Beauty Tempts the Beast (Sins for All Seasons #6) - Lorraine Heath Page 0,52

none of his bleedin’ business with a Cockney accent, her acerbic tone had embedded itself in his mind and grown tentacles to reach every aspect of him that responded to womanly wiles.

That she had the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen and dainty features that reminded him of the princesses in the fairy tales he’d read to his sister Fancy—fourteen years his junior—when she was a wee lass did not mean that Thea saw him as deserving of her or thought of him as a prince riding in on a white steed to save the day.

Thea. Thea seemed to suit her better, at least in his mind. Althea was for the lady she’d once been. Thea was the woman she was now.

Presently, she was under his roof, under his care. And his care should not include kisses that even now, in spite of the cold, managed to keep his lips warm. When he was daft enough to run his tongue over them, he could still taste her. Not the sherry she’d sipped or the scotch she’d gulped, but beneath it all a mixture of cinnamon, butter, and sugar, all things sweet, a flavor that was unique to her, that he would recall and savor until his last breath.

At the end of their time together, he was going to be a thousand pounds poorer, because he’d be damned if he’d teach her how to seduce another man into her bed.

Chapter 12

It was only a kiss. She’d carried a litany of those words into her slumber, and upon awakening discovered they still mocked her. It had been only a kiss in the same manner a feast was merely one dish or a storm a single raindrop or a blizzard a solitary snowflake.

It had been everything, all consuming, the brightest sun, the largest moon, a thousand upon thousand stars. It had been more than pliant lips moving in tandem, testing, gliding, settling in. It had been tongues and teeth, sighs and moans. It had reached beyond mouths to include limbs and breasts and that very sensitive spot between her legs that had been straining toward him, had tingled and pulsed, and seemed nearly ecstatic when she’d felt the hard evidence of his desire pressed up against her belly. It had warmed. It had been the spark that ignited passion. It had been like nothing she’d ever before experienced while at the same time it contained a familiarity, as though every aspect of her recognized that with him, she somehow belonged.

Which was absolutely absurd, especially as it was apparent he’d experienced none of the mind-numbing pull she had. It was obvious he’d not been able to get away from her fast enough, had recognized their encounter as a mistake. Strange how his escape had hurt far worse than Chadbourne’s turning his back on her when she’d believed he was stepping up to show Society that her father’s actions changed nothing between them.

As she went through her morning ablutions, washing her face, unplaiting, brushing, and plaiting her hair, and changing into her simple blue frock, she fought not to remember the devastation that had hit her mother when all of Society had literally and figuratively turned their backs on them, left them to make their own way without any assistance or support. Her mother’s decline had begun that night and she blamed the ton as much as her father for destroying such a proud, kind woman.

When she cast off those musings, she found herself anticipating seeing Benedict at breakfast, hoped a chair next to him had been reserved for her—in spite of his hasty retreat. She would find a way to laugh it off, to give the impression she saw it as merely the first of several lessons, so he would realize she wouldn’t take seriously whatever emotions might rise to the fore with his nearness, his touch, his tutoring.

But when she made her way to the dining room, it was to find the chair at the head of the table vacant, and it struck her almost like a physical blow. “Is Benedict”—the women all stared at her—“Beast not joining us for breakfast?”

“He was out until the wee hours,” Jewel said. “I ’spect he’s having a lie-in.”

She imagined him sprawled over a bed, one larger than normal, one especially designed and built to accommodate his size. Did he wear a nightshirt? She very much doubted it. At the thought of him quite possibly not wearing anything at all, her mouth went dry. She didn’t want