She deserved an honest answer. "Competition," he confirmed.
There was a flash in her eyes-surely not pain? But when she spoke, her voice was steady. "Competition? Over me?"
"Competition between myself and Vander," he said, forcing the words out.
"You are competing for me?"
She pulled back, the better to see his eyes, and Thorn was appalled to discover that he didn't even like that small distance between them. Some part of his mind thought talking was a waste of time, and he should kiss that little indent at the base of her throat. Lick it. And lick his way down the curve of her breast.
He wanted to know if she tasted as sweet all over, every inch of her. There were parts of her that he hadn't had time to kiss the night before.
"It's instinctual," he explained, pulling his mind back from the bed. "Vander is my closest friend, and one of the few people I trust in the world. I've measured myself against him since we were at Eton."
"When he was unable to pummel you into the ground," she said, faint distaste in her voice revealing just what she thought of this sort of male conduct.
It was idiocy. It was also, unfortunately, the way he was made. "Vander and I are slightly cracked in that respect," he acknowledged, ignoring the fact that he was playing with her hair.
"You just kissed me because you are competitive with Vander?"
"Yes," he said bluntly.
"That's ridiculous!" she said, sitting up straighter, which pressed the curve of her bottom against his legs. And his cock.
"It makes sense to men," he managed, which was pretty miraculous given that he was in the grip of a lust stronger than he'd ever experienced.
"Men are absurd," she said flatly. "You shouldn't be giving in to the impulse to kiss a woman merely because your friend showed interest in her."
"It's not just that," he said, as his gaze caught on her rosy lips. Without thinking, he rolled over, tucking her beneath him, his body rejoicing as he sank onto her soft curves.
"Bloody hell," he whispered, sending the words straight into the warmth of her mouth. "You make me lose my mind, India."
She didn't reply, just slid a hand in his hair and pulled his mouth down to hers.
Thorn was no gentleman. He never had been, and he never would be. Still, even as he shifted his weight, just enough to run a hand over India's lush breasts, his conscience started nagging.
He couldn't go . . . where this was going. But he couldn't stop either, because the moment his hand touched her breast, she gasped and her head arched back, exposing a neck as lovely as the rest of her. Leaning forward to kiss it made his hips press into her, bringing a wave of lust more ferocious than anything he'd experienced since adolescence.
He smoothed a hand down her throat, a whisper-soft caress, and kissed the curve of her jaw.
"India," he whispered.
"What was that?" she replied, and he could tell she steadied her voice with difficulty. "More competition?"
"You're damned beautiful, India. There's no red-blooded man in the world who wouldn't want to be in my place. Hell, I feel sorry for all those men who fell in love with you, house by house. You probably ruined them for married life."
Her mouth was bruised a deep red by his kiss, and he found he hadn't the heart to care. Her lips curved in a slow smile, and he felt that smile in his own body. Between his legs. "Your hair is like the white of the sun if you stare straight into the sky."
"My hair is not white," she protested. "I'm not that old yet. I think I would enjoy your competition if it wasn't for the fact that I'm the bone you and Vander are squabbling over." She corrected herself before he could respond. "No: over which you and Vander are squabbling."
Thorn didn't want to think about Vander. "What was wrong with the way you said it the first time?"
She frowned. Then her brow cleared and she said, "Of course you wouldn't know, because you were a mudlark. If I end a sentence with ‘over,' that's ungrammatical. At least, I think it is."
Thorn started winding locks of her hair around his fingers. He'd never felt anything so silky in his life. "If you were a trollop, I'd pay a bloody fortune to have all this hair of yours sliding over my bare skin."
"Thorn!"
He'd shocked her. A bit. "Why are you worrying about grammar? Who cares if a sentence isn't exactly right?"
"I do. And you ought to as well. It's hard to catch up because I hadn't a governess, and it must be the same for you. You're behind. You must catch up."
"Why?"
It was a simple question, but her brow knit. "Because it's important."
"To be perfect?" He was quite aware that perfection was outside his grasp. What's more, he saw perfection in his father and thought it was over-rated.
"The best you can be," she clarified.
"So why didn't you have a governess?"
Her face changed, and he didn't like her expression. He leaned down and took her mouth again, a reckless, raw kiss that made their tongues mimic what their bodies might do. When at last he jerked his head back, they were both breathing fast, hearts pounding against each other's body, probably in unison, he thought hazily.
"Now tell me," he whispered, running his fingertips along the curve of her jaw. "Why didn't you have a governess?"
Her eyes were half closed. "We couldn't afford one. My parents never wanted one, because my mother thought society's strictures were tiresome." Her voice lilted when she said the last sentence, as if she were quoting a woman long dead.
"I knew there had to be a good reason I grew up on the streets," he said, bending his neck so that his mouth could trace the same path as his fingers. "Not knowing any of those strictures means I've never had to worry about them."
She turned her head, and his lips brushed her cheek. "I find it hard to imagine you worrying about any rules, social or otherwise."
"We can't keep going like this, India, or we'll find ourselves in bed again," he said honestly. "And we cannot do that."
"Of course we can't," she said, not moving. "The last thing I want to do is to be forced to marry someone who is only kissing me because of a childhood rivalry."
"And I am to marry Lala," he said gently.
"I would never do anything to stand in the way of your and Lala's union . Do you know, Thorn, I think that if the ton saw her the way she was tonight at dinner, she never would have been labeled a simpleton?"
"A simpleton?" That took him aback.
"Obviously, quite untrue," India said, "and I shall squash those rumors just as soon as the new season begins. Lala bloomed tonight. I think her mother might be responsible for some of her problems."
Thorn didn't want to talk anymore about his future wife. Or think about her, though he had to admit that he didn't like the word "simpleton."
India's thoughts were going in a quite different direction, because she got a crooked little smile on her lips and said, "Unfortunately for your competitive side, Thorn, I like Vander."
The smug feeling in his gut evaporated.
"You were absolutely right about him," she went on, apparently not noticing that he'd gone rigid. "He's manly, the way you are. He's interesting and amusing and smart. And you saw how wonderful he was with Rose earlier; he'll make a wonderful father."
Thorn briskly rolled both of them to a sitting position. "If you accept Vander's offer, India-"
"He has made no offer!" she protested.
"If he does, you must never tell him that we were intimate. Never."
"Because of your competition?"
"Because of the kind of friends we are." He and Vander were welded together like brothers, and a fracture would be deadly. In fact, he had an uneasy feeling that whether or not Vander learned the truth, the very fact he had slept with his future wife might shatter their bond.
"Very well," she said, pushing her hair behind her shoulders. "I really must get back now, Thorn. Adelaide will be wondering where I am."
Looking at her, Thorn suddenly understood what could lead a man to break all the rules of civility in order to bind a woman to him. Put India's intelligence and passion together with her shapeliness, her mouth, her laugh, even that beauty mark . . . she was enough to drive a man to madness.
"You must tell me the moment that Vander proposes," he said.
She frowned. "Are you saying I need your blessing?"