To Dance until Dawn - Emma V. Leech Page 0,51

closer.

For a moment, Max was too stunned to react at all, until he noticed her nimble fingers undoing the buttons on his waistcoat. He broke the kiss for long enough to say her name before her lips were on his again.

“Phoe… Phoebe…love….”

It was impossible. She was like quicksilver in his arms. He groaned as she moved and before he knew what had happened she was straddling his lap, tugging at his cravat.

“Phoebe, stop, stop!”

She stilled, breathing hard and staring down at him in consternation.

“Stop?” she repeated, looking bewildered. “Whatever for?”

Max gave a slightly hysterical bark of laughter. “Love, we’re not married.”

“Oh,” she said, and then a flush of colour so intense coloured her pale skin he wondered what on earth… but before he could ask, she had scrambled from his lap. “M-Max,” she began, looking utterly mortified. “I do beg your pardon. I… I just assumed that… that you wished to marry me. I….”

Her voice quavered and she span around with a sob, giving him her back.

Good God. Did she actually think he didn’t want to marry her? Was she insane?

“Phoebe!” he said, leaping to his feet. “Christ!”

Pain lanced through his head as he cracked it on one of the low beams.

“Max!” Phoebe ran to him, her lovely eyes filled with tears, her face the picture of concern. “Oh, Max, you poor dear. Oh, do sit down again. I’ll fetch a cold cloth and—”

Before she could disappear and do anything of the sort, Max sat down again, tugging her with him once again.

“Oh!” she exclaimed as she sat heavily and her skirts billowed up. “I do wish you’d stop doing that.”

“Do you?” he growled, cupping her cheek and turning her face to look at him.

“N-No, not really,” she admitted sheepishly.

Max laughed. “Phoebe, you silly goose. How could you think for a moment that I don’t wish to marry you? It’s all I’ve dreamed of since…. God, since forever, it seems. Don’t you know I’m desperately, hopelessly in love with you?”

She smiled at him, such a smile he was certain his heart trembled.

“Truly?”

“Truly, madly, with all my heart.”

She blinked at him, and then frowned. “Well, then why did you make me stop kissing you?” she demanded, a little indignantly. “Really, Max. It’s no wonder I was confused. Usually if a fellow wants to speak of marriage, kissing is all he can think of.”

Max felt a surge of jealousy so fierce it knocked good sense out of the window.

“And what fellows might they be?” he demanded.

Phoebe bit her lip and gave him a sideways glance.

“You really are jealous,” she murmured, as though this was a revelation.

Max threw his head back against the chair and closed his eyes with a groan. “I am. I am. God forgive me.”

She moved in his lap and he held very still as desire hummed through him. Her soft hands stroked his face, his neck and he opened his eyes again to see Phoebe staring down at him.

“You’ve not actually asked me, Max. To marry you, I mean.”

He smiled at her. “There never seems to be a moment when I can love, and… well, to be honest, I wasn’t sure you wanted me to ask you properly. I wasn’t sure you wanted me to ask at all.”

“I do want you to.”

“And when I do, what will your answer be?”

She gave a little snort and pressed a kiss to his forehead and then his nose, and then his mouth, softer, lingering, and he would have held her there if he didn’t want to hear the answer so badly.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, please.”

“Thank God,” he said, pulling her closer.

***

Kissing Max was quite a shocking experience. Any kisses she’d had before now had been… well, pleasant enough, but unrewarding. Those kisses had been soft and wet and underwhelming.

Kissing Max was like… like simmering over a low fire, except the fire seemed to burn hotter and hotter with every touch of his lips until she was all aflame, her insides molten and liquid and her flesh ablaze, burning with the need for him to touch her. His tongue sought and gained entry and slid alongside hers, tangling and stroking whilst his big hands stroked too, up and down her spine. She was quivering with need, with the desire for more. Thanks to Mama and Helena, she was far from ignorant of what passed between men and women, but it had never made such perfect sense to her before now. At least, she’d not quite understood how people got themselves tangled into such