Julia Quinn - Ten Things I Love About You

This moment…any moment like this…

They were not to be hers.

“I should be getting back,” she said quietly.

“I am sure you should,” he said with equal gravity.

She didn’t move. She just could not seem to make herself do so.

And so he rose, because he was, as she’d suspected, a gentleman. Not just in name but in deed. He held his hand down to her, and she took it, and then-it was as if she floated to her feet-she rose, and she tilted her chin, and lifted her eyes to his, and then she saw it-her life, ahead of her.

All the things she would not have.

She whispered, “Would you kiss me?”

There were a thousand reasons why Sebastian should not have done as the young lady requested, and only one-desire-why he should.

He went with desire.

He hadn’t even realized he wanted her. Oh, he’d noticed that she was lovely, sensual even, in a rather delightfully unselfconscious manner. But he always noticed such things about women. It was as natural to him as noticing the weather. Lydia Smithstone has an uncommonly attractive lower lip was not terribly different from That cloud over there is looking a bit like rain.

At least not to his mind.

But when she’d taken his hand, and his skin touched hers, something flared within him. His heart leaped, and his breath seemed to skip, and when she rose, it was as if she were something magical and serene, moving along the wind into his arms.

Except when she reached her feet she wasn’t in his arms. She was standing in front of him. Close, but not close enough.

He felt bereft.

“Kiss me,” she whispered, and he could no more deny her than he could his own heartbeat. He lifted her fingers to his lips, then touched her cheek. Her eyes met his, deep and filled with longing.

And then he, too, was filled with longing. Whatever it was he saw in her eyes, it somehow moved within him, too, gentle and sweet. Wistful, even.

Wistful. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt anything approaching wistful.

It made him want this kiss-want her-with the strangest intensity.

He didn’t feel warm. He didn’t feel hot. But something inside of him-maybe his conscience, maybe his soul-was burning.

He didn’t know her name, didn’t know anything about her except that she dreamed of Rome and smelled like violets.

And that she tasted like vanilla cream. This, he now knew. This, he thought as his tongue brushed against the soft inside of her upper lip, he would never forget.

How many women had he kissed? Far too many to count. He’d been kissing the girls long before he’d known there was anything else to be done with them, and he’d never really stopped. As a young lad in Hampshire, as a soldier in Spain, as a London rogue…he had always found women intriguing. And he remembered them all. He truly did. He held the fairer sex in far too much esteem to allow them to melt into a hazy puddle in his mind.

But this was different. It wasn’t just the woman he wasn’t going to forget, it was the moment. It was the feel of her in his arms, and the scent of her skin, and the taste, and the touch, and the amazingly perfect sound she made when her breath twisted itself into a moan.

He would remember the temperature of the air, the direction of the wind, the precise shade of silver that the moonlight sprinkled upon the grass.

He dared not kiss her deeply. She was an innocent. She was wise, and she was reflective, but she was an innocent, and if she’d been kissed more than twice before this he’d have eaten his hat. And so he gave her the first kiss that young girls dreamed of. Soft. Gentle. A tiny brush of the lips, a tickle of friction, the barest, most wicked touch of the tongue.

And that had to be all. There were some things a gentleman simply could not do, no matter how magical the moment. And so with great reluctance, he pulled away.

But only so far that he could rest his nose against hers.

He smiled.

He felt happy.

And then she spoke. “Is that all?”

He went absolutely still. “I beg your pardon?”

“I thought there might be more,” she said, not unkindly. In fact, more than anything else, she sounded perplexed.

He tried not to laugh. He knew he shouldn’t. She looked so earnest; it would be beyond insulting to laugh at her. He pressed his lips together, trying to hold down the bubble of sheer amusement that was bouncing around within him.

“It was nice,” she said, and it almost sounded as if she was trying to reassure him.

He had to bite his tongue. It was the only way.

“It’s all right,” she said, giving him the sort of sympathetic smile one gives to a child who is not good at games.

He opened his mouth to say her name, then remembered he didn’t know it.

