The moment his lips crashed over hers, she felt as though she was swept up into a dream. None of it was real. Not the firm pressure of lips that felt surprisingly soft against her own. Not the slant of his mouth or the placement of his thumb on her chin, urging her jaw to loosen.
And if it wasn’t real, then she could indulge herself in the delicious fantasy. Embracing that delusion, she parted her mouth for him on a sigh of surrender. His tongue slid inside and she moaned at the taste of him.
He shoved her deeper into the wall and it might have been uncomfortable if not for the cushion of ivy at her back and the delicious press of his body sinking against hers.
His hands gripped her shoulders, powerful fingers digging into her skin through her gown. She relished the sensation. The feel of him everywhere, the man, the body she had fantasized over since her gaze feasted on him at Sodom—and this with layers of clothes between them. She couldn’t fathom what it might feel like skin-to-skin. The very possibility made her light-headed.
His mouth scorched hers, his tongue colliding with hers, licking and stroking until a hungry fire burned in her belly. She whimpered as he tore his mouth off hers. His gray eyes glittered brightly down at her.
His hands eased where they gripped her shoulders. “Did I—” His voice sounded dark and strained. “—hurt you?”
“Don’t stop,” she growled, pulling him back with one hand around his neck, letting that suffice for her response.
The kiss burned hotter, feverish and hard. Teeth clanged, but she didn’t care. She had waited too long for this. He feasted on her lips, slanting his mouth one way and then the next. She caught on fast, mimicking his movements and quickly forgetting all about the kiss she had suffered long ago at the mercy of Archibald Lewis.
Lust sizzled through her veins. It wasn’t enough. Her palm glided across his chest, sliding inside the open V of his shirt so that she could touch and feel his warm, firm skin. So much softer than she imagined he would feel. And yet hard. Muscle, sinew, and bone beneath taut skin.
Still not enough.
He returned the favor, his palm finding her breast. Stabbing pleasure shot straight to her core from the contact and she moaned anew. He drank in the sound, squeezing her breast, his fingers unerringly finding her nipple through the fabric of her bodice and pinching down. A needle of pleasure so sharp it bordered pain grayed the edges of her vision.
She cried out into his kiss, but thankfully his mouth swallowed that sound, too. Ripples of pleasure eddied over her. Her legs shook. If not for the pressure of him at her front and the wall at her back, she would have slid to the ground in a quivering mass. The tension coiled tighter and tighter in her belly.
His fingers gentled, rolling her nipple softly, teasing until she was gasping again, shaking in his arms, desperate and throbbing. She surged against his hand, wanting more, dying for a firmer touch again, for the release to the building pressure.
He positioned his hardness where she most ached and ground down against her, one hand cupping her bottom to lift her higher for him. Her eyes flew wide. He felt huge. Even through layers of clothing, she felt the enormous ridge of his manhood. Tortured little sounds escaped her mouth and nose as he rubbed himself against her, building and stoking that pressure until she felt ready to explode.
And he never stopped kissing her. His mouth and tongue continued tasting her, fierce and consuming, ravaging her lips.
Her fingers smarted where she clutched his shoulders, pulling and tugging him closer. It was madness, but she didn’t want it to stop. He could take her right against the wall of overgrown ivy and nary a protest would pass her lips.
She lifted her mouth from his. “Please,” she begged, needing an end to the ache.
She’d brought herself to release before. She knew she was close. She knew it would not take much more from him. He looked down at her with cobalt-dark eyes . . . a stranger, as new to her as this experience was. He watched her intently, his jaw locked and hard, his eyes penetrating and dark as he thrust his manhood once more against her and then pinched down sharply on her nipple.
She shattered in his arms, her body jerking against his. He claimed her mouth again, swallowing her cry. Her hands drifted from his shoulders, her arms sliding around him so she didn’t melt into a puddle at his feet.
“That . . .” she gasped, her chest heaving as though she had just run a great distance.
That had been nothing like the pleasure she gave herself in the darkness of her bedchamber.
And she had not even removed her garments. Her mind reeled, thinking about what it might be like to truly be with him. The two of them with all the time in the world and not a stitch of clothing between them.
She dropped her head back against the wall, ignoring a pointy twig of ivy poking her in the temple. Max stared at her, his expression unreadable but no less penetrating, no less thorough. He stared at her long and hard, as though seeing her for the first time.
She moistened her lips, trying to think of something to say. What did one say after sharing such intimacy? His breathing was nearly as labored as her own. His gaze stark and searching.
The door suddenly opened beside them, and Max flattened against her, pressing them both back to the wall again. Hopefully the ivy obscured them. Aurelia watched over Max’s shoulder as a maid left the house and departed down the path, humming softly under her breath.
