with a tiny gasp. At her submission, he drove his fingers into the heavy weight of her hair, anchoring her head in his hands. Then he fit his mouth to hers.
Her knees buckled, and her hands clutched the silk lapels of his jacket. For a fleeting moment, she surfaced from the fog of passion, and thought about stopping or at the very least offering some resistance. The slow thrust of his tongue persuaded her otherwise, acting like a drug on her senses and turning her mind to mush. Amelia opened her mouth wider. She wanted more.
He let out a low groan and obliged her, his hand now at her hip pulling her closer until their lower bodies were flush. The strength of his arousal lay stiff and throbbing against her belly, the intimate contact sending a flood of warmth and embarrassing moisture to her center.
There had been times when she had overheard girls titter and engage in whispered discussions out of earshot of their chaperones. The subject of those discussions invariably involved men and such things as kissing, sometimes even fondling of an improper nature. Had they? Would they? How did it feel? Amelia would listen, silently pitying their naivety. In her experience, though limited it might have been, kissing did not have the power to move her physically or otherwise. Or so she had thought.
Never could she have been more wrong.
Then her hands were sifting through the golden locks of his hair, silky and thick between her fingers. Uncertain what she should do with her tongue, so bewildered by the torrents of pleasure coursing through her body, she’d been content to receive his passionate ministrations. Now she wanted to participate just as fully. She began with tentative probes, then wide sweeping forays of his mouth. Before long, their tongues tangled in wet demand, the kiss feeding a hunger of which she hadn’t known herself capable.
Heat consumed her everywhere. She clenched her thighs, but the action failed to alleviate the ache in the place she burned the hottest. His hand trailed from her hip to the underside of her breast until he palmed the pebbled mound over her bodice.
That was what it took to bring her back to reality with a jarring thud. Appalled, she wrenched herself from his embrace, staggering back until she achieved enough distance from him to begin to gain control of her senses.
“Don’t,” she said weakly, her breaths ragged puffs of air. Dislodged from the security of the pins, her hair streamed past her shoulders and down her back. She imagined she looked the very picture of “the lady who doth protest too much.” She knew she felt it.
Contrarily, except for a faint blush staining his cheeks, the viscount appeared unaffected by their embrace, undoubtedly accustomed not only to kissing women senseless but to doing a great deal more. What they had shared was probably as commonplace to him as a peck on the cheek.
“Who’d have thought such heat existed under all that ice?” He adjusted his jacket as he spoke.
“Never, ever touch me again.” She ground out every word.
Lord Armstrong chuckled softly. “Are you sure? From my position, you seemed to be enjoying yourself thoroughly.”
Bastard!
“And what of you? Just this morning you claimed to be immune to my charms?” She wanted—needed—to wipe the mocking smile clean from his face.
“Oh, I am,” he replied softly. “But I believe I’ve just discovered the most efficient manner in which to deal with you.”
“It didn’t feel that way to me,” she snapped, remembering the hard ridge of his erection against her belly. How dare he try to make it appear as if she had been the only one affected, the only one who had lost her head for those heated moments.
The viscount gave a hearty laugh and gestured down to the front of his trousers. “You mean this?”
Shocked, Amelia blindly averted her gaze but could do little to halt another flood of heat from blistering her cheeks.
“I would hardly call this the barometer of good taste. Didn’t you know, these things have minds of their own? Sometimes it requires merely a comely face and a shapely figure. Discriminating these are not.”
Amelia wished she’d been born a big hulk of a man so she could pummel him senseless. But then if she were a man, she wouldn’t be in this position.
“If you refuse to keep your hands to yourself, I’ll be forced to take the matter in hand. And I guarantee you this, my lord, you will not like the