Page 65 of As the Devil Dares

Nervousness spiked inside her. She demanded, “What are you doing?”

“It’s cold.” He placed the jacket around her shoulders. “And you came outside without your wrap.”

The jacket was still warm from his body, and the masculine scent of him clung to it. Both of which made her want to wrap it around herself like a blanket even as she argued weakly, “I don’t need your concern.”

His mouth twisted into a grin of amused aggravation. “And yet you have it anyway.”

Along with another painful reminder of how considerate he was. “Please go away,” she whispered, her words lacking all conviction, even to her own ears. “I came out here to be alone.”

Instead of leaving, he shifted even closer and drawled huskily, “So now you’re alone with me.”

Drat him for twisting her words! And for looking so dashing in the shadows, so warm and inviting amid the winter night. She forced herself to say, “I don’t want you here.”

“I don’t believe you.” He lowered his head until his mouth was even with hers, and his warm breath tickled against her lips. “You like being alone with me as much as I do.” With his eyes locked on hers in the shadows, he dared to brush his thumb over her bottom lip, and she shivered. “What are you afraid of, Mariah?” His voice seeped warmly into her, a tantalizingly masculine sound that left her aching. “That I’ll try to kiss you again…or that I won’t?”

“That’s not it.” If it were only kissing that she wanted from him, she’d gladly let him do just that and take pleasure in it, wanting nothing more than what he gave her at this moment. But her attraction to him had gone beyond that. She wanted to share quiet moments with him, morning walks through the park, and evenings together at the theater. She wanted to argue politics with him over breakfast, discover his opinions about art and music, and let him teach her how to ride a horse. God help her, she wanted all of him. His mind, his laughter, his affections—

“You’d rather be with Whitby,” he bit out, his face hardening at her dissembling. “Is that it?”

She blinked. “Whitby?” she repeated, incredulous. Surely, he didn’t mean…“Hugh Whitby?”

His eyes fixed on hers in the shadows, his hands slipping beneath the jacket to rest on her hips. “I see how you are with him, how you two laugh and carry on.” He gave a small tug and brought her soft body against his. She would have gasped at the contact, except that she was too stunned by his words. “How freely you behave when you’re with him.”

With Whitby? Good Lord, Carlisle was mad! And tantalizingly muscular as he leaned her back against the tree trunk, trapping her between it and his body. The contradiction of his absurd accusation and the heat of his thumbs stroking slow circles over her ribs made her head spin.

“Do you have an understanding with him?” He pressed himself along the length of her, leaving her no choice but to entwine her arms around his neck. When she did, he rewarded her with a slow caress of his hands up her body that left shivers in its wake.

“Whitby is…just a friend,” she forced out between increasingly shallow breaths, then gasped as his thumbs stroked the undersides of her breasts.

“I don’t believe you,” he murmured against her ear, then swirled the tip of his tongue along the outer curl and sent a hot shudder shivering through her. “I saw the way you two danced together.”

She would have laughed at the jealousy behind his accusation, if not for the fire flaming in her belly at the way his lips placed sultry kisses along the side of her face.

“We were only dancing.” She fought to keep her voice steady. To keep from whimpering with the need to have his mouth possessing hers. “Talking.”

“I’m certain of that. He whispered all kinds of scandalous things to you, didn’t he?” His words were surely meant as an accusation, yet the jealousy behind them stirred the growing ache inside her and sent her head whirling. That Robert Carlisle was jealous over her—unbelievable. “Like how beautiful you look when you dance, how lithe and graceful…”

She bit her lip. If she denied it, he would stop, and the last thing she wanted was for him to stop. Not when his hands were caressing over her in slow, heated strokes. Not when she could close her eyes and fantasize that he wasn’t making accusations but murmuring words of seduction.

“How much he wants to kiss you,” he whispered as his lips finally found hers. “Like this.”

She lost her breath beneath his heated mouth and melted so bonelessly in his arms that she had to tighten her hold around his shoulders to keep from falling away. When his tongue teased her lips apart and slipped inside, she tasted the burning jealousy in his kiss. And she thrilled with it.

Unable to deny herself the pleasures of being in his arms, she twined her fingers in his silky hair and welcomed the deep, steady thrusts of his tongue between her lips. The heady way he kissed her made her feel as light and dizzy as if she were drunk on champagne, the flavor of him on her lips just as sweet.

Then his kiss changed. He cupped the back of her neck to hold her head still as the thrusts turned into exploring little licks that delved into the secret recesses of her mouth, swept over her inner lip, and teased at her tongue until she dared to lick back.

He groaned at her boldness and pressed closer. The rough bark scratched and snagged at the cashmere of his jacket between her shoulder blades. But she simply didn’t care. She arched herself against him, reveling in the decadent feel of his hard body against hers, craving more of the delicious ache that coiled inside her—

And moaning with satisfaction when his hands cupped her breasts.

Smiling against her temple at her reaction, he teased her nipples through the smooth satin with his thumbs until they puckered into hard points. Her flesh warmed beneath the heat of his hands, as if no barrier existed at all between his palms and her bare skin. She dragged in a deep, jerking breath. Thank God that the jacket prevented him from unbuttoning her dress and baring her breasts to kiss them as he did before, or she would have been begging him to do just that. And with that, cross the line they were rapidly approaching when they would have to stop.

As if he realized that, too, he reluctantly released her. Placing one hand on the trunk over her shoulder while the other slid down her side to her waist, he paused only a heartbeat before slipping his hand between their bodies and resting it on her lower belly. Just inches from the throbbing ache between her legs.

She caught her breath. Apparently, the rake inside him didn’t understand lines of demarcation at all.

“Did he tell you how alluring he finds you, Mariah?” he murmured hotly against her temple in a throaty rasp. “What an absolute challenge you pose? How great a temptation to his sensibilities?” His mouth slid down to hers, to nibble featherlight kisses against her lips that were even more erotic for all their chasteness, even as his hand brushed slow circles over her abdomen. “Because you are all that, minx. And so much more.”