Page 49 of How to Tempt a Duke

Eleanor stopped and Charles followed suit. “They’ve continued to light the lamps,” she said.

“It would appear the rain is beginning to abate.” He kept his hold on her. There was no longer a need to do so, but there was certainly a desire.

Several more globes of light lit up in the distance.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she asked. “Like magic.”

He looked down at her and found her lovely face awash in the gilded glow of those many lamps. “Indeed.”

She shifted her gaze from the lamps in the distance to his face. Dots of rain had left a sheen on her skin, giving it an otherworldly, luminous appearance.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she whispered.

“Because you’re beautiful.”

She did not lower her head in demure acceptance of his compliment. Instead she tilted her head up. “No longer an Ice Queen?”

The blazing memory of that kiss, her passion, scorched through him. “God, no. Rather the opposite.” He dragged his fingertips over a wet lock of her red hair. “You are fire, and your kiss is quite unforgettable.”

“Then you’ve thought of it?” She slid him that coquettish look.

“I have.” Time and time again...until the tease of the memory became as unbearable as the aching in his groin.

She turned to him and set a hand on his chest. The rain had resumed its steady fall, pelting them with frigid drops, and yet so intense was the heat in her eyes he scarcely registered the cold.

“I’ve thought of nothing else.”

Her voice was quiet, intimate, the same as it had been that day when he’d kissed her. He recalled it all too well now...taking the pinkness of her nipple into his mouth and reveling in her cries of pleasure.

“Nor have I,” he groaned truthfully. It had even distracted him often from his task of finding the ruby.

Rain soaked them both, leaving their clothes clinging to them and giving shape to her curves beneath the loose-fitting gown she wore. He could see a narrow waist and full hips to match the breasts he knew to be round and firm.

Her gaze took on that boldness he so enjoyed. “Will you kiss me, Charles?”

Lottie’s words came back to him at that unfortunate moment. She is meant to wed, not to be distracted by you.

Yes, he’d promised to marry her if there was no other interest, but he wouldn’t be any more a good husband to her than his father had been parent to him. He should take her from this place. And yet even as he thought as much he found himself already leaning into her, drawn to the promise of her lips.

Her mouth was warm against his, despite the chill of her skin. Their lips met in a single chaste kiss before their tongues brushed one another’s.

Charles’s blood raced insistently through his veins, hot with need. Aware of the possibility of being seen, he pulled his evening cloak around her and held her gently to him as he led them both down one of the infamous dark paths of Vauxhall Gardens.

Once they were veiled in shadows, Charles kept his cloak over them both and tilted her face toward his. She licked her rosy lips. With a hungry growl he drew her more tightly against him and kissed her. He sucked her lower lip into his mouth and ran his tongue over it.

The feminine curves of her body arched against him, so the ache of his hard shaft pressed into the softness of her stomach with the most exquisite torment.

She trailed kisses down his jaw to the line of his neck. Her breath sounded loud in his ear and he felt the warmth of her lips parted over his skin as she gently nibbled at the sensitive skin there. He had to clench his teeth to keep from giving in to a long, hungry groan.

“Is that what you like?” she asked.

Dear God.

“Eleanor...” he said her name on a rough exhalation.

Her hot tongue touched his neck, followed by a delicate little nip and a sucking kiss. His body blazed with the tingles of lust. Did she know what she was doing to him?

He found her body under the cloak by touch, roaming his hands over her sweet shape. He reveled in the slenderness of her waist, the curve of her bottom, which he caught in his hands. She arched her hips forward and his shaft pressed against her stomach once more, causing friction against the intensely building pressure.