Page 38 of How to Start a Scandal

God in heaven, that body.

Her frock had been a creation beyond anything he’d witnessed before. It had hugged her nipped waist and gone broad at the sensual curve of her hips. His fingers had itched to caress the feminine swell there.

He’d crept his gaze upwards slowly, savouring her. The drink had made him heedless of social propriety and time had left him ravenous for the voluptuous lady who lived next door. He’d wanted to take her in, one glorious inch at a time.

Her breasts... Firm with rounded cleavage, tempting as they rose above her neckline. Her shoulders had been bare and gleaming like pearls.

She’d fingered the silk of her skirt and watched him with an anxious stare. ‘What do you think of my gown?’

What had he thought?

He’d wanted to kiss her until her lips were red, stroke his tongue against hers, give this sweet woman a taste of wickedness that would make her toes curl. He’d wanted to grasp her round bottom in his palms and grind the hardness of himself against the softness of her innocence. He’d wanted to shove her against the wall, tug down her neckline and take her nipples into his mouth to tease with his tongue and teeth until she cried out.

‘You don’t want to know what I’m thinking,’ he’d muttered.

She had swallowed, her eyes wide and innocent. She had been innocent and he the epitome of sin. His body had swelled with a longing for her curves, with a need he could not sate. Not with her. She’d been meant for another—someone who would be a better fit for her. Not some useless second son who wasn’t good for anything more than being cannon fodder for the enemy.

‘Is it that bad?’ she’d asked, a little laugh in her words.

He hadn’t even wanted to make love to her in that moment. Not in the sweet, tender way men were supposed to do with their wives. He’d wanted to pin her to the wall and rub at her most intimate place until she was dripping with need for him. He’d wanted to ravish her. Hard. Deep. Thoroughly. So they were both glistening with sweat after.

‘Oh, God, yes,’ he’d ground out.

Then he’d turned away before she could make out the rigid outline of his manhood in his breeches.

He couldn’t dance with her. Not like this. Not in that gown.

She was continuing the story now. ‘I asked if it was so bad and you said...’

‘Oh, God, yes,’ he said for her.

She winced. ‘You do remember.’ She wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘You were gone the next day. You never even said goodbye.’

Seth ran a hand through his hair. ‘My meaning was wildly misconstrued that night. I didn’t mean that I thought your frock was ugly. It was that you were...’

Luscious. Sensual. Titillating. Tempting.

God, he couldn’t say that. Not to a wallflower who remained unwed at three and twenty. He’d mortify her.

‘Beautiful.’

‘Beautiful?’ Scepticism laced her voice.

‘I wanted to...’

Grab you to me. Stroke your tongue with mine. Make you cry out in passion. Taste you.

‘To kiss you.’

Her lashes fluttered. ‘The way you almost did recently?’

No. Deeper. More passionate. Greedier. Hungrier. Thoroughly and completely until you feared you might die without me inside you.

‘Yes.’

She shivered. It was an almost imperceptible movement and told him in every wonderful way how much she had longed for that kiss as well.

Violet was a wonder of sensuality. A woman who would never have need of lessons from a courtesan like Caroline had mentioned the night before. The notion of seeking lessons in sexuality was truly preposterous and nothing Seth wanted to think of now. Not ever, really, except that he’d promised to consider the ridiculous notion and give Caroline an answer later.