Redeeming the Reclusive Earl - Virginia Heath Page 0,91
him to see it. He closed the door and leaned his back against it.
‘What did you mean when you said it was obvious I regretted the last kiss?’
‘The bumping of faces?’ She had not expected him to start with that question. Or any question to be frank when she was expecting a polite let down.
He winced. ‘I said that, didn’t I?’
‘You also called it a big mistake.’
‘Not my finest hour. But in my defence you had just knocked me sideways and I was...’ He sighed as he turned away and then gazed at her sheepishly though the heavy curtain of his hair. ‘I didn’t mean it, Effie. Any of it. That first kiss was special. Last night’s was spectacular.’
‘Oh...’ She had no earthly idea where this was going.
‘And I would very much like to do it again... Right this second, in fact...in case you were wondering.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Two beautiful big brown eyes...
It had been an odd day. So odd that even at this late hour he wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. There were so many things to think about. So much indecision it was all sending him mad. He didn’t have all the answers—but what he did know, with complete certainty, was that he needed Effie.
She looked so lovely in the candlelight, bare toes just poking out from under the hem of her unbelievably distracting coral evening gown, nothing but a pencil holding up her hair and blinking back at him as if he’d just spoken to her in a foreign language rather than admitting he was desperate to kiss her. ‘May I?’
To his utter delight she answered by launching herself at him, knocking him back against the door as her lips greedily found his. It was this honesty he adored about her. There was no artifice about Effie. No deception. No games. She wanted to kiss him and he desperately wanted her to. It was strange—a few short weeks ago he had been convinced no woman would ever want to kiss him again and he had mourned all those faceless, voiceless, soulless women as if he known each one personally, yet now he couldn’t care less because none of them interested him. Why would they when the only woman he could ever imagine kissing again was the one currently in his arms? He’d craved this all day, which was no mean feat when one considered the day he’d had, but it was true. She had possessed him, thoroughly bewitched him, and despite the war currently being waged in his head he had counted every second just waiting for the chance to hold her again.
He felt her hands burrow beneath his coat and smiled against her mouth. He hadn’t misread her desire yesterday. She was as desperate for the contact as he was and he felt gloriously alive again. Perhaps not entirely whole, not at all his old self, but not the shadow he had been when he had come here to Rivenhall completely broken. Something was shifting. He was changing. But she was here and nothing else mattered.
Which was a dangerous game while her passionate exuberance was scrambling his wits and driving his body mad with longing.
Not ready to put a sensible stop to it yet, he poured his heart and soul into the kiss, wrapping his arms tightly around her and not entirely sure if he would ever let go. Almost immediately, things got out of hand and he revelled in that, too. She ground her hips against his arousal, moaning as his lips found her ear. Her neck. Her shoulder. At some point, he must have lifted her and reversed their positions, because Effie’s legs wrapped themselves around his waist as he held her suspended from the ground using only the door and the hard press of his body, losing himself entirely in the moment. Losing himself in her. The urge to tear the buttons from his falls and plunge himself deep inside of her was the only thing which brought him up short.
He tore his lips away and rested his forehead against hers, gulping for air, his body aching for release and his head whirling like a frantic spinning top.