“Harry?” She waved her hand in front of his face. “Are you listening to me?”
His heart resumed its normal cadence and his hearing restored itself. He shook his head.
“You needn’t look so horrified.” She cuffed him under the chin. “I was merely teasing.”
Most ladies, from debutantes to dowagers, clamored for a place in his bed. Not once in all his thirty years had a single lady cuffed him under the chin as though he were a naughty child. He wrapped his arms loosely around her waist and pulled her between his legs.
Her eyebrows dipped. “What are you doing?” Nor did young ladies speak to him in this waspish tone. She shoved against him, but he held firm.
“I’m kissing you, sweet.”
She edged back. “You most certainly are not.”
“I’m not?”
She shook her head quite emphatically and, as though she didn’t think him capable of understanding the significance of that shake, added, “You are not to kiss me. Not any more. There have been far too many kisses, Harry.”
He grinned lazily up at her. “There is no such thing as too many kisses.” He leaned up to claim her lips. His mouth collided with her cheek.
“Now, that isn’t true.” She inched a hand up between them and ticked off on her fingers. “There are the kisses of married women.” She shook her head. “Even a single one of those types of kisses would be too many.”
He made it a point to avoid dalliances with married ladies—well, with the exception of the unhappy ones with miserable, philandering blighters for husbands. Those women were perfectly appropriate ones to partake in too many kisses with.
Her eyes narrowed at his guilty silence. “Humph,” she muttered. “Then there are the kisses stolen from unwilling women.”
He gently squeezed her trim waist. “I assure you, I’ve never encountered an unwilling woman,” Her expression darkened. “I’d never force my…” His words trailed off. A black haze descended across his vision.
Anne winced. “You’ve hurt me.”
“Forgive me, sweet,” he murmured. He lightened his grip but retained his hold on her person. “Has there been a gentleman who forced his kiss on you?” If there was, God help the bastard, Harry would separate his limbs from his person and tuck them into the blighter’s bedsheets with him.
A rush of pink flooded her cheeks. “No,” she said quickly.
By God, he’d kill the bastard. Kill him dead.
“It matters not. We’re not discussing the gentlemen who’ve kissed me.”
Which suggested the young lady had kissed more than one gentleman. Fury licked at his insides.
“Rather…” she wrinkled her pert, little nose. “What were we discussing?”
He really didn’t remember much beyond the fact that there had been another man who’d tasted and explored her plump, bow-shaped lips. He growled. One other man who’d done so against her will. “We were discussing the gentleman who stole your kiss.”
She tapped his arm reproachfully. “We weren’t.”
He pulled her closer. “We are now.”
She sighed. “Very well. Lord Ackland.” Her lips pulled into a grimace. “Lady Lettingworth’s masquerade. He tasted horrid.” So, the bastard had dared put his tongue inside the warm, moist cavern of Anne’s mouth. “Like cardamom and brandy and…” She tapped a finger against her lower lip. “Well, you taste of brandy but it isn’t all that unpleasant when I’ve kissed you, then cardamom doesn’t quite blend the—”
“I’ll kill him,” he muttered to himself. She winced and he realized he’d tightened his grip. Again.
“You’ll do no such thing,” she chided. “And…” She swatted his chest. “Regardless, Harry. This was about the types of kisses that would be too many.” So, she remembered. She invariably remembered everything, it seemed. She was far cleverer than Society credited her with being. She resumed ticking off her list. “Then there are the kisses meant to distract a lady.”
“All kisses are intended to distract.” Distract a woman with the thrill of a hot touch. Distract a gentleman from the pain of a wounded heart. Yes, a distraction was a distraction. And just now, he wanted Anne’s kiss not merely for a scandalous diversion away from their host’s soiree but because he’d not leave this damned conservatory until he drove back the taste, scent, and feel of Ackland from her memory. Harry lowered his mouth to hers to prove his very point.