The Defiant Wife (The Three Mrs #2) - Jess Michaels Page 0,13

forward. Blast and damn him, now he would make her feel guilty for being petulant when all he ever had been from the moment he met her was kind. Did he deserve that just because she couldn’t control herself? Of course not.

She drew a long breath. “I apologize if you sensed a shift in my attitude. The closer we come to Bath, the more anxious I seem to become. There are many duties to face there. And memories, not all of them pleasant.”

That was the partial truth, of course. He didn’t need to know the rest. It would only complicate things.

He bent his head. “Of course.”

“I hope you aren’t expecting a magnificent estate to greet you,” she said, worrying her hands in front of her, one over the other. “The home your brother purchased in Bath is not terrible by any means, but it isn’t the finest, either. I have kept it as well as I could, but you will likely be able to hear Kenley if he stirs at night. It’s…” She swallowed. “Close quarters.”

His pupils dilated a fraction and his gaze swept over her entire body in one heated glance. Damn, she wished he wouldn’t do that. It only made her legs clench, and she didn’t want to clench her legs around this man.

“I hope I won’t be intruding,” he said, his voice a little rougher.

“Oh no, that wasn’t what I meant,” she began.

Now they were speaking at the same time. Him apologizing for not thinking and offering to stay elsewhere, her trying to back away from what she realized now had sounded rude.

He reached out and caught her hand, she thought to stay her words, and it worked. Not because he had comforted her, but because the sizzle of awareness silenced her. She stared down at her hand in his, then back up to his face.

“Phillipa,” he said softly.

She squeezed her eyes shut. He always called her by her first name because having three Mrs. Montgomerys in the same household had been too confusing. But he had no idea what hearing her name from his lips did to her. There was something about how the sound rolled out in his voice, like a caress.

“Please don’t,” she whispered. She should have pulled her hand away, but she didn’t.

There was a hesitation of just a beat, and then he asked, “Don’t do what?”

She let her eyes open and found that he was staring at her intently now. The world faded in the blue of his eyes, and she caught her breath as she tried to find words. Thoughts. Anything at all.

“You must know what,” she whispered. “You are a man of experience, a man of the world. You must know what you’re doing right now.”

He swallowed, that action working his throat even beneath the wrapping of his cravat. It felt like the moment stretched forever, and then he stepped closer and the distance was suddenly no longer appropriate.

“Phillipa,” he whispered. She bent her head, but he caught her chin and gently tilted it back toward him. “Phillipa,” he said again, but this time it didn’t carry. It was just his lips moving to make the words.

“Please,” she murmured, uncertain if she was begging for more or for him to be the one to rein in this madness.

He chose the former, and his dark head bent toward her. She met him halfway, her hands resting against his broad chest as he claimed her lips. It couldn’t be called a kiss, which sounded sweet, chaste even. No, this was claiming. This was surrender to an animal desire that had been building for weeks. An inevitable capitulation to something they both knew was wrong. Both knew could never come to anything. They could not kiss.

But they were kissing and Phillipa was burning alive. She lifted against him, the sound of his name muffled on her tongue. His fingers flexed against her back, heated branding she wanted to last forever, to prove this had happened later when she tried to tell herself it was a dream. When he had left her life, never to return.

That thought jolted her from the madness a fraction. She realized they were standing out in the open, where anyone could stumble upon them. The last thing either one of them needed.

And so responsibility returned and she pulled back, her breath short as she stared up at him. For a moment, there was no clarity in his expression, only that animal hunger that had driven them to this in