They held still for a moment, Max’s body aligned with hers, his heart beating against her rib cage in rhythm with her own.
“She’s gone,” she whispered, her fingers lightly fluttering against his shoulder.
He glanced behind him and then stepped back several healthy steps. Fortunately, she didn’t slide to the ground. She smoothed a shaking hand over her dress and stepped away from the house.
She studied him then, waiting for him to say something, anything. Certainly, they needed to discuss what just happened. Acknowledge it in some way?
He held her gaze, his stare unflinching. Her heart beat faster. The undeniable wish stirred inside her that he would declare himself in some manner. That after their kiss, he would not be able to not kiss her again. That it had been special for him, too. Perhaps . . . that she was.
It was an absurd and fanciful notion, but he had said he was tired of the quarreling. Did he mean that? Could they move on from the bickering and be friends again? Could they have this now? The more she had always hoped for. Had she found it with Max, of all people?
He edged back a step, putting more distance between them. She frowned, beginning to realize he wasn’t going to say any of those things. Indeed not. He would not say anything at all. He was leaving.
With one final look at her, he spun on his heel and quickly disappeared down the path without a word to her or a backward glance.
She stared after him for some moments, her lips still burning, her body still humming in the aftermath of the shattering release he had given her. He was running away from her.
Feeling slightly dazed, she brought her hand to her mouth, lightly fingering the kiss-bruised flesh. A slow smile took hold of her lips. A kiss like that . . . it wasn’t ordinary. She didn’t need vast experience to know there were sparks between them. Chemistry that couldn’t be found just anywhere or with just anyone.
He’d be back.
He didn’t come back.
A week. A blasted week had passed with no sight of Max. Perhaps that kiss hadn’t been so shattering for him, after all.
She busied herself, working on a new sketch and even taking calls from Mr. Mackenzie and Lord Buckston. Even if her heart wasn’t invested, she accepted their courtship. Contrary to what Max said, they were suitable and her pickings were slim. Time was slipping through her fingers like water escaping a sieve. Her mother had begun packing for Thurso, and Aurelia knew that unless she wanted to go with her, she needed to concentrate more on finding a husband and less on Max.
She sighed. Easier said than done. She had possessed only vague notions of what a proper kiss should be. She’d witnessed Rosalie’s and Violet’s starry-eyed expressions and secret smiles when they were with their husbands. She knew there had to be something behind it all. Some thrill. She had been certain a kiss should not taste of fish and sour milk, as had the kiss she endured from Archibald Lewis, but until Max she had no notion of what a proper kiss could be. How it could make her forget everything else in the world. Everything except the sensation of lips and skin and sweetly warm breath.
That kiss had changed everything—ignited a deep craving in her.
She set her sketch pad aside and rose from the chaise beside her balcony. “He’s avoiding me,” she declared, pacing a hard line between her bed and dressing table.
Cecily glanced at her with an arched eyebrow from where she was airing out Aurelia’s dress for the evening. They were dining with Declan and Rosalie. Unfortunately, Max would not be there. She knew that much. She had already inquired. He had declined the invitation.
“A prior engagement,” she snorted, throwing her arms out wide at her sides. “What prior engagement could he possibly have to keep him from a simple dinner? He has to eat, does he not? And he never declines Will or Dec invitations! No, this is because of me.” She pressed a hand to her chest, nodding, certain of it.
Was he avoiding her because of her brother? Naturally, dallying with his best friend’s sister was a line he would be reluctant to cross. And yet he had.
Cecily shrugged as she selected a pair of brocade slippers that had seen better days from the bottom of the armoire. “Perhaps he’s preoccupied making amends to the Widow Knotgrass.”
Aurelia’s shoulders tensed. That was a possibility she had not considered. She ran her hand over her long plait of hair, tugging lightly on the loose end. Had he left her with her lips bruised and aching for more and raced off to the Widow Knotgrass, the woman he really wanted to be with before she had wrecked his assignation? Perhaps he found Aurelia a poor substitute for the lovely and far more experienced widow? Had he spent the day in the widow’s bed with Aurelia a pale memory?
She sank down at the end of her bed, clutching the bedpost with both hands as though it were a lifeline. Glancing up, she caught sight of her face in her dressing table mirror, bright flags of color riding high in her olive complexion. “That is a certain possibility,” she finally admitted.
Cecily clucked her tongue and dropped down beside her on the bed, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Come. This isn’t like you.”
Pining for Max? It most certainly was not like her. Not in a good many years, at least. But then he had never kissed her before. And there was that other side of him she had seen at Lady Chatham’s ball. When he had asked poor Miss Samantha Bell to dance. That was hardly the actions of a shallow, arrogant man.
