I Kissed an Earl: Pennyroyal Green Series (25 page)

He could think of a few diversions.

He ought to leave.

“When I was in a Turkish prison, my cellmate didn’t speak a word of English, so I taught him words of English to pass the time. I pointed to things—my nose, my eyes—and the like. I’d say the English words for them. He did the same with his own nose and eyes. Told me what his nose was in Turkish.” He pointed to his nose.

He sensed rather than saw her quick smile. He was pleased beyond all reasonable proportion.

“You’re the only person I’ve ever met who casually begins sentences with things like ‘When I was in a Turkish prison.’”

He smiled to himself again. “Senin güzel bir burnun var,” he murmured.

“What manner of Turkish insult was that?”

“Not an insult. It means you have a lovely nose.”

He glanced up as her hand flew to her nose as if discovering it for the first time, then dropped it almost immediately. He could almost hear her thoughts: Of course she had a lovely nose. All of Violet’s parts were lovely, both considered together and separately, and she knew it. The two of them surely possessed far more than their respective fair quotient of confidence. Which made him smile again.

He inched backward until his head met his pillow. Lifted it up, and settled it down gently as porcelain teacup.

Breathed out a sigh with every appearance of nonchalance.

He thought perhaps two tenser people had never lain alongside each other. He wondered just how far he intended to go, and how it would transpire.

“Where did you get the round scar?” she asked suddenly.

Not precisely what he’d expected her to say next.

“I was shot,” he said simply.

She sucked in her breath sharply as though she’d just been shot. He knew remorse. It had been a terrible thing to say so glibly. “An ambush on a trading mission in India.”

She was quiet. “Did it hurt terribly?” Her voice was odd. As though she were steadying it through some force of will.

Funny to have a vertical conversation in which neither party looked at one another.

“It went through the muscle and bled quite a bit but I dodged quickly enough. So no vital organs were ruined. It did hurt. But it’s a funny thing. The force of it knocks you to the ground. But there’s this moment of numbness, of surprise, really, before the real pain sets in.”

That seemed to be the end of her questions.

But not of his.

He propped himself up on his elbow to look down. “Only angles?” he whispered. A hesitation. His bare chest was mere inches from her. She wasn’t looking at him; her eyes were on the ceiling. Mesmerized, he watched the rise and fall, rise and fall, of her breasts as her breathing quickened. He could see the shadows of her nipples through her night rail. Then a rustle on the pillow by way of reply: she shook her head back and forth. No. She understood what he was asking.

It amused him how well she could follow a thread. But then, perhaps, this evening had a theme.

The shape of things.

“What else, then?” he urged softly.

A swell lifted and swayed the ship almost tenderly, rocking them the way a mollifying hand rocks a cradle, and timbers sighed.

“Curves.” A curt confession.

“Curves?” He feigned bafflement, in almost a whisper. “I’m not sure I understand.”

She froze, eyes aimed ceiling-ward, decisively away from him, breath seemingly held. Thinking.

Always dangerous when Violet Redmond thought.

At last she sighed out a long breath, capitulating, and slowly she rolled her body toward him. And as her dark hair waterfalled forward with her, there was a peculiar sweet pain smack in center of his chest. Perhaps the most simple and profound jolt of sensual pleasure he’d known. It was glorious to at last see all of that hair unleashed. He wanted to wind his hands in it.

“For instance…” Her hand came up slowly, and she pointed to the dark and woolly hollow of his armpit. “…here.”

Her finger a mere half inch away from his flesh, she began, slowly, slowly to outline its contours: tendon and muscle, illustrating the depth of the hollow. Watching him with intent blue eyes, her lips parted ever so slightly, a half-drawn curtain of hair across her face, the ends of it brushing the tops of her breasts.

He froze.

His skin heated along the path she traced in the air as surely as if the tip of her finger was lit like a candle. Gooseflesh lifted the hairs at the back of his neck; the bands of muscle across his stomach were taut in sensual anticipation, and his groin tightened portentously. She wasn’t even touching him.

She knew precisely what was happening to him. Her own breath came shallowly now. She was so entirely new to this but she was no coward; she was testing the boundaries of her own power by testing his control.

