His hand lifted to her chin again. “Let’s renegotiate, shall we?”
“In this position?”
“Not close enough?”
She rocked back on her heels and pressed against the arm of the overturned chair to push onto her feet. There wasn’t time for her to even turn around. In one lithe move, James sprang upright and walked her into the wall.
She stood against the ancient tapestry she’d admired only a minute ago. “You promised me this wouldn’t happen.”
“But you made it happen,” he said, loosening his cravat. “I’m only a man, after all. How can I resist when you throw yourself in my lap? I was almost asleep, and vulnerable to your wiles.”
“My wiles, indeed.”
“You’re full of them.”
She pursed her lips. “Are you accusing me of attacking you?”
“That’s what it felt like. Mind you, I’m not complaining. I just wanted to keep our facts straight.”
“If it didn’t count when you caught me falling over one of your dogs,” she said, “then why should this?”
“I came to your rescue. Again. And we weren’t alone. I didn’t throw myself at you in a moment of weakness.”
She could feel a vein throbbing in her temple. Perhaps she was the one who’d hit her head on the floor. “I thought you were Mary and Walker.”
He raised his brow. “Do I look like Mary and Walker?”
“Not in the least.” She leaned her shoulders back against the wall. “And if you don’t believe that I was playing with them, then I suggest we find them together and you will discover the truth.”
The dark intensity in his eyes mesmerized her. A moment later his mouth slanted over hers and Ivy decided she didn’t care if he thought she had broken their pact. He was kissing her again, and she was kissing him back as if it had been months and not days since they’d sworn never to be together again.
She succumbed to his expertise.
He rewarded her surrender with kisses that unwound her like a skein and slowly drove her wild. He bit her neck and blew gently on it to soothe the sting. His hands shaped her breasts and he ground his body against hers until her blood pulsed in need. Her muslin dress proved no hindrance to his quest. She doubted a coat of armor could safeguard her from his talents. And she wished—oh, how wicked of her—she wished for each of them to be standing naked against the other.
“James,” she whispered, one hand hooked around his neck, the other motioning to the scarlet damask couch across the room.
“Hmmm?”
“Why don’t we—” The deep thrust of his tongue inside her mouth made her forget she’d meant to suggest they sit down together. He grasped her bottom in his hands and drew her into the hard ridge of his arousal.
“Why don’t we what?” he asked hoarsely, sucking hard on her lower lip.
“I can’t remember—oh, yes, I can. The couch.”
He lifted his head, his eyes hooded. “Would you like me to carry you to the couch?”
She struggled to recover from his kiss. “It’s either that or we return to decency and go about the rest of our day.”
He shook his head, leaned down to lift her as his answer, then froze.
A peal of children’s laughter chimed from the door of the music room. Ivy smoothed her dress and looked into the duke’s disgruntled face as he straightened.
“She’ll never find us in here,” Walker crowed above the muted sounds of furniture scraping across the wooden floor.
“She will if you knock over that harp,” Mary cried. “And why are you blocking all the doors? How will we get out if we hear her coming?”
Ivy gave James an I-told-you-so stare. He subjected her to a long hard look, put a finger to his lips, and pointed to a second door beside the fireplace. “I’ll go out through the anteroom. You can leave through the main door.”
“But I’m the one who has to catch them,” she whispered.
He brushed a kiss against the back of her neck before he bent to right the overturned chair. “Our pact is broken. We might as well become partners. Between Mary’s penchant for beheadings and Walker’s for building fortresses, we’re liable to need each other as allies in the future.”
She drew away in reluctance, still under the influence of his powerful masculinity. “I believe I can manage the children, Your Grace.”
“As well as you manage me?”
This was neither the time nor the place to prove herself to the grinning blackguard. Ivy hoped, however, to have improved her management skills before their next encounter. At minimum she must come to terms with her own expectations. Would she be content to become the duke’s mistress? She knew the answer. But was she prepared to lose him?