“Kissing you?”
“If you can call it that.” No, she couldn’t complain of that to him, or he’d guess he was the real target of her affections. So her only choice was to continue mooning after Mr. Juncker, no matter how much she hated that. She peered in the direction the playwright had gone. “You didn’t let him see me kissing you.”
He pinned her with a hard look. “Are you trying to destroy your reputation, Vanessa?”
“No, indeed.” He’d missed the point. She lifted her chin and lied for all she was worth, “I’m trying to make Mr. Juncker jealous. But if he doesn’t know I was the one being kissed—”
“Hardly the one being kissed,” Sheridan grumbled. “You were the one kissing me.”
“He wouldn’t have realized that.” She tilted her head. “And if you had let him witness the incident, I might have secured him.”
“Secured him?” Sheridan glared at her. “That man will never marry you. So do you really want to sacrifice your reputation to a fellow who has no interest in establishing a respectable connection with you?”
She gazed down the corridor after Mr. Juncker. “How do you know he wouldn’t establish a respectable connection? Or do you simply think me too silly to attract an eligible suitor?”
Sheridan blinked. “It has nothing to do with you. He’s a rogue, and rogues don’t marry.”
“Thorn did.”
“My half brother had other reasons for doing so.” Sheridan’s face clouded over. “But Juncker has no such reasons—no heir he must sire and no estate requiring a rich dowry. He also has any number of unsavory females eager to share his bed, so why would he marry?”
“I have no idea, and neither do you. What would you know about rogues? You aren’t one in the least. So you can’t possibly understa—”
Sheridan kissed her again. Only this time it wasn’t perfunctory or false. This time he gave her the sort of kiss a man would give a woman he truly desired.
Vanessa’s head spun as his mouth seduced and supped, by turns rough and tender, making her knees wobbly. He braced his hands on either side of her shoulders and leaned into her, his hard body covering her soft one as if trying to subdue her. Except that she was more than happy to be subdued by him.
Heavens, but he certainly knew how to kiss.
She caught him by the waist, needing to hang on as he catapulted her far beyond their surroundings and into the clouds. In the chilly theater, his body shed warmth like a sun heating a meadow, and he smelled of sun, too, and leather, and some spicy cologne.
Then he parted her lips and delved inside her mouth with his tongue. Good Lord in paradise, what was he doing? What an exquisite sensation, one she’d never experienced. Her arms crept around his waist—she wanted him even closer.
And when his response was to groan and press into her, she exulted in it. The very weight of him turned her to jelly as the kiss went on and on. . . .
He did care. At last.
Chapter Three
Sheridan knew he was making a mistake. He shouldn’t be touching her, let alone kissing her. But their first two pecks on the lips had whetted his appetite for a real kiss. To make her think twice about Juncker and his damned roguish ways. To show her that every man had needs and that trying to tempt a fellow like Juncker into expressing them was asking for trouble.
Kissing her was asking for trouble. God save him, he was sailing in uncharted waters, an adventurer heading for foreign climes. Her lips were soft and her body warm, yielding to his. She tasted like lemon drops and sunshine, and the more he thrust his tongue inside her mouth, the more he ached to have it inside other places. Sheer insanity. Especially since she wasn’t exactly stopping him. And why?
Because she was a flirt. He could possibly steal her away from Juncker if he so desired. But of course he didn’t want that. Should not want that.
He definitely shouldn’t keep standing here kissing her in a corridor where anyone might easily see them! Regretfully he broke off the kiss and stepped back to give her room to move.
There was no shove this time. She merely stared up at him with her crystalline blue eyes as if seeing him in a new light. That wouldn’t do either. It tempted him to let her in, and he’d already vowed never to do so, even though she looked fetching in her fashionable turban and her costly gown, with its décolletage that showed far too much of her breasts for his peace of mind.
Why, Vanessa wasn’t even the sort of woman he usually desired. Helene had been precisely that sort—tall and willowy and elegant. Vanessa was a short, voluptuous vixen, the sort of fresh-faced, flirtatious female any man wanted to tumble in a haymow somewhere.
He drove that observation ruthlessly from his thoughts. She would break his heart—this he already knew. And one heart-breaking was more than enough for him.
Besides, his life was too complicated right now. The last thing he needed was a woman like Vanessa muddying the waters even more.
He drew in a deep breath. “Now you know how easy it is for a man to play the rogue. Even me.”
“I do indeed,” she said, her tone wary. “I confess I’m surprised. You don’t seem the sort.”
“The sort to do what?”
“Kiss a woman passionately.”
That stung. But he mustn’t let it. Instead he forced coldness into his tone. “That’s because I’m not. I merely thought you could use the lesson. It might save you from ruin one day down the line.”
“So your kiss was a lesson?” she said skeptically. “If so, it was certainly a convincing one.”
“What good is a lesson if it’s not convincing?”
“True.” Her gaze turned frosty before she dropped it to her gloves, which had slipped down her forearms, exposing her elbows.
As she pulled them up, he felt a stab of disappointment. She actually had very pretty elbows. Why hadn’t he noticed that before?
“In any case, it doesn’t change a thing,” she added. “I still mean to catch Mr. Juncker if I can.”
The sudden roaring in his ears caught him off guard. Over my dead body. Only with an effort did he not say the words aloud. She might not be the woman for him, but Juncker would never be the man for her. Somehow he had to keep her out of that scoundrel’s arms.
Besides, he did have to spend more time with her mother. Lady Eustace hadn’t yet told him what he needed to know. “Well, if you’re determined on that score,” Sheridan said, “I can help you with that.”
She looked up at him and raised one silky black eyebrow. “Why on earth would you? You went to great lengths to hide me during our first kiss, when I tried to make him jealous.”
“Because I thought that would be the end of it. You’ve made it clear I was wrong. So if you still mean to pursue him, I will help you, if only to demonstrate he’s not the man you think.”
“But why do you even care about that? For that matter, why care if he ruins me? Or I marry him and he gains my dowry? Or whatever you think will happen if I keep going after him?”
Her expectant gaze sent him scrambling for a convincing answer. He could hardly say it was because he needed to interrogate her mother. “I consider us friends.” Yes, that was the way to go. “Don’t you?”