And venturing a little deeper, deeper into the waters of seduction. Where would she stop?

Everything was a test of power with Miss Redmond. It would likely be her downfall. She would stop when he stopped her. He ought to stop her.

“Where else?” he whispered. Urging her on.

“…and…here…” Her voice was so soft. He watched her lips, fascinated all out of proportion by her words.

She pointed to the hard gold-brown curve of his shoulder.

And in the air, her finger just shy of touching his skin, she followed the terrain of his shoulder, his biceps. Slowly, slowly. And God help him, all the hair on his arms tingled to a standing position.

He shifted to accommodate the growing swell of his cock.

A word came to him now, unbidden, as natural as a breath, and it frightened him. Breathtaking.

That was the word, the only word, for watching Violet Redmond discover her sensuality.

“…and here…” Her hand hovered with torturous uncertainty, then drifted down, down, down to his waist, hovering above that straining cock.

And she knew.

God help him, he was nearly quivering now. Sweat beaded his back, where part of that round white scar was visible. And that lit match of a finger hovered above the scar, and circled it slowly.

Then stopped.

They stared at each other. His breath was hoarse now.

And then her hand fell next to her, and she pressed it against her hip, as though tucking a weapon back into its scabbard.

He instantly regretted the distance between it and his body.

He pretended to think a moment.

“I think I see now,” he said conversationally, musingly. Very softly. “Curves. Well then, by your definition…would…this… be a curve?”

He brought a fingertip to her lips, slowly enough to allow her to turn her head if she so chose. She watched it, riveted, her eyes nearly crossing at the bridge of her nose. He wasn’t coy. He wasn’t a green lad.

He intended to touch her.

Don’t toy with me, Miss Redmond.

His finger landed on her lips. And as though it had found the road home, reverently, trembling a little, followed the line of them, and he was surprised to realize that he felt he already knew them. The bottom a full swooping curve, elegant and sensual, unimaginably pillowy, so delicate one would think a passionate kiss would tear it like a petal from a flower. The top lip as lyrically arced as a heart.

He hadn’t expected to mesmerize himself. To feel an ache where his heart beat, an unnerving yearning, as well as that all-too-familiar throb in his groin. To want to whisper her name like the chorus of a song.

And yet she’d been entering his bloodstream like slow opium smoke for days. He rested his fingertip at the center of her lips. And cocked a brow, reminding her he’d asked a question.

“Yeth,” she whispered, finally.

He could feel her quickening breath against his fingertip. He took it away so she could speak clearly.

“What was that again?”

She cleared her throat. “Y-yes,” she clarified. Her voice husky. “A curve.”

“Ah, very good,” he said softly now. “Very good. I might be a simple man, Miss Redmond, but I believe I grasp the concept now. But just to be certain…would this be a…curve…?”

He drew the finger down that unthinkably satiny throat, lightly, lightly, slowly, slowly, watching with an achingly deep pleasure the gooseflesh rose in its wake.

“…here?”

Beneath her nightdress, as soft and fine as her skin, was the dark shadow of her nipple at the tip of the upthrust curve of her breast. Without slowing the progress of his finger, he snagged the lace edge and dragged it down, down, down, until her breast, one beautiful, full breast was bare to his eyes.

Her breath shuddered. And she was trying to maintain aplomb, but he felt her rib cage leap up, then rise and fall swiftly.

Her eyes widened. She was afraid now.

And as mesmerized as he was.

And very, very aroused, he knew.

He drew his finger slowly, slowly along the unthinkably soft, vulnerable, arc of her breast, stifling a groan, the blood beating in his head, in his groin, the extraordinary, painful tumult in his body at complete odds with the precise goal of his finger. Knowing he was the first man to ever touch her here was unbearably erotic. He brought the tip of it to a stop on the ruched tip of her aroused nipple…and drew a slow, lazy circle.

Her head tipped back sharply; her teeth sank into her lip on a gasp of pleasure. And the sight of her experiencing this for the first time was so erotic he bit the inside of his lip to stop his own moan. He took his finger away as casually as he’d begun, but now his hands were shaking.

She stared at him, eyes huge and dark, lips parted softly.

