“At least go back to your seat.”
“No.”
“I’ll scream.”
White teeth glinted in the shadows above her face as he smiled. “Then by all means scream.”
He gathered her up and rolled until she half-lay against the seat, captive beneath him. Lydia told herself she felt constricted, confined, uncomfortable, at risk of spilling to the floor with the coach’s jolting.
It wasn’t true. She felt desired.
She sucked in a breath redolent of Simon and flowers. His body crushed the white roses pinned to cascade gracefully from the shoulder of her gown. The heady scent filled the carriage, heavy with sensuality.
His lips brushed hers, gently this time. Arousal flooded her, melted any ice lingering in her veins. Awareness tightened her skin and made her reach for him. Whether to push him away or drag him nearer, she couldn’t have said.
For a second that seemed to last an eternity, his lips rested on hers. Undemanding. Warm. Silky. As if testing his recollection of kissing her. As if waiting for her consent. The carriage’s lurching slid her against Simon’s body, tormented her with the promise of a surcease of longing.
Without taking the kiss deeper, he raised his head. Frustration coiled in her belly like a hundred snakes. “You said you’d scream,” he taunted softly.
How dare the rapscallion challenge her? She opened her mouth, ready to caterwaul her lungs out. If she called, Jenkins would stop the carriage and she’d be safe to return to Grenville with only a slightly tainted conscience.
She felt Simon tense as he waited for her to summon rescue. Their bodies were entwined so intimately that he must count her every breath, just as she counted his. She’d never been so near to him, even when he’d kissed her in the hayshed.
Blast his importunity. He wouldn’t have everything his own way. True to her word, she opened her mouth. Deliberately the low cry that emerged reached no further than Simon’s ears. A soft sound of surrender.
Lord above, she was bold. She deserved to be condemned.
Tomorrow she’d repent her weakness. She knew that to her bones. She’d see Grenville and hate herself. But this chance to kiss Simon once more before she resigned herself to a lifetime of unimpeachable behavior was irresistible.
Simon laughed softly. “Objection noted.”
Before she could scold him for mocking her, his mouth descended. Forgetting anger, forgetting duty, close to forgetting her name, she drowned in dark rapture. Her hands curled into his broad shoulders and she kissed him back with all the anguished passion she’d suppressed since he’d left her.
“Lydia, Lydia, Lydia,” he murmured, his grip crushing the breath from her. She didn’t mind as long as his mouth conjured such wonderful sensations.
Trailing heat, his hands slid up to cup her breasts. She jerked when his thumbs brushed her nipples through her bodice. A deep pulse set up between her legs, a pulse of demand that only Simon could satisfy.
He touched her nipples again, more deliberately, with more incendiary effect. She shook in a fever of desire and pressed closer, never mind the danger of what they did.
His kisses flared from subtle exploration to red hot insistence. Even through her inexperience, she realized he intended to take her. Now.
That knowledge doused her recklessness like a bucket of freezing water. However he made her burn, she couldn’t allow this madness to reach its conclusion. If she jilted Grenville, it would only remind the world of her mother’s lapses. And she owed her betrothed better than this betrayal. He shouldn’t suffer because of her fatal weakness for Simon Metcalf.
Lydia went rigid and whimpered against Simon’s seeking mouth.
“What’s wrong?” His breath glanced across her face, reminded her that only inches separated them, inches she could bridge in an instant. After tonight, they’d never be this close to one another again. The thought set up a new rift in a heart that she’d believed had already been thoroughly broken.
A hollow laugh escaped her, closer to a sob than humor. “You know what’s wrong. I’m engaged to Grenville.”
“But you love me.”
She struggled out from beneath Simon’s body, surprised he let her go. Trembling and angry, she curled against the corner of the carriage. “You’re so presumptuous.”
Slowly Simon rose to sit at the other end of the bench. It wasn’t far enough away for her. Guilt beat at her, made her feel ill.
In the space following her accusation, she heard Simon’s uneven breathing. They’d verged dismayingly close to the point of no return. And so swiftly. Years of perfect virtue, then one kiss from this scoundrel and she lost her head.
“But you do love me.” His voice lowered into softness. “Just as I still love you.”