper. She was desperate to find port in the storm before the fog of desire could close over her again, before she lost herself completely in his arms. “Whitby didn’t say any of those things.” Longing to see any kind of reaction in him that she could read to understand what, if anything, he felt for her, she announced, “He proposed.”

His hand stilled against her. For a heartbeat neither of them moved.

She held her breath and waited for the jealousy she’d glimpsed in him earlier to rise to the surface, for him to declare that he would never allow her to marry Whitby or any other man—that he wanted her for himself. Winslow Shipping and her father both be damned.

Oh, how wonderful if he would do exactly that! If he would look past her frayed reputation and wild antics, past the hard fa?ade she showed to the world, to see who she truly was beneath. If he could accept her as she was, all uncertain and confused and wanting him in her life the way she’d never wanted any other man…