He buried his face in her neck. “I wrote her a letter and asked her not to come.” His firm lips moved with maddening slowness to meet the hand caressing her breast. Her heart was beating too hard. His touch felt illicit and essential. “It’s better that way.”
She needed to escape. She needed his kisses. The anticipation of not knowing which she needed more, of wondering what would happen if she chose him, reduced her to nothing. Instinct made the decision for her. She brought her hands to his large shoulders and felt the deep sigh of satisfaction he exhaled against her skin. “Why did you ask her not to come? I thought you were desperate.”
“Oh, I am,” he admitted with a laugh. “But not for her.”
She wasn’t about to ask him to explain that remark, although it tantalized her. “That sounds rather cruel.”
“It was a kindness for both of us.”
“Won’t she be upset?”
“I’ll find a way to soothe her feelings. She’s fond of jewelry.”
She reminded herself that he had just dismissed the woman who was meant to be in his bed. That didn’t mean he could sleep in hers. But the words wouldn’t come. He had gained the advantage. She wondered what he expected in return. He hadn’t given much thought to deciding his mistress shouldn’t visit. Ivy surmised that the woman wouldn’t view his decision as kindness.
“You realize that I’m about to kiss you?” he asked, as if there were any chance she would refuse when she’d already lifted her face to his and gripped his shoulders in anticipation. “I take that as consent,” he said, his eyes dancing with promise.
“I’m not consenting to anything.”
“Then let me know when to stop.”
“I don’t want you to think for a minute that I’m willing to replace your mistress.”
“Did I ask you to?” he said with a provocative smile.
Before she could answer, he turned her onto her back and pinned her with his body to the bed. She gasped as if a marble statue had toppled upon her, except that James happened to be gloriously alive, a warm-blooded man to the last angle. His black hair fell across his face and partly concealed the dimple in his left cheek. Beautiful, privileged, on the verge of an arrangement with another lady. What was she doing lying beneath him and secretly reveling in her imprisonment?
The situation felt entirely unfair. She might have been his had it not been for the war and her father’s missteps. But then an innocent debutante could not have kept the heart of a dashing heir to a dukedom for long. He would have broken hers.
He still could.
“Why did you send her away?” she asked, the heat of his body spreading through hers, draining her will to resist him. She might have been naked for all that the unfastened cloak and shift protected her against his hardness.
“It’s difficult to explain. I want to kiss you all over. Do you mind?”
“Yes.” But she didn’t. Quite the opposite. She wanted the kisses he had asked for. She parted her lips the moment his mouth covered hers. His tongue stroked hers, gently at first, and his fingers walked down her throat to her stomach. He was kissing her face and throat, and repositioning his body so that she lay snugly beneath his right arm.
“Ivy,” he said starkly, giving her an instant to breathe before he kissed her on the mouth again, and his fingers slipped inside her shift to rub across her tender nipples. Her breasts swelled. “I want to do more than kiss you.”
“Why am I not surprised?” she said, slipping deeper under his spell.
“This is what desire does to a man.” He lowered his head to her breasts and caught a nipple between his teeth. Her back arched. “Believe me, it doesn’t always happen like this. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this desperate. I’m mystified by what you’ve done to me and completely at your service.”
Desire did inexplicable things to a woman, too, she thought, closing her eyes. She couldn’t look at his face and follow what he was doing to her body. His hand drifted down her side and eased beneath the hem of her shift. A pulse began to throb in the place between her thighs. His fingertips brushed her hidden flesh and instead of flinching, she felt herself dampen, open to his possession. She inhaled as he probed her folds with his thick fingers.
“Have you ever been touched here before?” he asked, stroking her so slowly she wanted to cry with pleasure.
“Of course not,” she whispered, afraid of what he would ask her next. Or what she would ask of him. She was aware of a mounting tautness in her belly, a need that he appeared in no hurry to alleviate. How had he stolen her composure so completely? She managed to lift herself an inch before subsiding at the rasp of his voice.