“You sound so damn wanton,” Ward growled. “You’d let me do anything to you, wouldn’t you, Eugenia? The perfect lady is no longer in control.”
“No,” she whispered.
He pulled at the edge of her gown so that one breast gleamed in the dim light. “Ask me for what you want.”
“Kiss me,” she cried, helpless in the grip of a desire so potent that she could feel herself tremble.
He bent his head and his warm tongue found her nipple. Her eyes closed and a broken moan floated from her lips.
“Hush,” he commanded. His teeth nipped her at the same moment that a hand covered her mouth, stifling her hoarse cry.
“You want everything I’ll give you, don’t you?” he growled.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Even here, in this church corridor. If I wrapped your legs around my waist, I could take you right here, couldn’t I?”
His smoldering voice made her shudder again. Her breasts felt heavy under his restless caress.
“Couldn’t I?” Ward repeated, his voice branding her skin. He was kissing her again, taking her mouth as his hands petted her, but even so, when he drew back she had just enough presence of mind to speak the truth.
“Yes,” she gasped.
“You’d take every inch of this into your sweet, tight body,” he said, kissing her ear lobe at the same time he rubbed her hand against his cock, now straining to break free of his breeches.
A trickle of sense penetrated Eugenia’s consciousness.
He was using those words with her—a lady? Not that she wasn’t curious about his privates, but—
She heard the low words he whispered in her ear. “Right here in the corridor.”
Eugenia was melting, her skin singing, her breasts throbbing . . .
But.
No.
Ward was starting to sound altogether too much like those men who came to Snowe’s Registry, thinking they could make her do whatever they wanted.
She summoned every ounce of self-control she possessed, and pulled away. “The answer to that is no, Mr. Reeve.”
That man was going entirely too far, thinking that he had her under his command.
Perhaps he did have her under his command, but she was constitutionally opposed to revealing that truth.
She gave her skirts a shake. “Shall we join the others?” She walked ahead of him in the passageway feeling shaken—and triumphant. She’d be damned if she let Ward know how susceptible she was to his charms, simply because he was promising to make love to her.
Make deep, immoral, illicit, debauched love to her all night long.
She was no man’s possession, and she wouldn’t be—at least, not until she chose to give herself away again.
Chapter Twenty-three
During the time it took for Ward’s blood to cool down, he discovered that he couldn’t stop grinning. He was entranced by Eugenia’s sensuality, by her candor, by her laughter.
Even the way she drew her ladylike cloak around herself and dismissed him, all the time with a glint in her eye that admitted it was a pretense.
She was like no other woman he’d ever met. Just now she was prancing down the hall ahead of him, and he knew perfectly well that every twitch of those rounded hips was calculated to drive him insane.
When she reached the end of the corridor, Eugenia looked over her shoulder, and damned if she didn’t look as composed as if he hadn’t tried to make love to her. She had been close to coming in his arms.
He knew she had.
Her breath had caught and she had writhed against him, fingers clenching his shoulders, all because he was kissing her breast.
It was the first time that he’d ever ground out a series of demands like that, perhaps because other women in his experience had made it clear that they were happy to do anything he wanted.
Anything, anywhere.
Not inconsequentially, he had walked away from them without a second thought.
But Eugenia?
She had walked away from him.
He strolled into the vicarage’s drawing room and waited for a maid to pour him a cup of tea, taking the time to add milk and sugar, both of which he loathed. One sip of that revolting beverage, and his cock deflated.
A cup of tea, a chat with the bishop, and he could summon his carriage and return home. Where he fully intended to pull the owner of Snowe’s Registry upstairs and ravish her against the bedpost.
Or against the wall.
He turned around, holding his tea. Tears were trickling down Lizzie’s cheeks. “What happened?” he rasped, dumping his tea cup on a side table and crouching down beside his sister.
“Nothing,” Eugenia said. “Lizzie is demonstrating the art of weeping. She planned to employ the art this morning, but she was thwarted by Chatty’s expeditious handling of your vicar.”