Page 70 of The Marriage Method

Miles froze. “What about my—”

“I don’t care about courage. It’s control I want.” Closing the distance between them, she came to a halt in front of him, so close that her wide skirts bowed against his legs. She set her hands flat on his chest.

Miles’s breath lost its rhythm. Her touch was so light, so soft. He nevertheless felt the weight of it all the way through the layers of his shirt and waistcoat.

He didn’t let it distract him.

Indeed, staring down at her, he was possessed by the same suspicion he’d had when he’d first entered the library. That unsettling sense that something wasn’t right. She was too pale. Her gray eyes too fever bright. Raw vulnerability trembled beneath her every word.

His voice deepened. “Nell—”

She slid her hands up to his shoulders, beneath the fabric of his coat. “Miles,” she said.

And she kissed him.

18

Nell had to stand up on the toes of her half boots to reach Miles’s mouth. He didn’t make it easy for her. Not at first. Not until she curved a hand around his neck and tugged him down to her.

She was being impulsive. Nonsensical. A victim to the roiling emotions inspired by the last several days of heartbreak and upheaval. Until today she’d thought she was managing it. But she wasn’t.

She couldn’t.

Not any longer.

Miles bent his head to hers, a frown furrowing his brow. His lips were firm and unyielding. Until suddenly they weren’t. The change came over him in a delirious instant. One moment he was rigid and resisting, the next his arms were around her in a crushing embrace and his mouth was claiming hers—fiercely, hungrily.

Nell clung to him, breathless. This—this is what she needed. To be wanted beyond sense. Beyond logic or reason. Her fingers tangled in the thick hair at his nape as she kissed him back with half-parted lips.

They were closer than they’d ever been—locked in each other’s arms, her bosom pressed to his broad chest and her skirts tangled precariously about his legs. It still wasn’t close enough. She pulled at him restlessly.

Miles’s arms tightened about her waist in response. The bones of her corset creaked in protest. His voice was a harsh rasp against her lips. “I fear I’m crushing you.”

“I want you to,” she whispered back. “I want more.”

He gave it to her, pressing hot kisses to her cheek, her jaw, her throat. The scratch of his stubble grazed her skin in the most delicious fashion.

Nell’s fingers clenched in his hair. Her heart was beating in triple time. There was no room for anything but sensation. It felt good to be wanted. To be desired. To know that, despite whatever it was that had made him resist her initially, he couldn’t resist her in the end. In that, at least, she had power.

“Easy,” he murmured as she brought his mouth back to hers. “Easy, sweetheart.”

“I’m so restless.”

“I know.” His hand splayed at her back—a large, heavy weight, holding her steady. “There’s no rush.”

Heat crept into her face. She feared he was rejecting her. “You’d rather we stop?”

“No,” he said. “No. It’s just…this is unexpected.”

“You hadn’t thought that I—that we—”

He huffed. “I’ve been trying like the devil not to.”

She stared up at him, painfully conscious of her own inexperience. “Then you do want me?”

Miles’s gaze softened. His hand came to cradle her cheek. “Desperately,” he assured her.

A surge of emotion constricted Nell’s throat. Perhaps she’d been wrong to kiss him. Perhaps she was using him shamelessly.