Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,74

what he didn’t say, as well. “But you didn’t. You didn’t rob him.”

“What?” Dare’s eyes moved around the hall as he looked everywhere but at her.

“I know you,” she said softly . . . simply.

He sighed, his gaze sliding past her to the path they’d just traveled. “I went there with every intention to steal from the baron. I brought the blade I use to work my way into residences.” As if there might be another instrument in question, he lifted the back of his jacket and revealed the holster there and the blade strapped in. “I jammed it under the sill and worked the window up.” Dare wandered ahead several steps, and she moved to put herself in his path.

“What happened?” she asked, not realizing she held her breath until he spoke his next words.

“I . . . couldn’t do it,” he said hoarsely.

And her heart did an endless stream of somersaults in her breast. Not once in all the years she’d known him had he ever altered his course when it came to his thievery. This . . . was the first time. And it was also the first hint that mayhap he had changed after all, despite his insistence that he couldn’t and never would. “Why? What . . . was different this time?”

Dare raked an uneven hand through his hair, knocking his cap loose. “I don’t know. And I cannot say that I never will again, but in that moment, I thought of the damned family and the child he has and couldn’t bring myself to—”

Dragging him by his shirtfront, Temperance went up on tiptoe and kissed the remaining words from his lips.

He stiffened, and then all at once, his hands were on her.

As she had hers on him. Sliding her fingers under his jacket, she ran them over the contoured walls of his chest.

There, in the hall, for the world to see, with the risk of discovery and passing servants, he pressed her against the wall and made love to her mouth.

Not breaking contact, their bodies moved, him propelling her backward, away from the window and toward her room, but she ultimately led the way. Leading and yet, at the same time, surrendering.

Folly . . . folly . . . folly.

It was a litany, muffled, muted, and then ultimately drowned out by the feel of Darius Grey’s mouth on hers.

Except, mayhap if she allowed herself to give in to this once more, she could purge herself of this aching need for him.

Even as Temperance parted her lips, allowing him entry, she sensed the inherent lie in that hope.

The taste of him flooded her senses. Berries and mint, one of those foreign, the other familiar. And she both mourned the small changes that had left him a stranger to her and reveled in the constants that remained.

Reaching past her, Dare pressed the handle and shoved the door open. “Do you want to stop?” he rasped in between kisses.

Her answer came instantaneously, born of honesty and pure desire. “No.”

With a low growl, he guided her backward into the room, pausing only long enough to kick the panel closed behind them. “That is the first time I’ve ever longed for the word ‘no’ from you, love.”

Love. That gentle endearment he’d always had for her sent another fiery wave of heat through her.

The backs of her knees collided with the mattress, and Dare gathered her buttocks to keep her from tumbling back . . . and instead, lifting one of her legs, he rucked the cotton fabric up, that thin material a flimsy barrier that was still much between them. Until it was gone, and she was exposed to him.

The cool spring air was a balm upon her heated skin.

They tangled with their tongues, their flesh coming together in a scandalous dance that mimicked the act which her body truly longed for, hungered to again know.

Desperate to get closer, she wrapped her thigh about him, thrust, and arched. A keening little moan slipped out. Over and over. Those desperate sounds of her desire were swallowed by each kiss.

He’d always known what her body craved, and this moment proved no different. He cupped her buttocks and brought her more flush against him as he guided her down.

The mattress came up to meet her, and she sank into the deep feather folds.

All the while, she met each slant of Dare’s mouth over hers. “You are certain,” he rasped between kisses. He would be the voice of reason . . . now,