Romancing the Duke (Castles Ever After #1)(20)

“Stop dithering,” she urged. “Surely, that kiss wasn’t the best you could do.”

He bristled. “Of course it wasn’t.”

“I mean, you’ve made love on horseback enough times to draw generalizations about it. You must know how to kiss better than that. I’m not leaving this turret until—”

He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her again. Harder this time. Mainly just to quiet her prattling, but also to underscore the original meaning. If she wanted tender starlight interludes, Ransom was not her man. When it came to physical pleasure, he was aggressive, bold, and unashamed of it. If he had to make the point twice, so be it.

But as he kissed her, something went horribly, horribly wrong.

This time, she kissed him back. Not with mere curiosity or artless enthusiasm but with a sweet, unfettered passion that made his ribs ache.

His eyes flew open in shock—not that it made a damn bit of difference. He still couldn’t see, only feel.

Sweet God above, did he feel.

This was . . . This was not supposed to happen.

Her lips were even more tempting than he’d dared suppose. Plump, wide, sensual. He savored each in turn, then swept his tongue between. She matched him kiss for kiss, taste for teasing taste.

He tugged her close with one arm. As he thrust his tongue deep, her mouth shifted and softened under his. Generous. Giving.

This was everything he’d been craving for so damn long. Closeness, warmth, sweetness, surrender.

He might have confined himself to this castle in the months since his injury, but he hadn’t stopped moving. He’d walked this place every night, traversing the galleries, climbing the stairs, measuring the rooms in paces and learning the way his steps echoed off the stone. Hour after hour and day after day turned into month after month.

First, he’d walked to rebuild the strength sapped from his limbs. Then he’d walked to master the lay of this castle without his sight. He might be a wreck, he told himself, but he’d be damned if he’d be an invalid.

But there was something else that kept him walking, prowling the corridors and towers of Gostley Castle. Even if he wished to rest, he couldn’t. Not without indecent amounts of whisky, anyhow. He just never felt easy. He never knew true peace. He was beginning to think he never would.

And now . . . now, this woman grabbed that tormented, wandering part of him and kissed it. Like a long-lost lover welcoming him home.

Good God. Good God.

She kissed him with everything. As if she wanted to. As if she’d always wanted to. As if her small, slender body were nothing more than a cunningly crafted decanter of some bewitching potion. An essence of desire, aged and corked and waiting for years. As if in one single kiss, she’d sensed her chance to foist it all on him because she was weary of the burden.

Take this sweetness, her kiss said. Take this passion. Take all of me.

He explored her mouth thoroughly, desperate for more.

He should have refused those reckless gifts. But he couldn’t bring himself to pull away. His desires had been caged a long time, too. He couldn’t evade the longing she kindled. Couldn’t deny the hard, hot response of his body—not with his c**k throbbing vainly against his buckskin falls.

God, he felt alive. Fully alive, for the first time since . . .

Since dying.

Ransom didn’t know if this Beware-My-Dangerous-Kisses ploy was having any effect whatsoever on Izzy Goodnight, but he knew this much.

This kiss had him rattled to his boots.

Well, Izzy thought, her first kiss wasn’t everything she’d hoped and dreamed it might be.

It was a thousand times more.

Now this was a proper kiss.

Not just a harsh press of bruising lips, but a real, true kiss, by a man who knew what he was doing. He was kissing her with not only skill but with passion. And ardor.

And tongue.

Best of all, she was somehow managing to acquit herself in a manner that had him growling against her lips. Pure luck there, she had to imagine. Or maybe he was the kissing equivalent of those London dancing masters—the ones who made a girl look graceful and competent when she was just following his lead.

It didn’t matter. She was being kissed, and she was kissing in return, and thus far, it wasn’t a humiliating disaster.

This . . . was . . . glorious.

For the second time in a single day, he made her knees go weak.

She threw her arms around his neck for balance. And then she kept them there for the sheer pleasure of lacing her fingers at the nape of his neck and sifting through the heavy locks of his hair.

He smelled so good. So simply, and so masculinely, good. It made no sense to her, how the most humble, unlikely scents could add up to an exotic cologne. If one gathered a flask of whisky, a strop of old leather, and a cake of plain soap, then tied it all together with a few wisps of dog hair—no one would expect the resulting “bouquet” to smell more enticing than an armful of roses. But somehow it did.

And then there was his heat. He seemed made of it. The man was a coal-fired furnace. He radiated warmth through his grasping hands, his hard chest, his lips.

Oh, his lips. The whiskers dotting his chin and jaw were abrasive, but his lips were . . . not soft, exactly. Soft meant pillows or petals, but his lips were the perfect blend of resilience and gentleness. Give and take.

When at last he reached her mouth again, his taste was easy to name. Whisky and tea. And when he thrust his tongue deep, whisky and need.