A Rake's Midnight Kiss (22 page)

But true to his word, he kneeled to open the basket, revealing a feast. Chicken and salad and crusty bread and creamy cheese and shiny red apples. Even a bottle of champagne. Nobody had ever taken this trouble for her sake.

The basket contained gilded plates and crystal glasses. Mr. Evans picnicked in style. He filled her plate and passed it across with a damask napkin before serving himself. She waited for him to settle beside her in the prow, but he was more subtle than that.

Once he’d poured the champagne, he reclined against the stern. “Your health, Miss Barrett.”

“And yours, Mr. Evans.” She wrinkled her nose as bubbles burst against her palate. “Oh!”

He smiled. “A day of new experiences.”

She glowered. “I’ve had wine before.”

“Not champagne.” He tilted her glass. “You’ll like it once you get used to it.”

Her stomach lurched on a shocked thrill. He wasn’t only talking about champagne.

She rather liked the wine. It was dry and cool and left a lovely apple taste on her tongue. She took another sip then set her glass down. Only when she’d cleared her plate did she realize that Mr. Evans stared at her much as she puzzled over some difficult translation.

He sat back, one hand cradling his glass in his lap. In his shirtsleeves and with his hair ruffled by activity, he looked delightfully disheveled. “You aren’t shocked.”

Oh, heavens. She couldn’t pretend to misunderstand. Well, she could, but it would make her seem nauseatingly coy. “That you harbored wicked plans? No.”

His lips twitched and familiar desire tugged at her belly. She should be careful with the champagne. It had a deleterious effect on willpower.

Of course it was only the champagne.

She scowled into the glass she held, unaccountably half full. Surely she needed more alcohol than that to feel quite so… heated. She raised her eyes, feeling more daring than ever before in her quiet life. “I liked kissing you.”

While his expression remained grave, amusement lurked in his dark blue eyes. “I liked kissing you.”

“This seemed like a… safe place to do it again.” She paused. “If you want to.” She put down the champagne and smoothed her skirts with an uncertain gesture. “Don’t misunderstand. I want you to kiss me. I don’t want you to—”

One eyebrow arched. “Ruin you?”

Her cheeks were on fire. “I’m not in the habit of negotiating—”

“Pleasure?”

“I can finish my sentences, thank you,” she snapped. “Over our acquaintance, I’ve come to realize that I’ve missed… experiences. Experiences that you’re uniquely placed to provide.”

This time she couldn’t mistake the unholy laughter in his eyes. “I feel like I’m applying for employment. Should I supply references?”

She didn’t smile. “I’ll never marry so no husband will begrudge me a few kisses from a handsome scoundrel. And I trust your discretion.”

For one aching moment, she wished she could trust more than his ability to keep his mouth shut. He kept his mouth shut now, just when she wanted the devil to speak. She’d blithely imagined she’d agree to kiss him and he’d leap like a frog to a mayfly.

“Mr. Evans, this is how a conversation works. I speak and you respond,” she said crossly.

That disconcertingly perceptive gaze focused on her. “I’m thinking.”

He refilled both glasses and started on his meal. Genevieve drank a little more champagne, hoping it might stop her stomach twisting into knots. It didn’t.

Eventually the suspense became too much. “God forbid I force you into anything distasteful,” she sniped.

He smiled faintly. “I can’t enter into a carnal arrangement with a woman who calls me Mr. Evans.”

“It’s not a carnal arrangement. It’s a few kisses.”

The smile intensified several degrees, as if he contemplated deeds beyond an innocent’s imagining. “Kisses can be carnal.”

Oh, dear Lord.
A thrill shivered through her as she recalled his mouth ravaging hers. “Will you kiss me?”

“Will you call me Christopher?”

“Must I?” A sly smile lifted her lips. “It’s such fun watching you steam when I call you Mr. Evans.”

She’d been teasing him? Richard slammed down his glass, sloshing wine over the rim. “You little witch!”

Panic flared in Genevieve’s wide eyes as he surged forward, caging her between his arms and legs. “Be careful!” she cried as the boat rocked.

“What’s my name?” He snatched her champagne, spilling it over her bosom as he shoved the glass carelessly behind him.

“Mr. Evans,” she said defiantly, sliding up to sprawl against the cushions like some Oriental fantasy.

“Indeed?” He did what he’d wanted to do since she’d removed her deuced becoming coat. He kissed the slope of her breast. Champagne added exquisite piquancy.

“Mr. Evans!” She flattened one trembling hand on his chest. Through his shirt, her touch seared like a brand.

“For shame, Miss Barrett.” He resisted the thundering urge to rip away her bodice. Instead he ran his lips up her neck to the nerve that set her quaking with response. “Permitting such liberties to a man with whom you’re not on first-name terms.”

“Mr. Evans, you’re too demanding,” she gasped, arching into him.

He studied her from beneath lowered lids. “Shall I stop?”

“Stop?” She spoke the word as if it made no sense. Her eyes were hazy with sensual confusion.

He bared his teeth. He was too edgy to manage a smile. Which for the unflappable Richard Harmsworth said a great deal. “What’s my name?”

He wondered why the hell he was so set on this point. After all, Christopher wasn’t his real name. But in the war they waged, his Christian name signaled her surrender.

“You’re so stubborn.” Need darkened her eyes.

“That’s the pot calling the kettle black.” He surveyed her impatiently. “You’ll let me kiss you, but you address me as if we’ve just been introduced at bloody Almack’s?”

