"I did expect a whole evening at Covent Garden. However…" Amanda shrugged as he glanced at her. "In the circumstances, let's stroll under the trees and I'll be satisfied."
He smothered a "humph," yet it was a reasonable suggestion. That he was acutely conscious that this would otherwise be his last moments with her-that strolling in the park would put off the instant when he would bid her good-bye for the last time-he steadfastly ignored, along with the unwelcome yearning that he could instead keep her, take her to his house and shut her in his library, his to enjoy for all time.
Jaw setting, he shook aside the thought. "Very well."
At his direction, the carriage pulled up by the verge; he descended, handed Amanda down, then helped her change the domino for her velvet cloak. Knotting the ties at her throat, she left the cloak partly open, revealing the warm hue of her gown. Even more to his silent approval, she left the hood down, so her lustrous curls sheened in the weak light.
His fingers itched to touch. Instead, he reached for her hand, twined her arm with his, and they set off down the nearest path.
Amanda accepted his silence without comment; she'd realized he used the tactic to keep people at a distance, but she knew how to slip through his guard. They strolled under the trees, in and out of the shadows. She waited until they were deep within the park, out of sight of his coachman.
Then she drew her hand from his arm and stepped across him. Let him walk into her, let him catch her to him, his hands on her gown beneath her cloak. Smiling, she laid her palm to his cheek, stretched up and set her lips to his.
It wasn't a "thank you" kiss, but she hoped he might think so long enough to give her the opening she needed. Whether he was fooled or simply surprised, she gained the breach she wanted-his lips met hers easily, readily.
She seized the moment, seized control of the kiss.
He'd kissed her often enough for her to understand how to be brazen and bold. Their lips merged; her tongue sought his, found, stroked, tangled. Winding her arms about his neck, she stretched up, pressed herself to him.
His hands tightened about her waist, fingers gripping as if to put her from him. She angled her lips, pressed the kiss deeper, fanned the flames licking between them… and the moment passed. His hands eased, then, hesitantly, as if he'd lost direction, they slid over her back, his touch gentle, wondering.
The advantage was hers. She wasn't about to let it slide, not before she made it clear just where they stood, just what she was offering.
Herself.
She let the fact infuse her kiss, let that truth ring clearly as she sa
nk against him. He didn't seize, but gathered her to him as if she were delicate porcelain, something he feared to break. She pressed closer yet, as if to prove him wrong.
Suddenly, the kiss changed.
Shifted to a plane different from any she'd previously been on, a place of whirling pleasures, a kaleidoscope of sensual delight. He drew her deeper, then returned the pleasure she'd been lavishing on him, with interest. Yet something had changed. He wanted her, but it wasn't ravenous desire that drove him. The restraint that had earlier held him back was gone, yet some barrier still stood between them-between her needs and his, barring their mutual fulfillment.
It was his needs that had changed, or rather, clarified. She could taste it in the way his lips took hers, in the languid, unhurried, wondrous depths of their kiss. In the gentle way he held her, in the subtle coaxing that had her head spinning, in the hesitant, reluctant acknowledgment of the possibility that lay between them.
Deep in the kiss, wrapped in his arms, she suddenly saw-suddenly understood. He wanted her not just sexually, but with a deeper, richer, infinitely more alluring need. No simple desire but something profound, the sleeping heart of her lion.
She saw, and wanted-reached with both hands…
Only to sense his retreat.
Gradual, as reluctant as he'd been to be lured forth in the first place, yet step by step he eased back from the kiss, backed out of the trap she'd set. The trap she'd baited with herself.
"No." Martin whispered the word as he ended the kiss. His head was spinning, his body one massive ache. An ache so profound, one that went so much deeper than muscle and bone.
He hadn't believed she could do it, or even that she would try. Her wordless plea-one he couldn't pretend he didn't comprehend-had struck straight through every barrier he'd erected over the last ten years. He'd seen the pit yawning at his feet on the first night they'd met, but he'd thought himself safe, his defenses too seasoned and sound for her to dent seriously.
Instead, she'd laid them waste, and left him feeling more exposed than he'd ever felt before. Mentally groping in the dark for some remnants of his shields behind which to hide.
He looked down at her face, into her eyes. She'd chosen her spot so they weren't in shadow; by the weak light of the stars, he could read the confusion, the disbelief, the incipient hurt he knew he had to cause.
That last moved him to state, "You are what I can never have."
He had no idea what she could read in his face; her eyes raced over his features, then returned to his eyes.
"Why?"
Not a demand, not the beginning of a tantrum, but a simple request born of a need to understand.