Finally.
Chapter Eight
Neville withdrew hislips, luxuriating in Millie’s satisfied sigh. Then, with each silent repetition of her name, Neville pressed another earth-tilting, mind-altering kiss against her crown.Millie. Millie. Millie.
He was a bowler’s ball pitched with spinning precision, and she was the cricket bat that just cracked him across his side, sending him wide. He closed his eyes, buried his face in Millie’s hair, and then held on tight.
Eventually, he would be caught.
Would she then slip away? Might he never have the chance to embrace her again?
He hadn’t the time to answer, because she, too, was in movement. She wound her hands tight in his shirt and lifted her shoulders against his chest. He rocked with her gently in the darkness, moving as if his desire to hold her, to keep her, and to protect her were a song.
But the inner melody he heard was not entirely fit for a lady. Especially one with whom he had not yet reached any sort of understanding. The kiss had implied a change between them, but, given the circumstances, he wasn’t sure he could trust the implication.
Dear God, what was he doing?
He had no excuse for himself.None. Men in fine fettle mightclaimthey had a limit to the provocation they could resist,but any man of honor would outlast temptation he knew was wrong. Even if Millie had proven a masterful batsman, Neville now understood her “teasing” had been naïve all along, if not completely innocent.
He’d taken his first blow when she’d said she’d recognized him by his shoulders.
His ungentlemanly, impossible-to-stuff-into-a-stylish-silhouette shoulders his valet was forever bemoaning. Millie had called themdistinctive.And then, while he’d still been reeling, she’d knocked him again.
I convinced myself you wanted me as much as I wan—
That had been one devil of a near-confession!
If she thought her attraction equal to his own, she’d been right not to finish her sentence. Becausewantwas a rickety, insubstantial word, incapable of capturing his bodily demands, demands he was, even now, panting hard to outrun.
Then, if those two things had not been enough, next came the perfect ping.
Will you kiss me properly, Auggie?…with a slight, chaste tremor in the upward inflection.
Properly!?
Oh, yes, he’d complied—tenderly and with herculean restraint. What kind of monster would have denied her a wish? But—good God—to then suffer a sweet, satisfiedthank youas if her perfect straight drive hadn’t just changed the game?
Clearly, he was being punished for all his wrongs.
And yet, he still sinned.
Right now, instead of nestling beneath his chin, quietly fulfilled, she should be shaking him. Knowing Millie, she would smack him, too. If, that is, she’d any idea how improper the carnal need her almost-admission and that pure and “proper” kiss had unleashed.
He’d protested her use ofmadman, but he was doused in lunacy now. Lunacy. Lust.
Why, if he weren’t a true man of honor, if he cared for her just a little bit less—
Hell.
The brief contact between their mouths sizzled in his veins, a water-doused fire, a wish—no, agift. A gift he’d longed for, but never truly believed could ever be his. But the “gift” was only an illusion created by shock and worry and need.
He’d let discipline slip.
But he hadn’t yet fully fallen.
He summoned all that was left of his self-restraint and then pulled himself away.
“Don’t.” She clung to his shirt.