A Fool Again Read Online Free PDF Page B

trail over her cheeks.
    She just sat there, struck dumb with surprise, while he kissed her ear. What was she doing? What were those shocks dancing up and down her legs, making her breasts feel tender? What was she doing?
    His mouth was coming back to hers; she could sense it. Could feel the slight edge of tension in his body, the way he curved toward her. She should push him away, warn him, threaten him! “Yes,” she sighed, winding her fingers into his hair and pulling him closer. His tongue plunged into her mouth as if... as if.
    There was a faint chiming noise as strings of glass beads cascaded to the floor, set free by strong hands that ran through her hair. His hands were everywhere, touching her neck, brushing down her narrow back, pausing on the swell of her hips. He was touching—his hand was touching—she could hear her own sigh as his hand cupped her breast, and she could hardly miss the hungry sweep of feeling that followed it, the mad urge to strain closer to him.
    â€œOh God, Genevieve,” he said against her mouth, and his voice was rough with desire. She’d heard that note before. “I missed you.”
    The couch stopped and Genevieve almost tumbled off his lap. “What am I doing? Get away from me!” She pushed away so quickly that she almost flew to the other seat. “That must never —it was only—it was only due to our past!” she cried. Her hands went to her hair. “Oh no, where are my pins?” The moment her servants saw her hair tumbling down her back, they would know in a flash what had happened, and when they saw she was with Tobias, the gossip would be all over London by the morrow.
    â€œIt’s all right,” Tobias said, handing her three pins from the floor. “This is my house, not yours.”
    â€œ Your house?” Genevieve said, stunned. “Why on earth are we here? That isn’t proper! I cannot visit your house un-chaperoned. I wish to go home immediately!”
    â€œI have no plans for anything nefarious,” Tobias said. “I merely wished to show you the house that I purchased. I bought it only this morning.”
    â€œYou bought a house this morning,” she said, stunned. “I don’t wish to see your house, Mr. Darby. How dare you bring me here without even inquiring as to my wishes!”
    â€œI wanted to have a place to bring my wife,” he said, watching her. “When I have a wife, that is. You could pin up your hair and then I would bring you directly back to your house. There are no servants here to gossip, as I haven’t yet hired a staff.”
    He was obviously the same disreputable scamp he had been as a boy. Imagine bringing her to his house, for all the world as if she were a doxy who would fall into his arms and then his bed.
    â€œI am no longer fodder for your games, Mr. Darby,” Genevieve said sharply. “I am a grown woman and I mean to marry Lucius Felton. So the fact that we shared a kiss is simply due to a bit of nostalgia and nothing more. I will countenance no more of that behavior on your part.”
    â€œAbsolutely not,” he said, with an air of dignified virtue that Genevieve didn’t believe for a moment. But she did have to pin up her hair. She could not return home looking like this.
    â€œAs long as you understand,” she said, giving him a scowl, “that I’m not eighteen any longer. I may have behaved foolishly when I was very young, but now I’m a widow and I know about the world and men of your caliber.”
    â€œI can see that,” he said promptly.
    Genevieve looked out the carriage door. Tobias’s groom was holding open the door of the house. It was a beautiful house, tall without being overly narrow, elegant without being overbearing. “I’m not a loose woman, ” she hissed at To-bias, trying once more to impress the truth upon him. “Just because we once intended to marry doesn’t mean