Gentlemen Prefer Mischief by Emily Greenwood Page A

his, then sighed into a moan. Her hands slid along his shoulders and touched his neck—small, slim, nimble fingers that knew their way around yarn. Their questing touch on his earlobes—his earlobes, for the love of God—only made him ache more.
    Wanting nothing but to pull up her skirts and explore all the dark mysteries she kept hidden, he was more lost to her with each moment. She was like an oyster, craggy and hard with graduated layers of shell, but inside soft and glistening and a feast for the senses. And the pearl that he now dearly wanted to discover…
    He had not, thank God, entirely lost his mind, though he intuited she was intoxicated enough with the adventure of her first foray that she might want and allow anything.
    He reluctantly moved a hand from her arse, up her straight back, and around to the front, not allowing himself to linger over those maddening slim curves. Smiling a bit against her mouth, he stroked his fingers along the tops of her breasts, and she pressed against them, not realizing that he’d changed his immediate goal, however reluctantly.
    Lily, her senses alight as they’d never been in her life, didn’t at first realize what Hal was doing. And then, with a cruel stab of disappointment, she understood what he was reaching for.
    The awareness that he’d had a different goal the whole time she’d been in his arms was crushing, and she stepped back fast, away from him.
    “I should have known.” Hurt disappointment gripped at her, but she pushed it away and stoked anger instead—anger at him, yes, but more at herself for indulging her feelings. She crossed her arms hard and the book dug into her chest, and she was glad for the physical discomfort. She never should have let herself want him.
    He didn’t say anything, just stood there, the open front of his tailcoat reminding her of her idiocy.
    “Why?” she said, hating how husky her voice sounded. She swallowed against the lump forming in her throat. “Is it that you just had to tease me again?”
    “Actually, that wasn’t the kind of teasing I initially had in mind. But come,” he said, doing up his buttons, “you’re not angry, are you, over a little playfulness?”
    She closed her eyes, trying to collect herself, wondering how she’d convinced herself that kissing him was a good idea. She’d slipped up, lost her way, and she needed to atone for that somehow, to silence the part of her that felt so ashamed at how much she’d wanted him.
    She forced a coolness into her voice that she didn’t feel. This knave of a man had just shown her a new and enchanting side of life, and now she must turn away from it. “I don’t know what happened, but this was my fault. I assure you it won’t happen again.”
    He was brushing his hands down his front, smoothing the cloth, returning himself to his usual polished condition—she kept her eyes from the fall of his breeches—and he looked up at her.
    “Fault? Assurances? It was only a kiss, Lily. In which we both participated. No one was harmed by it.”
    But she did feel harmed by it. It had been far more than a kiss, even if essentially nothing had been transgressed, and she felt unbalanced and muddled, and she hated to feel that way. She hugged the journal tighter against herself.
    “ Why do you want my journal? I can’t believe it’s really so interesting to you.”
    He shrugged, though something about his eyes made her think he didn’t feel as lighthearted as he wished her to believe. “It was just play, each of us taking the journal back.”
    “That’s all you’re ever after, isn’t it? An amusement for the moment, another folly. Something to kill the boredom of having everything you want or need already.”
    He just looked at her for several moments. “There’s no need to be so harsh.”
    “Of course there is. I don’t—I don’t do things like this.”
    “You mean like kissing men in your bedchamber? Is there a set of rules?” he said, then cocked his head.