Loving The Lost Duke (Dangerous Deceptions #1)(26)
‘You baggage,’ he said. Clever, clever baggage. ‘I do take no for an answer, you have only to say if you do not want me to kiss you.’
‘But I do want you to kiss me,’ she said demurely. ‘I just wanted to make it clear that I am not one of those silly girls who let themselves be lured into the shrubbery and cannot deal with the results.’ That ended up sounding rather grim, he thought. Perhaps a friend of hers had experienced… results.
‘Just a kiss?’ Cal enquired, setting his hands around her waist. There were no stays under the shifting, slippery layers of silk. Just warm, curving female flesh. ‘You have made an excellent beginning on undressing me that it seems a pity to waste that effort.’
She went deliciously pink. ‘Just a kiss. One kiss.’
One kiss can last a long, long time, Cal told himself as he settled Sophie against him. She was pliant, responsive, not at all tense. She has done this before, he thought as he bent to her lips, his tongue sweeping along the lower curve to taste. She opened to him at once, her mouth sweet and soft, her tongue making a small, but confident, sweep over his in return. She tasted of the strawberries and champagne from the buffet and something tart, perhaps lemon, and she tasted of Sophie, just as he had imagined she would taste.
Cal smiled against her lips as she made a little purring sound and wriggled closer. I’m doing this to your satisfaction am I, Madam? Yes, she had been kissed before, but there was still an innocence, a freshness, about this caress. She was tasting him, just as he was tasting her. She was exploring the man, he sensed, not simply wanting sensual satisfaction. And when he slid his hands up until his thumbs brushed against the underside of her breasts, she pulled back a little. No wanton, Sophie.
He took the hint, slid his hands down again, focussed on making love to her mouth and enjoying her increasingly bold responses. His body nagged at him for more, but he ignored the pulsing, building pressure, the insistent thrust of his erection beneath the thin knitted silk of his breeches.
A kiss, one kiss, could last all evening. The resulting arousal could last a week at this rate, but he would worry about that, take care of that, later. Cal sucked on her lower lip, nipped, laved the tiny bite with his tongue, and was not surprised when she nipped in return, then slid her lips across his cheek to nibble his earlobe.
Perhaps this couldn’t last all evening after all. Much more of this and he would either spend like a randy youth or have to go and throw himself into whatever water feature was tinkling on the far side of the garden. A wicked, pointed tongue ran around the curve of his ear, then her teeth found the lobe again.
And the world exploded.
For a second Cal thought it was the most violent orgasm he had ever experienced. Then Sophie’s teeth closed painfully on the tender flesh of his ear and she jerked free with a startled yelp.
Cal found himself on his feet, Sophie pressed to him protectively, his hand reaching for where his sword would have been if he had been wearing one, and the sky above crackled and banged and trails of stars cascaded across the darkness.
‘Oh, fireworks!’ She was laughing in his arms, the minx, shaking with amusement.
‘It is all right for you,’ Cal grumbled in to her hair, taking the opportunity to lash his arms even more tightly about her. ‘I may never recover from the shock. I will probably become impotent and end my days in a monastery.’
Sophie gave a little wriggle, sending fireworks of their own through the relevant organs. ‘I do not think that is going to be a problem, Your Grace.’ She came up on tiptoe, pressed a fleeting kiss to his lips and stepped back. ‘Don’t forget your neckcloth. And your wig is crooked. I must go back to Mama.’ Then she was gone into the shadows.
‘Baggage.’ Cal collapsed onto the bench and made a business of retying his neckcloth, straightening his wig and retying his mask in the hope that the visible effects of that little interlude would subside before he went back into the light.
That had been a revelation, he thought as he took his time strolling back along the winding paths to the terrace to join the crowd still exclaiming over the fireworks. Not that he hadn’t expected to enjoy kissing Sophie Wilmott, or that he hadn’t expected that she might be willing to kiss him. No, it was the effect it had on him, the wanting to do it again, as soon as possible, for as long as possible and the almost contrary realisation that there was no impatience to move things on faster than Sophie was willing to be wooed.
Wooed? Hell’s teeth, had he actually decided to woo the woman for herself and not simply to provoke Ralph? He supposed he must have. That was an interesting revelation. Cal strode through the ballroom, now far less crowded with the pyrotechnics still in progress, and took a glass of arrack punch from the buffet, knocked it back in one and almost choked. Lord, but Lady Pettigrew’s butler did not stint on the alcohol. At this rate he was going to be hung-over, blue-balled and a suitor come the morning.
He picked up another glass and sipped with more caution. Sophie certainly met his requirements for a wife and, having heard her give a very full explanation of her desiderata for a husband, he was confident he matched them all. After this evening she was even in a very good position to judge whether he might be considered well-endowed. Now all he had to do was to consider tactics, although he could not imagine her mother and step-father turning down a duke for their daughter.
As he strolled back out to the terrace it occurred to him that Isobel might have a view on acquiring a stepmother, but she had seemed to like Sophie. And then there was the question of Sophie’s safety. Surely she would not be a target until she became pregnant? He took off his mask and scrubbed one hand over his face, actually thinking, it seemed, for the first time since his mouth had met Sophie’s.