Hello Stranger (The Ravenels #4)(47)

“I prefer you to everything,” he said gruffly, and bent to take her mouth with his.





Chapter 11




As Ethan kissed her roughly, Garrett melted against him, a moan catching in her throat. Too much pleasure, too much feeling, and yet she wanted more. She couldn’t seem to draw it in fast enough. His body was solid and heavy, raw power wrapped in civilized formal attire. Her hands slid inside his black evening coat, following the lean contours of his waist up to the muscled vault of his ribs and chest. Ethan tensed and shivered at her touch, and angled his head to fit their mouths more tightly together. Still not enough. She had to feel more of him, all of him. Daring to reach down to his hips, she pulled him closer, and gasped at the feel of his aroused form against hers.

Ethan broke the kiss with a muted growl, the heat of his breath collecting in her ear as he bit gently at her earlobe. Embers caught low inside her and spread heat to every tender place in her body. She was light-headed, weak—every heartbeat riding on a hard-coursing breath.

Ethan’s head lifted abruptly. One of his fingers came to rest gently against her lips.

Garrett was silent, trying to hear over the roar in her ears.

Footsteps, and echoes of footsteps, rose from the depths of the stairwell. She heard the rattle of glass and porcelain, the grunts of effort as a servant carried a heavy-laden tray up from the kitchen.

Garrett’s heart clattered to a halt as she realized she was about to be caught in a scandalous embrace in a servants’ stairwell. But Ethan nudged her farther into the corner and blocked her with his much larger form. She leaned into the concealment of his chest, her fingers clamping on the edges of his coat lapel.

The footsteps came nearer, then halted.

“Don’t mind us,” Ethan said over his shoulder, sounding relaxed. “We won’t tarry long.”

“Yes, sir.” The footman walked past them.

Ethan waited until the servant had left the stairwell before he murmured against Garrett’s hair, his breath stirring the pinned-up curls. “You’re more beautiful every time I see you. You shouldn’t be here.”

“I didn’t—”

“I know. It’s Jenkyn’s doing.”

She tilted her head back to look up at him, her face tense with worry, not for herself but for him. “How did he find out we were acquainted?”

“One of his men followed me and saw us at the night market. From now on, Jenkyn will try to use you to manipulate me. He fancies himself a chess master, and all the rest of us pawns. He knows I’d do anything to protect you.”

Garrett blinked at that. “Should we pretend to have a falling-out?”

Ethan shook his head. “He’d see through that.”

“Then what’s to be done?”

“You can start by leaving the soiree. Tell Lady Tatham you have the vapors, and I’ll find a carriage for you.”

Garrett stepped back from him and gave him an indignant glance. “The ‘vapors’ is a term for a hysterical fit. Do you know what it would do to my career if people thought I might succumb to vapors in the middle of a medical procedure? Besides, now that Sir Jasper knows about our mutual attachment, I wouldn’t be any safer at home than I am here.”

Ethan looked at her alertly. “Mutual?”

“Why else would I be lurking with you in a servants’ stairwell?” she asked dryly. “Of course it’s mutual, although I haven’t your pretty way of putting things—”

She would have continued, but his mouth had fastened on hers. His fingers cradled her jaw and cheek as he drew up pleasure from some depthless well inside her. Blindly she clung to his neck and lifted on her toes to make the kiss deeper, stronger.

His chest expanded with a violent breath or two, and then he fumbled to clasp her arms and hold her back. “You have to leave, Garrett,” he said unsteadily.

She tried to gather her wits. “Why can’t I stay?”

“I have something important to do.”

“What is it?”

Unaccustomed to taking anyone into his confidence, Ethan hesitated before replying. “I have to obtain something. Without being noticed by anyone.”

“Including Jenkyn?”

“Especially him.”

“I’ll help you,” Garrett said readily.

“I don’t need help. I need you to be far away from here.”

“I can’t leave. It would look odd, and I have my own reputation to consider. Besides, my presence provides an excuse to slip away and steal whatever it is you’re after. Take me with you, and Sir Jasper will assume we’ve gone somewhere to . . . well, to do what we’re doing right now.”

Ethan’s face might have been carved from granite. But his touch was gentle as he stroked her cheek with the backs of his knuckles. “Have you ever heard the expression ‘catching a wolf by the ears’?”

“No.”

“It means you’re in trouble whether you hold on or let go.”

Garrett nuzzled her cheek against his hand. “If you’re the wolf, then I’ll hold on.”

Recognizing the impossibility of sending her away, Ethan uttered a quiet curse and pulled her so close that her heels were suspended from the floor. His mouth found her neck, and did something between a kiss and a bite, very gentle but with the edges of his teeth. The flat of his tongue stroked her, and she gasped at the corresponding throb down between her thighs.