He wanted her with an ache that frightened him. He was suddenly furious in an unspecific way again.

Enough. It was time to call a halt to the games. He’d felt off balance since she’d stowed away, and hadn’t yet found a way to regain his equilibrium. He knew the surest, swiftest way to regain his power. To prove to himself that she was just a woman like any other. All he had to do was kiss her.

Slowly, gracefully, he leaned over her; he’d done this dozens of times before in his life. And as his lips came down he caught a glimpse of her sensually darkened eyes widening, her lips parting in surprise.

His lips touched hers. Sank against them. Her lips were a miracle of heat and silk and give. Oh God. It was a mistake.

The kiss raced like a lightning strike along his spine and seized his lungs with a simultaneous rush of panic and joy. As though he’d willingly flung himself backward from the mast to the deck and not only enjoyed the flight but survived the fall unscathed. He inhaled sharply and tipped back into the space shaped like him and folded his hands beneath his head, hoping to appear insouciant but in reality trapping them. He was suddenly afraid of what they might do: Plunder. Caress. Explore. Dear God, take, take, take. He held his body motionless. His heart took painful jabs at his breastbone. His blood was a thick, hot liqueur. His mind a useless scramble.

He could hear her breathing hard next to him. Was aware her fingers were at her lips. Touching them, as if to prove to herself she’d been kissed.

He listened to her breath, the ragged rhythm of it a counterpoint to the incessant sigh of the sea, but for some reason he didn’t want to look at her. He closed his eyes instead and saw her hair, shadow-dark, pooled on the pillow, the shudder of her lashes against her cheeks; he conjured the shape and texture of her lips sinking, opening against his, her breath mingling with his.

He tried and failed to detect the difference between this and every other kiss he’d ever taken. He was rattled.

It would be a simple enough thing to restore his sense of control: all he needed to do was roll over onto her, peel up her nightdress, fill his hands and mouth with her breasts, slip his hands under that doubtlessly silky arse before she had time even to gasp, get a determined knee between hers to pry them apart, and press his hard V of a torso over hers and give her no choice but to wrap her legs around his waist and sink her nails into his shoulders because damned if she wouldn’t need to hold on for dear life when plunged into her Oh God snug, wet…

He flung himself off the bed as though dodging cannon fire and stood stiff and motionless, looking down at her. His face must have been ferocious, because hers went uncertain, and then inscrutable. Suddenly she was painfully human and young, and new. No less desirable, but much more frightening.

Her eyes slid down to the majestic bulge in his groin, magnetized there. And then they bounced back again to the other side of the room as though she’d inadvertently gazed upon an eclipse.

He ought to laugh.

He thrust an arm blindly behind him, found and snatched up the shirt he’d abandoned on the chair and shoved his arms in, buttoned it haphazardly, stuffed half of into his trousers. Bent over and seized his boots by their tops as though apprehending fleeing criminals. And took himself off to sleep in the vole hole, shutting the door harder than necessary, as if trapping all unwelcome feelings in the room behind him.

Violet lay absolutely motionless. Apart, that was, from her breathing, which wouldn’t settle any time soon. Her night rail remained in disarray, but she let the blankets lay where they were. She wanted nothing else to touch her while his touch lingered on her skin. She seemed to glow everywhere, like a just-lit coal.

She brought her hand up to her breast and touched it, to feel what he’d felt. And then she remembered how he felt. His firm lips, his breath, the heat of his body hovering near hers. She was weak with yearning that bordered on angry: it wanted satisfaction. A fire had been lit. She, who’d never been denied a thing in her life, wanted more.

I kissed an earl. Emotions and sensations kaleidoscoped; she couldn’t seem to grasp onto only one. Joy and fear and ferocious desire and amazement took their turns with her. Pragmatism rallied for attention. She suspected pragmatism was masquerading as cowardice, because it said: Nothing more ought to happen. Keep your distance.

He’d fled as though he’d come to his senses, too. Perhaps now the game would be called. Perhaps the earl had bolted out of the room with his magnificent erection—Lady Peregrine had been correct about the thighs—because he couldn’t bear the notion of touching her again now that he had.