Page 27 of Once a Scoundrel

Oh my.

She shoved one of the cups at him, suddenly feeling the need to free her hands, although she couldn’t have said whether to reach for him or shove him away. Her mind screamed at her that he was nothing but trouble and still the same scoundrel he’d always been, and wasn’t this midnight picnic proving exactly that? But her heart, oh her foolish heart! That traitorous thing wanted nothing more than to let him feed her strawberries all night.

“You’re a rake who’s fallen right back into his old ways,” she scolded, but it was terribly hard to sound disapproving with those beckoning blue eyes staring at her mouth like that. As if he wanted to devour her the way she’d devoured the berries.

“No, I haven’t. If I’d fallen into old habits, I wouldn’t be here with you.” He took the proffered cup and set it aside, and she realized her mistake as soon as he did—one less barrier between them. “I’d be in the house letting Lady Rathbourne dig her claws into me.”

“So why aren’t you?” she whispered, half-afraid to hear the answer.

He answered quietly, “I don’t want that life anymore.”

“I don’t believe you.” She knew him too well. He’d once epitomized that life.

“And yet, here I am.”

She frowned at that, not knowing what to think. Hewashere when he could have been in the viscountess’s bed, although she didn’t believe for one moment that his motives were pure. “And why is that, exactly?”

He stared into her eyes with a beckoning look that left her trembling. “Because I’d much rather be with you.”

“I don’t believethat,either,” she scoffed.

His lips twitched, yet he wisely ignored her comment. Instead, he swiftly changed topics by saying, “What no one ever tells you about life in the army is how exceedingly boring it can be, enough to make a soldier crave battle.”

“Cravebattle?” she repeated, surprised.

He quirked a brow at her as he reached for another strawberry. “Nothing combatsennuias effectively as the fear of imminent death.”

She laughed, despite herself. Leave it to Stephen to make her laugh over something like that!

“So I spent most of those long stretches of boredom thinking about my life, what I wanted from it, what was important to me.” With a thoughtful wrinkle crinkling his brow, he dipped the strawberry into the chocolate. “And I kept coming back to the same answer.”

She leaned forward slightly, ready to accept the next berry. “Which was?”

“You.”

Her mouth fell open in surprise, and he placed the berry on her tongue. As she choked the berry down, she stared at him, stunned. He couldn’t mean...Impossible. Yet his handsome face was serious, all his teasing gone.

This time when he caressed his thumb across her bottom lip, he lowered his head to follow after it with his lips.

With a soft sigh, Faith closed her eyes against the touch of his mouth to hers, unable to find enough will power to pull away. This was nothing like the kisses he’d given her in the lane. Those had been full of hunger and need, as if he had to kiss her in order to stay alive. But this kiss...oh,thisone was soft, gentle, and so very tender. There was no hurry this time, no desperation behind the way his fingertips caressed over her cheek, somehow both soothing and exciting at the same time.

As he brushed his lips back and forth across hers, the flavors of chocolate and berry and man blended together into the most delicious taste she’d ever experienced.

“Faith,” he murmured against her lips, “darling Faith...It took Daniel’s death to make me realize all that I’d been missing, that I’d made a terrible mistake in leaving you.”

Her chest tightened with a pang of pain and regret. “Stephen...” she protested in a whisper.

He lifted his head to stare down at her. His blue eyes turned smoky in the shadows cast by the lantern as they searched her face for answers she couldn’t give. All she knew was that his return had sent her head spinning and her heart aching. Stephen had always been special to her, and even though she’d been courted by other men since he’d left, they had been nothing but dim shadows compared to his light. If that last summer had gone differently, if he had ever once attempted to bare his feelings like this—

But he hadn’t. And nothing could be gained now by wishing for might-have-beens.

Yet when his lips covered hers again, she drank him in, helpless to keep herself from finally accepting the kisses she’d yearned for so long to have. She knew he didn’t care for her, knew he’d only end up hurting her again if she once more gave over her heart...but at this moment, here, he was hers. And she wasn’t strong enough to deny herself this moment in his arms.

He cupped her face in his hands so that he could more easily take small kisses and nibbles at her lips. “I want to correct all the mistakes I’ve made, to make right everything that went wrong.”

“I don’t know—” A caressing sweep of his tongue between her lips silenced her. She shivered at the exquisite intimacy of his kiss as he explored the recesses of her mouth, then set to slowly plunging between her lips in a steady rhythm that had her heart pounding in time to the gentle thrusts of his tongue.

He slid his mouth away from hers to kiss along her jaw and back to her ear. “Before India, I thought I could keep living my life exactly as I had.” His lips caressed warmly against her temple. “But I was wrong.”