love?” He reached the final button at last and peeled the garment from her shoulders.
He tossed the pelisse to the floor.
Silence reigned for a moment, no sound save the fire popping in the grate. He wondered how much time he had until a servant arrived to tend it. He thought about latching the door.
He would have, mayhap.
But then Lady Felicity did the last thing he expected. She grasped his lapels in both her dainty fists and pulled him closer.
“Blade,” she said at last.
And then, she kissed him.
Felicity had lost control.
Had lost all sense of duty.
Mayhap it was the distance from the main house that had emboldened her. Auntie Agatha would never follow her here—her arthritic knees would not allow the fifteen-minute walk, and nor would her gouty foot. They were alone. No Winter siblings to intrude.
No interruption.
Nothing but Blade Winter, smug and sinfully tempting and so handsome she ached.
She should not have kissed him, and she knew it. But when he responded, kissing her back with so much fervor it stole her breath, she could not summon a hint of regret. As before, Blade Winter’s kisses were a revelation. Heat flared within her. She was hot all over, and it had nothing to do with the fire at her back.
She felt alive in a way she never had before, as if all her life, she had been waiting for this man. Which was foolish, of course. She could not pursue anything with him. The gentlemen she needed to be speaking with—her husband prospects—were back at the main house, likely engaged in drawing room games or out riding. If there was any man who was unabashedly not the husbandly sort, it was the man kissing her breath away with such wickedness.
And worst of all, though she knew she should stop, she could not. She did not want to. All she wanted was more.
They kissed and kissed. He sucked her lower lip, licked into her mouth. Her tongue tangled with his. He kissed her as if she were a secret that belonged to him and him alone.
And she wanted to.
Then and there, in the freedom of the false ruins, the hush of winter blanketing the world outside, she wanted to be his. Wanted him to make her his. Wanted him to touch her, take her, do with her as he would.
Anything. Everything.
“Felicity.” He said her name as if it were a prayer. Chanted it as he kissed across her jaw. Hot little pecks that left her knees weak. All the way to her ear, where his breath made her shiver. “Sweet, innocent Lady Felicity. What are you doing to me?”
She would have returned the question, asked him what he was doing to her, but the connection between her mind and her tongue had been vanquished by the trajectory of his beautiful mouth. He was kissing behind her ear now, then down her throat, alternating between worshipful caresses with his lips, nips with his teeth, and wicked suction.
Her head fell back. A moan stole from her. She was tingling. Everywhere.
“Tell me to leave you, and I will go,” he murmured.
Impossible.
Him leaving was the last thing she wanted, no matter how wrong this was. How dangerous. Auntie Agatha would never discover them here, but someone else could. Other guests, a servant.
She clutched him to her. “Stay.”
“That was unwise of you, love. Last chance.”
“Do not stop,” she ordered him.
And then she claimed his mouth once more.
If she had to marry to save her sisters, before she did so, she was going to do this for herself. She was going to kiss Blade Winter senseless, and she was going to enjoy every moment of it. She would not surrender her innocence. Felicity did not dare to go that far. However, why not seize what was being offered with both hands?
And with her lips?
Their mouths moved together as if they had each been fashioned for this reckless moment, for this meeting of lips and tongues and teeth. They kissed as if this were the first and the last time. With desperation and awe and an overwhelming sense of urgency.
“Sweet Felicity,” he whispered.
She did not feel sweet. She felt…desperate. But anyway, it mattered not. For she could not manage a single response save a throaty sigh. He felt too good. Kissing Blade Winter was forbidden and wonderful. She never wanted to pull her lips from his. Indeed, she was reasonably convinced she could go without her next breath if it meant she could continue keeping their mouths fused.
He