Undoing of a Lady Read Free Page A

for his body was tense, tight as a whip, but his response was battened down now, held under iron control. She moved her lips against his, willing him to react, to grab her, kiss her back, thus proving that she had won, but he stood completely immobile. Damn him. She was starting to feel foolish, reaching up, kissing him, and he as still as a marble statue. He wanted to embarrass herand he was succeeding. Perhaps she was no good at kissing; she did not really know. Several men had kissed her and it had been a severely disappointing experience each time, though whether that was because her expectations were too high or her suitors too incompetent, she was not sure.
    She stood back a little and looked at Nat through half-narrowed eyes. Perhaps he was not as restrained as he wanted her to think. She was inexperienced, but some knowledge, deep and instinctive within her, told her that Nat was closer to the edge than he pretended. He was breathing fast and a pulse beat in his cheek. The knowledge that she was pushing him so hard made Lizzie feel heady, as though she had drunk too much wine. The thrill of danger blotted out the pain of the bitter words they had thrown at one another.
    “Have you quite finished?” Nat’s politely disdainful voice cut through her thoughts. So he wanted to make her feel naive and humiliated. Anger and desperation surged in her blood. She was not going to let him win; not when he was a great deal less composed than he pretended.
    “No,” she snapped. “I have not.”
    She came close to him again, so close she could feel the heat emanating from his body. She looked up into his hard, unyielding face. What would it take to shock him? She did not have to go too far, just far enough to force him to admit he had been wrong in underestimating her. She was no child and she wasnot going to be dismissed as one. She put her hand on his chest and could feel the thunder of his heart.
    “Lady Ainsworth was your mistress, was she not,” she whispered in his ear. She skimmed her hand down his shirt, pulling it loose from the band of his pantaloons. “I heard the maids talking about it. They had it from her dresser that you were mightily well endowed. Huge, so they said. They made me very curious about you….”
    Nat’s whole body shuddered. “Lizzie. Stop this.” His tone was violent. “You don’t understand what you are doing.”
    “Oh, but I do,” Lizzie said. “I’m no child.” She tugged his shirt free and slid her palms over his bare stomach. He felt smooth and shockingly delicious. The exquisite sensation distracted her for a moment. She had had no idea…She heard him gasp and felt the muscles jump and quiver beneath her fingers. A reaction at last…Emboldened, she turned her face into his neck and pressed her lips against the skin of his throat. He tasted of salt and heat and he smelled of bergamot cologne and of leather and of something she recognized as Nat’s own scent. It was familiar to her yet intensely exciting.
    He turned his head slightly. Their lips were only inches apart now. She could feel how close he was to the edge of the precipice. Her senses spun with triumph and something else so strong it made her tremble. He was not so indifferent to her now. Shehad won. She slipped her hands around his back, reveling in the hardness of muscle beneath her questing fingers. She dug her nails into him and felt him flinch.
    “Lizzie, for Christ’s sake—”
    She liked the note of desperation in his voice. It soothed her wounded feelings to think she had driven him to this. She knew she should stop now, draw back, but she allowed one hand to drift to the fastening of his pantaloons, then a little lower. She felt light-headed, drunk, and a little mad perhaps. Her hand brushed the front of his trousers, tracing his erection. The hard, huge bulge of his arousal shocked her even through the straining material of his pantaloons. She heard Nat suck in his breath and swear harshly, and she