Lady Eve's Indiscretion Read Online Free PDF

kiss.
    He leaned forward, so close Eve could catch the scent of his lavender-and-cedar soap, so close she could…
    Feel his lips, soft and knowing, against her cheek. Oh, she should turn away. There was no convenient tankard of spiked punch to blame, no holiday cheer, no reckless sense of yet another sibling slipping away into marriage.
    His hand came up to cradle her jaw, then to shift her head slightly so she faced him. Those soft, knowing lips teased their way to her mouth, gently, inexorably. He did not use force or even anything approximating force. He supported her into the kiss.
    That other kiss had been different. They’d started off observing a silly holiday tradition and ended up breathless and—she hoped—mutually surprised.
    This kiss was—God help her, it was tender , deliberate, as delicious as the strawberries she could taste when Deene’s tongue seamed her lips. Her hand cradled his jaw, too, not to keep him close but to complement the sensation of his tongue easing into her mouth.
    â€œDeene, I don’t know what to do.”
    He said nothing, just covered her mouth with his again, openmouthed, and then his tongue came calling, teasing her to taste him in return. When she did, she felt a shudder go through him, felt him hitch closer physically, and felt her own sense of balance desert her.
    Now she kept her hand on him as a point of reference, a way to keep the concepts of up, down, north, and south—his body and hers—all in an understandable relationship. He’d shaven recently, and—
    He took her lower lip between his teeth and didn’t exactly bite, but closed his teeth over her flesh. The sensation was not of being trapped but of being held. Eve felt his other hand, large and warm, settle on her neck. The contact was lovely, comforting, intimate, and reassuring, while the kiss was anything but.
    Maybe he sensed she was reaching her limit, because he took his mouth away and rested his forehead against hers instead. “Tell me you enjoyed that, Evie. One kiss doesn’t have to mean anything. It isn’t a great scandal. It’s just a small pleasure between two people who likely have little enough pleasure to call their own.”
    His hand moved around to cover her nape, as if to encourage her to remain in this forehead-kiss until he’d had her answer, while she wanted to hide her face against his shoulder. “I enjoyed it. I should not have, but I did. The other, too. At Christmas. I enjoyed that.”
    Such an admission was stupid, but in the privacy of their odd embrace—her other hand had come up to grasp his lapel—honesty felt safe. Honesty with him.
    He eased away but kept his one hand on her jaw for a last, fleeting caress. The loss of him left Eve chilled and bewildered. What had she just permitted?
    What had she just admitted?
    â€œHave the last strawberry.” He pushed the plate closer to her, his expression inscrutable. He’d tasted like strawberries.
    â€œPerhaps a bit of ham and melon,” she said, helping herself. Was this how sophisticated people conducted their kisses? Between bites of fruit while half the beau monde chattered itself insensate a few rooms away?
    She was saved from having to scrounge up some credible inanity to serve as conversation by the approach of Jenny and Louisa. Her sisters should have been a welcome sight, a source of relief.
    Amid all the other emotions rioting through her, Eve could not identify either relief or welcome.
    ***
    Deene knew for a fact Eve Windham had been out at least a good five years. She’d had beaus, followers, and admirers, and even several offers, but she kissed like… like an innocent.
    At Christmas, she’d flung herself into a kiss with such abandon, Deene had wondered who was holding onto whom under that sprig of mistletoe. When he should have stepped back and turned the moment into a holiday superficiality, she’d cupped a hand around his