Gentlemen Prefer Mischief by Emily Greenwood

hers—he was kissing her! She was being kissed!
    Her first kiss ever.
    A whisper of a kiss, as light as the wings of that butterfly she’d imagined him to be. But a kiss, definitely. Her suddenly girlish heart was beating fit to bursting from her chest with the nearness of him. With the feel of his mouth against hers. So new… a marvel.
    His lips lifted and hovered and pressed, barely there, against the bow of her top lip, as though he had all the time in the world. She wanted him to have it, and to spend it on her. His lips brushed ever so lightly against the corner of her mouth. So tender as it was, his touch felt like an affectionate exploration, and she didn’t care that affection was unlikely; she wanted only to accept what he was doing and not think about it.
    Her bottom lip felt neglected, and he seemed to know this because he dipped his lips lower, as teasing as a whisper whose words she couldn’t quite hear. His mouth parted just a little against the fullness of her lip and tugged at her with moist friction. Hot yearning raced through her.
    In a distant corner of her mind she acknowledged that he was very skilled. That he knew exactly what to do, that some of what he was doing to her was probably tactical in some way, to gain some advantage over her. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about that, or about the murmuring inner voice that wanted her to know she shouldn’t be kissing him.
    He ran the tip of his tongue slowly over the fullest part of her mouth, and her lips parted and he nudged them farther apart with his. The warmth and wetness inside his mouth was a revelation, a sensation she could never have imagined, simply because it had to be experienced. She was struck with this: how could you ever know what you hadn’t experienced? You could yearn to experience it, and the yearning could be an experience in itself, but you couldn’t feel it. She knew that now, was being taught it in every slow, knowing exploration his mouth made of hers.
    His tongue stroked hers softly, and she stroked him back, wanting more, wanting whatever he was going to give her.
    She settled her hands above his elbows and ran them up the outsides of his arms, amazed at the hard curves of muscles beneath the fabric. Amazed… she was amazed by him, by the experience of kissing him.
    His hands moved to either side of her jaw, holding her steady for his kiss. Hot on her skin, they slid down her neck, their incremental journey making flames of desire lick her. He reached the tops of her shoulders and lingered there, his thumbs stroking the bare skin of her clavicle, exposed just above the high, scooped neck of her gown.
    His mouth traveled along her jaw, depositing shivery little kisses on a path to her ear. “Teagarden,” he murmured, “you’ve turned out so beautiful.”
    The shock of his words was how much her heart thrilled to hear them from him. They were like a strong liquor, and she only wanted more. She clutched the fabric of his sleeves, unbalanced and urgent and thrilled.
    Pressed tight against the stiff cover of her journal, her breasts felt fuller as they strained against the book and the taut fabric of her gown. His hands traced the outside curves of her breasts and shaped their contours with his fingertips.
    Hal could almost feel the thorny wall Lily kept raised around herself falling away. Here was Lily softened by desire, and the sight, the feel—the sound of her little pants—was nearly unendurably erotic. He rubbed the sides of her breasts, pressed plump by the book in her bodice, a crazy mix of reverence and lust boiling up in him.
    A whimper escaped her as his fingers found the edge of one partially crushed nipple and teased it with a fingernail. He traced the slender curve of her waist and the swell of her hips, their kiss turning wilder. Moving his hands lower, he cupped her sweet bottom, and they both gasped when he pulled her against his stiffened cock.
    A little shocked sound hummed from her mouth into