“Don’t tell me you mean to take me back to the Magdalene Bridge.” She sounded disgusted, as well she might. “What kind of blasted rake are you, Mr. Evans?”

Mr. Evans? Still?
“You know my requirements.”

She made a low sound like a cat denied a treat and rose on her elbows. “Proceed, Christopher.”

C
hristopher’s expression transformed to wolfish anticipation. Thrilling trepidation quivered through Genevieve as he dragged her into his arms. Then coherent thought fled as his mouth crashed down.

There was none of the seeking gentleness she remembered. This was headlong demand. Shock held her motionless, then a dark wave of arousal overwhelmed her. On a broken moan, she raised her hands and buried them in his thick, soft hair.

The first time they’d kissed, she’d been untouched. Now she parted her lips for his invasion. His tongue stroked hers, stirring restless heat in her belly. She’d never wanted a man before Christopher. She’d had no idea the experience could be so delicious, yet so frustrating. A sensation of falling, then the cushions were slippery behind her back. His long body came down over hers, cloaking her with passion.

His passion… Hard fullness jutted into her stomach. She arched to test that intriguing weight and felt as much as heard him groan against her lips.

Tentatively, then with growing confidence, she ran her hand across his chest while her mouth danced with his, advancing, retreating, teasing, surrendering. It was a rhythm as complex as any music. Sweeter than the sweetest music. Lingeringly she ran her hands down the powerful column of his neck to his broad shoulders. She loved his shoulders. Their power. Their grace. The way they created their own horizon.

Encouraging his intoxicating rapacity, she turned her face up. She curled her fingers around his biceps then slid her hands across his back, feeling the subtle shift of muscle and bone under the thin shirt. Lower she ventured, tracing the line of his spine. Some distant warning made her pause before she reached firm masculine buttocks, however much she ached to discover all of him. He touched her too, no longer lashing her close as if expecting her to run. They both knew she had no intention of going anywhere, except too far along the primrose path.

Her whole body sang. She whimpered as she tore her lips from his and buried her face in his shoulder. He barely exceeded the bounds of propriety and already she felt overcome. His scent dizzied her. That cursed lemon verbena that should smell like betrayal, and instead promised joy. Beneath it the musky scent of a man’s hunger, astonishingly familiar after those moments by the pond.

His hands cupped her hips, stroking her through her skirts. Heat welled between her legs. She opened her eyes to dazzling shafts of light piercing the graceful willow fronds. This bend of the river was a private, shining world where concepts like sin and virtue held no sway. There was just pleasure, endless pleasure.

Christopher raised his head and his flaring nostrils drew in her scent. His ferocious expression should terrify her but
it only fed her excitement. As his mouth possessed hers, she dreamily imagined she could stay here forever. Nothing in scholarship matched this exhilaration. To think she’d wasted all that time learning Latin and Greek when a doctorate in kissing could increase her happiness so immeasurably.

He balanced over her, eyes vivid against the green, shoulders hedging out the world. “There’s more.”

Her hands slipped around his neck. Now that she wasn’t fighting him, she could admit he had a wonderful face. “Show me.”

He kissed her breast, making her tremble. Her nipples were tight and throbbing. She didn’t know what she wanted, until he slid her bodice lower and nipped at the beaded tips. She gasped as the feeling, halfway between pain and pleasure, jolted to her belly. “Christopher!”

When he drew one peak between his lips, need spiraled. Distantly she knew that she should stop him. A few kisses fell into a gray area between flirtation and ruin. Brandishing her bare breasts crossed a line.

He kissed her until she writhed, muscles tightening toward an end she couldn’t imagine. Still kissing her, he rolled her other nipple in long, sensitive fingers. She’d never felt like this. When he raised his head, she shook as if a strong wind buffeted her. Whereas the only storm assailing her was desire. Her hands fumbled to cover her chest.

Panting, he stared down at her, his arms supporting his weight. “You’re so beautiful.”

For the first time in her life, she believed it. Nervously she licked her lips and his heavy gaze focused on the movement. He shuddered and pressed forward, making her inescapably aware that he wanted her with a man’s hunger.

“Kiss me again,” she murmured, wondering who this demanding wench was. It certainly wasn’t scholarly Genevieve
Barrett who only got excited about obscure facts in obscure volumes.

He smiled and slid along her body to rest on the cushions beside her. “With pleasure.”

She wriggled in the confined space. “It’s a tight fit.”

Her comment amused him. His dipped eyelids indicated that he contemplated lechery. “It is indeed.”

He leaned against the prow and arranged her pliant body across his lap. One powerful arm encircled her back as he lifted her hand from her bosom and kissed it. “Let me see you.”

She struggled with her free hand to cover as much skin as she could. Sadly she was so ridiculously over-endowed, a mere palm and five fingers weren’t up to the task. She blushed. She hoped by the time she’d finished with this reprobate that he’d cure her of that lamentable habit. “You’ve seen me.”

“Can one get too much of a good thing?”

She sighed with impatience and fumbled her bodice over her breasts. “You can’t mean to debate philosophy.”

His lips quirked and his fingers moved upon hers in a caress that tingled to her toes. “It might distract me from what I really want to do.”

He was hard against her hip. She’d ventured so close to yielding that while his desire daunted, it thrilled too. “We can’t.”

She prayed he didn’t hear her piercing regret. How had he lured her so quickly to the brink? She’d thought to enjoy a few kisses, then take her merry way. Instead longing entangled her, made her want more. Knowing that more was a mistake.