The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)(85)

There was no good way to kiss a woman who was sharing his saddle. His neck crooked awkwardly, and he had to hold tight to keep her from slipping off. But it didn’t matter. All those months disappeared—those long, dark months without her there, when he could have been doing this. Holding her. Kissing her. Exploring her mouth, inch by luscious inch.

The horse, sensing Oliver’s inattention, slowed to an amble. Even that damned sharp thing in her skirts stopped being so noticeable. There was nothing but her and the night around them. Crickets chirped somewhere; a bird that hadn’t yet noticed that night had fallen called out. His hands were full of her. If he let go, she might slip bonelessly off the horse.

If he stopped kissing her, he might have to think about the future. He didn’t want to contemplate a world away from this road, away from her kiss. So he didn’t stop. He simply held her close and tasted her.

“Oh,” she said, when he finally raised his head, subtly stretching out the kink in his neck.

But she didn’t ask any questions. Instead, she leaned back against him. Her hair was beginning to fall out of its heavy coiffure. If this were a story, little curls would be coming undone, little tendrils of hair escaping down her back. Instead, the mass of her hair leaned to one side, canting like a half-uprooted tree. Occasionally, she’d reach up and do her best to adjust it back to straight, but inevitably, it would start falling once more. When he wasn’t careful, her hairpins jabbed him.

“I suppose,” she finally said, “that makes up for your horrible, hard thighs.”

He smiled. “I would say that you’ve made up for your money, but that would be a lie. You’ve a long way to go.”

She met his eyes over her shoulder. “How long a way?”

“Miles,” he told her. “Miles and miles of kisses, taken at an amble like this. Maybe once we’ve made it to the Stag and Hounds, I’ll be ready to stop.”

Maybe they’d never make it there. Maybe the rest of the world could be held at bay, and they might spend forever uninterrupted in this darkness with nothing to do but kiss. Maybe that was all this story would be—a nightlong kiss, one where dawn never came.

“Then we must get started immediately.” She tilted her head to his once more.

This time, the horse came to a complete stop. He held her in place with one firm hand at her waist, and let the other skitter down her shoulder, stroking her lightly, playing with the lace at her neckline, the fabric under it. Her skin underneath was warm and soft. When he skimmed the tops of her br**sts, she let out a little gasp.

God, he hadn’t wanted to know that she was that responsive. He hadn’t wanted to know it, but now that he did, he couldn’t stop himself from exploring. He wanted to hear her breathing arrest as he explored the soft curve of her breast. Holding her this close, he could feel that almost-inaudible moan she made. It was a vibration deep in her rib cage, one he sensed in the palms of his hands. He slid his fingers farther under her neckline, under her corset, until he found the place where her skin changed from the softness of her breast to the hard nub of her nipple.

She gave out a soft cry.

“There’s only so much I can do on a horse,” he murmured in her ear. “And perhaps it’s just as well, because if I had you in a bed tonight, I don’t think I could keep my mouth from taking the place of my hands.”

He slid his finger in another circle around her breast.

She swept her hand down his shoulder. Not skimming the fabric. Not even dipping tentatively below the lapels of his coat. Her palm conformed to his chest, seeking out the shape of his muscles, as if the fabric were not even there.

It didn’t matter where they were. What they were doing. That she wore a ball gown, that there were layers of silk and wool separating their skin. He burned for her, burned to kiss every last inch of her. He burned to touch the places he couldn’t reach at this moment.

“God, Jane. God. Tell me not to pull you off this horse.”

She did no such thing. She simply tangled her hand in his coat and pulled him closer.

He was not going to have her in the underbrush at the side of the road. He wasn’t. But God, he wanted it. He wanted her, and he couldn’t even remember why it was a bad idea any longer.

“Oliver.” She said his name on a gasp, and it drove him wild.

“God, I love when you say my name like that.”

She shifted, and her bottom rubbed against his groin as she did. He rolled her nipple between his fingers.

“Oliver,” she moaned, and he kissed her harder. “Oliver. I’m not trying to say your name.”

He pulled back, breathing hard.

“It’s just, that’s the third raindrop I’ve felt.”

“Oh, damnation.” He didn’t want to be interrupted, not for rain, not for thunder, not for a flood sweeping down on them. He didn’t want this to end. Once it did, he wasn’t sure when it would ever start again.

But she was right. It had begun to rain. A cold, wet droplet fell on his nose, followed by another.

He had known their time together was going to end. It was probably just as well that it had. Nothing had changed. She was still…impossible. Utterly impossible. A few heated kisses couldn’t hold the truth at bay, and more would just render this whole thing unsavory.

He wanted more. God, how he wanted more. He wanted it with the strength of four months’ of desperate longing. He forced himself to concentrate on those cold, wet drops. He imagined each one washing away his ardor. Driving away thoughts of her breast under his palm, her legs wrapped around his waist.