He held up a hand. A finger, to be more precise. A simple, concise directive. Halt, it said clearly. Don’t say another word.

Her brows lifted in question.

“There’s more,” he said.

She started to say something.

He took his finger and pressed it right up against her mouth. “Oh, there’s more.”

And this time, he really kissed her. He took her lips with his, explored, nibbled, devoured. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing her against him, hard, until he could feel every one of her luscious curves against his body.

And she was luscious. No, she was lush. She had a woman’s body, rounded and warm, with soft curves that begged to be stroked and squeezed. She was the kind of woman a man could lose himself in, happily surrendering all sense and reason.

She was the kind of woman a man did not leave in the middle of the night. She would be warm and soft, a languid pillow and blanket, all rolled into one.

She was a siren. A gorgeous exotic temptress who was somehow utterly innocent. She had no idea what she was doing. Hell, she probably had no idea what he was doing, either. And yet all it took was an untutored smile, a tiny sigh, and he was lost.

He wanted her. He wanted to know her. Every inch of her. His blood burned, his body sang, and if he hadn’t suddenly heard a raucous shout from the direction of the house, heaven only knew what he would have done.

She stiffened as well, her head snapping a bit to the right, pointing her ear toward the commotion.

It was just enough for Sebastian to regain his senses, or at least a small piece of them. He pushed her away, more roughly than he’d intended, and planted his hands on his hips, breathing hard.

“That was more,” she said, sounding dazed.

He looked over at her. Her hair wasn’t quite undone, but it was certainly fashioned more loosely than it had been before. And her lips-he’d thought they were full and plump before, but now she looked positively bee stung.

Anyone who had ever been kissed would know that she had just been kissed. Thoroughly.

“You’ll want to tidy up your hair,” he said, and he was quite certain it was the least appropriate post-kiss comment he had ever made. But he couldn’t seem to summon his usual flair. Style and grace apparently required presence of mind.

Who would have imagined it?

“Oh,” she said, her hand immediately patting her hair, trying rather unsuccessfully to smooth it down. “I’m sorry.”

Not that she had anything to apologize for, but Sebastian was too busy trying to locate his own brain to say so.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” he finally said. Because it was the truth. And he knew better. He did not dally with innocents, and certainly not in (almost) full view of a filled-to-the-brim ballroom.

He did not lose control. It simply wasn’t his way.

He was furious with himself. Furious. It was an unfamiliar, and wholly unpleasant emotion. He did pity, and plenty of self-mockery, and he could have written a book on mild annoyance. But fury?

It just wasn’t something he cared to partake of. Not toward others, and certainly not toward himself.

If she hadn’t asked him…If she hadn’t looked up with those huge, bottomless eyes and whispered, “Kiss me,” he would never have done it. It was a piss-poor excuse and he knew it, but there was some consolation in the knowledge that he had not initiated the encounter.

Some, but not much. For all his sins, he wasn’t that much of a liar.

“I’m sorry I asked,” she said stiffly.

He felt like a heel. “I didn’t have to comply,” he responded, but not nearly as graciously as he ought.

“Clearly I’m irresistible,” she muttered.

He shot her a sharp look. Because she was. She had the body of a goddess and the smile of a siren. Even now, it was taking every ounce of his will not to throw himself at her. Knock her to the ground. Kiss her again…and again…

He shuddered. This was not good.

“You should go,” she said.

He managed to sweep his arm forward in a gentlemanly motion. “After you.”

Her eyes widened. “I’m not going back there first.”

“Do you really think I’m going to go in there and leave you alone on the heath?”

She planted her hands on her hips. “You kissed me without knowing my name.”

“You did the same,” he sniped back.

Her mouth opened into an indignant gasp, and Sebastian felt an alarming satisfaction at having bested her. Which was further unsettling. He adored a good verbal interplay, but it was a dance, for God’s sake, not a bloody competition.

For an endless moment they stared each other down, and Sebastian wasn’t sure whether he was waiting for her to blurt out her name or demand that he reveal his.

He rather suspected she was wondering the same thing.

But she said nothing, just glowered at him.