Never. Oh, he was simply wonderful! “I like you a great deal,” she admitted in a whisper, so soft that it was almost lost on the night. “I can’t imagine anything changing that.”
“I certainly hope so, because you have utterly captivated me.”
At a loss for words, she melted, sinking against the marble balustrade behind her.
He stepped toward her to close the distance between them. Not releasing her hand or breaking eye contact, he eased the long white glove down her arm and off. This time when he kissed her fingers, there was nothing between his warm lips and her bare skin.
The sensation was overwhelming, and a soft sigh eased from her lips.
“I want to kiss you.” He turned her hand over to touch his lips to her palm.
She swallowed. Hard. “I think you are.”
“A proper kiss.” His mouth trailed up to her wrist, and he smiled against her pounding pulse at discovering the effect he had on her. “To taste the sweetness of you.”
God help her, she wanted exactly that. More daring than she’d ever been with a man before, she caressed her bare hand over his jaw. The warmth and strength of him pulsated beneath her fingertips.
“Then kiss me.” Her answer was nothing more than a breath. “Please, John.”
Closing her eyes, she held her breath. He leaned forward and touched his lips to hers, then moved away.
Her eyes fluttered open, bewildered. Was that all? Disappointment rang hollowly through her. It was barely a kiss, when she’d craved so much more!
Sensing her frustration, he placed another delicate kiss to the corner of her mouth, then slid his lips across her cheek, following the line of her mask to her ear. “If we were alone,” he promised her, each word a titillating warmth that tickled over her skin, “truly alone, without fear of anyone stumbling upon us, I would give you that kiss. And so much more.”
To make his point, he traced the tip of his tongue along the outer curl of her ear and sent a shiver of heat shuddering through her. Her hands slipped lower to his chest, to clutch at his lapels and keep him right there with her. So close that the heat of his body warmed her front, that his masculine scent of leather, port, and cigars filled up her senses and made her head swirl.
“But tonight,” he warned, “we must make do with what we can steal.”
He removed his glove and caressed his thumb over her bottom lip while he took her earlobe between his lips and gently sucked. A sound of longing fell from her, and she touched the tip of her tongue to his thumb, to encourage him to give more caresses, more stolen kisses.
Instead, he trailed his hand down her neck, to the hollow at the base of her throat. He strummed his thumb against her wildly beating pulse, before his hand moved lower to the top of her chest, where her heart jumped against his fingertips and her breath came quick and shallow. An ache began to tingle between her legs, although his hand was nowhere near there.
“We could…find a way…to be alone,” she whispered as his lips slid once more over hers to claim a kiss in passing.
He froze, tensing beneath her hands as they rested against his chest.
When he didn’t reply, she nervously added, “If you’d like.”
He pulled her into his arms and held her pressed against him as he buried his face in her hair and laughed. The low sound rumbled deliciously into her. Then he released her and shifted back to his original position, close but not touching except for his lips at her ear.
“I would like nothing more.” As his deep murmur vibrated through her, he dared to lower his hand to steal a caress of the side of her breast through her satin bodice. “Because then I could tell you all the wicked things I wanted to write to you in my letters but couldn’t, and we could do all that we dared.”
His hand fell away. A whimper rose on her lips at the unexpected loss of his touch.
“But we cannot.” With a knowing gleam in his dark eyes, he stroked her bottom lip with his thumb in a caress that hinted at so much more. “Something tells me that you’re still innocent,” he murmured as he slowly explored the shape of her lips He was kissing her with his fingers the way she longed for him to do with his mouth. “And if we were alone tonight, you might not be innocent much longer.” He slid his lips across her cheek, once more to her ear. “Because I would make love to you, if you let me.”
She trembled, the excitement and temptation of his words sending her pulse spiking. Goosebumps dotted her skin, and she could barely breathe beneath the intoxicating masculinity of him. She closed her eyes, swept away by him and the midnight magic, and confessed in a whisper, “I would let you…”
A deep breath seeped from him, his hardness replaced by a new tension. One that was dark and dangerous. So much more intense…a yearning that both excited and frightened. The same yearning he flared inside her.
He placed slow and tantalizing kisses to her ear, and she whimpered, never realizing before how erotic secret whispers could be. How delicious a man’s mouth at her ear, how tender her earlobe between his lips. She slipped her hands beneath his jacket to cling to his waistcoat. Although he refused to be drawn closer to her physically, he was already inside her head and her heart.
He dared to brush his hand over the low neckline of her dress, with a featherlight caress over the swells of her breasts. His scandalous touch should have offended her. Instead, it stoked the growing ache between her legs that now turned into a dull throbbing.
“You know what happens between a man and a woman,” he murmured, “How a man makes love to her?”
“Yes.” She’d become feverish with the images his words stirred inside her head. He was making love to her now, she realized, right there on the terrace, surrounded by the crush of partygoers, with his whispered words, soft kisses, and stolen caresses.
“We would do that, love, and I would show you how much you mean to me, how beautiful you are.” He kissed her lips, his mouth lingering against hers in brazen promise. “I would give you all the joy a man can bring to a woman, until you shatter with bliss in my arms.”
Her head spun trying to fathom him and the pleasures he was describing. She could barely find her breath now. Couldn’t find the strength to open her eyes, in fact. If he did to her as he promised, then—
A loud cheer went up from the ballroom, accompanied by a flourish from the musicians.
Surprised, she opened her eyes and gazed straight into his, only to lose her breath completely at his predatory stare. As if he wanted to carry her away into the shadows and devour her, like the panther he was dressed to be.
“Midnight,” he rasped out in explanation, his voice hoarse.
She’d lost track of the hour. Not that it mattered. She was his for the evening.
He slipped his hands behind her head. “It’s time.”
She blinked. “Time for—”
He pulled free the ribbon holding her mask in place, and it fell away. Startled, she grabbed frantically for it, but the satin slipped through her fingers and landed on the marble at her feet.
Her face revealed, she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to keep from screaming. Monmouth would see her. He would have her arrested for certain now for trespassing, or accuse her of theft, or—oh God, it would be the end of her and her father!
She tried to push past him to flee, but he grabbed her elbow and stopped her.
He stared at her, his eyes wide behind his black mask. For a moment, he was too stunned to move as his gaze swept over her face, then down her body, taking her in and trying to understand the woman who stood before him.
Panic swelled inside her as the party guests spilled out onto the terrace, making it impossible to hide in the shadows. Someone would see her. Recognize her—
Oh, dear God, no! She shoved past him and ran, back inside the house and through the crush toward the front door, disappearing into the night.