In the Arms of a Marquess(25)

She turned away, searching for words in the heavy swags of white and silver fabric framing the floor-to-ceiling windows. Elegant, all of it. So cold. So English.

“Do you ever miss it?” Her quiet voice echoed across the ballroom. “Home?” Stomach tightening, she glanced over her shoulder.

He shook his head, twin lines appearing between his brows. “No.”

Outside the windows, the park stretched toward a copse of trees, their leaves mottled with the ripening of autumn, so unlike the tropical paradise she had lived in for nearly a decade.

“I do, every day,” she murmured. “It is like an ache.”

“Still in the thrall of the exotic, shalabha?”

She pivoted around. He stood very still, the word lingering between them, the nickname he had given her in another lifetime, but said so differently. Not warm and playful as she remembered it, instead now with a sharp edge. His eyes were dark as coal, and wary.

Or perhaps warning.

Tavy steeled herself against the sinuous pressure of unwanted emotion rising in her. She did not want to go back, to remember everything, no matter what the temptation. She wanted to pretend that he was the stranger he seemed now, that she knew no more of him than his reputation and position in society.

She did not know him. She never had. She needn’t pretend.

“No.” Her voice cracked, words escaping despite her will. “It was not like that. Perhaps at first. But then I—” Her throat was parched. The empty space between them stretched like layers of mistrust.

He walked toward her.

Fear rushed through her, wholly primal, and she balanced on her toes, ready to flee. He halted within inches and Tavy had to force herself not to retreat, dragging up her gaze to his handsome face. Awareness that he was a stranger flooded her anew, a man, tall and more solid than when she had known him, with tiny lines about the corners of his mouth that had not been there before, his brow severe.

But something shimmered in his eyes behind the shadows shrouding the black. Something she used to see there when he called her by that pet name. Something that now, just as then, made her heart stumble and her knees turn liquid.

“I—” She struggled for breath, but he seemed not to breathe at all, his body a rigid wall.

“You?”

“I miss—”

His hands came up to either side of her face but not touching, as though he did not wish to do it, his arms locked and jaw hard. Like a silent dance he shaped the air around her, spreading warmth upon her skin that penetrated then stole beneath. His gaze scanned her features, fraught and fast. His chest rose hard.

With every mote of skin and blood sparking and alive from his nearness, Tavy panicked. She stepped back.

Ben grasped her wrist, pulled her forward, and joined their mouths.

Chapter 6

WIND. As the sun, in moving from east to west, heats the air more immediately under him, the air to the eastward is constantly rushing towards the west to restore the equilibrium.—Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine

He held her so firmly Tavy could not resist. But she had no will to. There was nothing hesitant in their meeting, nothing shy or uncertain. He pressed his mouth against hers and she met him eagerly. Firm commanding lips, hot mouth, and strong hands controlled her and she let it happen, let the heat of his skin and the taste of him sink into her. He felt wonderful, hard and male and beautiful. And familiar. Him.

He lifted his head. His mouth hovered above hers, his black eyes seeking.

As though in a dream, Tavy laid her palm upon his chest and leaned forward.

He tilted her head back, slid his thumb along her jaw, and pressed her mouth open. She gulped in a breath and he covered her gasp. She melted, lost to his tongue tracing her tender flesh and tasting her lips, caressing, coaxing her to respond. She pushed up onto her toes to meet him more fully. His hand tightened at the nape of her neck, holding her close, and she drank in the taut texture of his skin, the flavor of his mouth, ripe apples, rich wine and desire. The delicious, warm scent of him she had buried so deep enveloped her now like a fantasy.

His hands slid down the sides of her neck to her shoulders, covering her in a sweet blanket of sensation, and she spread her fingers on his shirtfront. His body was firm muscle under the linen. Not a dream but flesh and blood—warm, real man beneath her hands. Heat tangled between her legs. Without allowing herself to think, she pressed her sensitive breasts to his chest.

A shudder seemed to pass through him. He pulled her close and heaven descended, his body against hers, his mouth governing the parting of her lips, the cadence of her very breaths. He paused, then took her lower lip between his and lightly sucked. She sighed, a breathy sound of pleasure she could not withhold. His tongue dipped inside her, then again, twining delicious satisfaction and need together. As though he had a world of time, he played with her ache gently, teasing her soft dampness, mounting her need until she clung to him, fingers digging into his ribs. In the haze of desire, she imagined he wanted this, to make her want him, that he was kissing her this way to force her need. He swept her tongue and lips, giving her just enough of what she craved until she was breathless for more of him, more of his touch and his hands upon her. Her skin was alive, her breasts tight, her breaths short.

Then, for a moment, he fit his lips to hers and kissed her fully, sealing their mouths in pleasure, making them one. Time, pain, hurt fell away. No man except Ben had ever kissed her this way, as though giving her pleasure and slaking his thirst were one in the same. As though he could not stop.