“Perfect.” He ran his fingers down her nape to her shoulder and back. Then, he repeated the motion with a heartfelt sigh.
Millie’s tingling sensation returned.
She wanted… She winced. Well, after all she’d been through, she quite felt she deserved a proper kiss. And after that look Neville had given her in Harbury’s library, she suspected Neville could provide that proper kiss.
But dare she ask?
She didn’t want to risk another rejection, but she must. She had to be brave. She had to stop letting everyone else around her make the decisions.
“Kiss me, Neville. I want you to kiss me like you care for me.”
He groaned again, deep and long. “Idocare, Millicent.”
He pressed his lips to her, but only against her brow. Still, she felt their warmtheverywhere.Yes. Please. More…
Had he somehow heard her silent plea? Because suddenly she felt a shattering trail of kisses along her temple and down toward her ear. She collapsed against him, nothing but a puddle of heat and desire and more than a little relief.
“I’vealwayscared.” He kissed beneath her ear. On her temple. Between her brows. “How could you not see? How could you not know?”
“Neville,” she whispered.
Tell me you want me. Tell me you cannot resist me.
The unspoken pleas sat on her tongue. She’d already asked for too much. So, she let her requests dissolve. They were too sweet, too sticky and likely to make her ill…candy she had stolen but was never meant to have.
“Call me Auggie again,” he asked.
Auggie?Ah, yes. She’d done so moments before, as a taunt. How outrageous she’d been. He didn’t look like anAuggieat all.
“Auggie,” she sighed.
So long as kept his cheek against hers, she would call him whatever he pleased. And, she found, his request made her bold enough to propose another of her own.
“Will you kiss me properly, Auggie?”
His momentary silence was followed by an extended sigh and then a meek, “Yes, ma’am.”
She lifted her face. He cupped her cheeks. Then, he touched his mouth gently to hers—warm, dry, infinitely tender. He pulled away, only to return and then to linger.
“Was that ‘properly?’” he whispered against her mouth.
“Yes,” she supposed, somewhat disappointed. “Thank you.” She sighed. “Perhaps proper wasn’t quite the right word.”
He groaned low in his throat. Giving up his resistance, he snaked an arm around her waist, while keeping ahold of her jaw with his other hand. She went limp and yielding as he pressed her into the crook of his arm. In Neville’s embrace, she would not come to harm. As she accepted this truth, the brief, hesitant contact between their mouths turned molten.
Her lips, she was sure, were trembling, and the sensation in the maze that had left her so awed and befuddled was a light spring rain to the deluge of tingles raining down on her now.
His lips, on the other hand, were firm. And he kissed her thoroughly and without hesitation, as if he’d done so a thousand times, as if tasting her was the sole purpose of his existence.
Was that her heart, throbbing?
Or was the throbbing coming from his heart?
She hardly knew where she began and he ended. Again, just as she had on first entering the chamber, she felt sheltered. Safe.
As if she belonged right where she was.
This was a proper kiss.