She closed her eyes in a pained blink. A kiss from Max shouldn’t have changed anything, but it had.
Perhaps it shouldn’t have been such a surprise that Max had been the one to deliver her from tedium. Max was made for pleasure, after all.
She had to believe that the chemistry between them was unique. Surely it was not like that for him every time he kissed a woman? She refused to believe it. It had been special. He felt it, too. Hadn’t he?
She glanced up at Cecily. As though reading her thoughts, her friend shook her head in sympathy. “There are plenty of men like him. My sister fell prey to the sweet words whispered by a handsome man. I was just a girl but I remember it well. My father shouting. My mother’s tears. This man . . . he ruined her. Took Marjorie’s innocence and left her reputation in tatters.” She looked away for a moment, inhaling deeply. “My father tossed her out. She moved to the city, tried to find work. I lost track of her, but I like to think she’s . . .” Her words faded and she blinked quickly, as if clearing the memories from her mind.
“Cecily.” Aurelia closed a hand over hers. “You never told me.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” She smiled a shaky grin. “Nothing to do about it now. No way to change it. I know you’re not Marjorie, but I just . . . I just don’t want you hurt, Aurelia.”
The image of the Widow Knotgrass materialized in her mind’s eye. She imagined Max kissing her . . . pressing the widow down on a bed and having his way with her with the same fervor he had displayed when he kissed her. Only with the widow, he did not stop. He was too overcome with desire. He was unable to tear himself away as he had with her.
Oh, she was a blasted fool. Of course he had not felt anything special for her.
Aurelia sucked a breath into her lungs. It was a hard truth. She had been so busy reveling in how that kiss felt that she had just assumed it was momentous for him, too. She had forgotten the cold contempt with which he’d treated her to all these years. She remembered now.
Cecily was correct. She needed to be careful. She needed to remember that Max was a rogue who didn’t care whose bed he shared.
“You’re right, Cecily.” She nodded, feeling at rights again. If she continued fixating on Max, she was bound for disappointment. The Season would be over, and she’d be in a carriage on the way to Scotland before she knew it. “I think I will have Will invite Mr. Mackenzie to dine with us.”
Cecily arched an eyebrow. “Indeed.”
“Yes.” Feeling better with her decision, Aurelia nodded and returned to the chaise. Picking her sketch pad back up, she made a few strokes on the parchment before stopping. Her concentration continued to stray.
She felt Cecily’s stare on her. “Something amiss?”
Aurelia lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. The possibility that she might not wed in time . . . that she might not receive an offer of marriage, nagged at her. The matter wasn’t entirely in her control, after all . . . even if she made herself utterly amenable. And she hated that . . . the sense of not having control.
Seized with a sudden impulse, she rose from the chaise again and moved toward her small desk. She rifled through the drawer until she located the stationery.
“What are you doing now?” Cecily asked as Aurelia sank down on the chair and started scribbling on the parchment. Finished, she folded the missive, stuffed it inside the envelope and stood again.
“Here. Would you please deliver this for me?” She extended the envelope. “Now?”
Cecily stepped forward and took it from her hand. She looked from Aurelia to the missive, her eyes widening as she read the name on the outside of the envelope. Her fingers stroked over the clean lines of script that proclaimed Mrs. Bancroft’s name on the outside of the envelope. The proprietress of Sodom. “Are you certain?” Cecily asked.
Naturally, her friend knew of her exploits to that club with Rosalie a year ago.
Aurelia nodded. “Yes.” Part of the reason she had not revisited Sodom was that Rosalie couldn’t accompany her. The rest of the reason might have to do with what happened with Max. The events of that night could have been too scandalous even for her.
Cecily nodded slowly, still looking unconvinced. “If you are certain . . .”
“I am.” She moistened her lips. “Cecily, what if no one proposes—”
“Someone is going to propose to you. I wouldn’t be surprised if they both ask you within the next fortnight.” Cecily shook her head, smiling as though Aurelia was out of her mind.
Aurelia grinned ruefully. “Of course you would say that, but what if they don’t? I want my last few months here to be memorable.” Max had given her a taste of passion. Who knew what other adventures waited for her? With a fortifying breath, she continued, “There is a side door at Mrs. Bancroft’s. A doorman is there at all times and will take the missive from you.”
“Very well,” Cecily said. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, but I will go.” At the door, her friend paused and smiled ruefully. “I haven’t your adventurous spirit.” That said, she slipped from the room, leaving Aurelia alone.
Aurelia stared at the unmoving door for some moments before murmuring to no one, “Lucky you.”
Her life would be so much simpler if she didn’t want more. If she didn’t crave it with an intensity that had only grown since Max pushed her up against the back wall of the house. He’d doomed her.
There was no going back now.