Where Dreams Begin(3)

Trembling a little, Holly tried to summon a laugh at her own foolishness. She stepped forward, intending to fill her lungs with a blast of bracing air. Suddenly a huge, dark shape appeared before her…the towering form of a man. Holly froze in utter surprise. Her nerveless hands slipped from the doorknobs, while shock sent prickles all over her body. Perhaps it was Thomas appearing to inform her that the carriage was ready. But he was too tall, too massive to be her brother-in-law, or any other man of her acquaintance.

Before she could utter a word, the stranger reached inside and pulled her across the threshold. With a small cry, Holly stumbled forward, dragged unwillingly out of the parlor and into the night. Momentum brought her full against him, and she was nothing but a tumble of silk and stiff limbs in his arms. He handled her easily, his strength so great that she was as helpless as a kitten in his large hands.

“Wait—” she gasped in bewilderment. His body was as hard as if he were wrought of steel instead of flesh. The cloth of his coat was smooth beneath her perspiring palms. Her nostrils were filled with the scents of starched linen, tobacco, brandy, an utterly masculine mixture that reminded her somewhat of how George had smelled. It had been so long since she had been held like this. In the past three years she had not turned to any man for comfort, had not wanted any embrace to interfere with the memory of the last time her husband had held her.

She was not allowed any choice about this, however. As she spluttered a protest and writhed against his solid body, he bent his head and murmured close to her ear.

The sound of his voice stunned her…a deep purring rumble, like the voice of Hades as he dragged an unwilling Persephone down to his underworld kingdom. “You took your sweet time about getting here, my lady.”

He thought she was someone else, she realized. Somehow she had stumbled onto someone else's romantic rendezvous. “But I—I'm not—”

Her words were crushed into silence as he covered her mouth with his. She jerked in startled reaction, amazed and horrified and abruptly furious…he had taken away George's last kiss…but that thought was burned away in a sudden blaze of sensation. His mouth was so hot, pressing and demanding until her lips were forced apart. She had never been kissed like this, his mouth imparting a message of such lurid desire that she wilted from the heat. She turned her head to escape him, but he followed the movement, angling his head more intimately over hers. The pounding of her heart increased to a deafening roar, and she whimpered in instinctive fear.

Holly sensed the exact moment when the man realized that she was a stranger. She felt him go still with surprise, his breath stopping. Now he would release her, she thought hazily. But after the long hesitation, he changed his grip, his arms still secure but no longer crushing, and one large hand slid up her back to cradle the bare nape of her neck.

She had been a married woman—she had thought herself to be experienced and worldly-wise. But this stranger kissed her in a way no one ever had, invading her, tasting her with his tongue, making her shiver and recoil. The subtle hint of brandy flavored his sleek, warm mouth…and there was something else…some intimate essence that lured her strongly. She eventually found herself relaxing against his hard body, accepting the tender ravishment of his kiss, even answering the exploration of his tongue with timid touches of her own. Perhaps it was the suddenness of the encounter, or the concealing darkness around them, or the fact that they were utterly unknown to each other…but for a feverish moment she became someone else in his arms. Compelled to touch him somewhere, anywhere, she reached around his neck and felt the smooth, hard nape of his neck, and the thick, short locks of hair that curled slightly against her fingertips. His vast height made it necessary for her to rise on her toes to reach him. She slid her palm to his lean cheek, discovering the grain of heavy close-shaven bristle.

He seemed intensely affected by her touch, his breath puffing like steam on her cheek, his pulse hammering in the soft place beneath his jawbone. Holly craved the hard, deliciously masculine texture of him, absorbing his scent and taste greedily before she came to a sudden awareness of what she was doing.

Horrified, she broke away with a muffled cry, and at this first sign of unwillingness, the stranger released her. His encompassing arms fell from her as she stumbled toward the sheltering shadows of the conservatory. She finally stopped in the lee of the winged statue wedged against the stone wall, where there was no further retreat possible. He followed her, though he made no move to touch her again, stopping so close that she could almost feel the animal heat emanating from his body.

“Oh,” she whispered shakily, wrapping her arms around herself, as if she could contain the sensations that continued to spill from every nerve. “Oh.”

It was too dark for them to see each other's faces, but the man's large form was silhouetted by the shimmer of moonlight. He was wearing evening clothes—he must be a guest at the ball. But he did not have the slender, elegant build of a gentleman with abundant leisure time. He had the tremendous, iron-hard muscles of a day laborer. His shoulders and chest were too deep, his thighs too developed. Aristocratic gentlemen did not usually possess such obvious muscles. They preferred to distinguish themselves from those who had to earn a living through physical labor.

When he spoke, the gravelly undertone of his voice seemed to set off pleasurable vibrations along her spine. His accent lacked the clicking precision that a nobleman would have possessed. He was from the lower classes, she realized. How could such a man be attending a ball like this?