“My mother was a mixed-race woman. Granddaughter of a French silk merchant and his placée. She was a free Creole.”
“So?”
Surely she couldn’t be this obtuse. “So I’m not a blue blood.”
“I realize that you are of mixed origins,” she said slowly. “But you still bleed scarlet like the rest of us.”
“I’m glad you think so,” he said, not disguising his sarcasm.
Flushing, she paused as if considering her reply. “Clearly, I’m not one to judge or offer sage advice. I can’t claim to know what you’ve been through, but I saw my sister-in-law stand up to a ballroom full of bigots, and I witnessed my brother fall madly, hopelessly, irreversibly in love. And she’s of mixed heritage.” She exhaled a breath. “Eventually, you’ll have to go back to England and be the duke. I hope you do it on your terms, Courtland, not because someone with a dried-up excuse for a brain told you that you weren’t good enough or you didn’t deserve it.”
In an ideal world, perhaps such a thing would be possible, but this was reality, and his reality included a stepmother who wished him gone and a younger brother who would prefer he had never been born. Courtland didn’t want to ponder the soft earnestness behind Ravenna’s words, not right then as she moved away from him toward the door. At best, she might make it through the hotel, but would be stopped by his men. At worst, Rawley would be waiting to eliminate the threat. “Lady Ravenna, please stop before you get hurt.”
She’d nearly reached the door. “Have a nice life. Don’t look for me.” She smiled at him. “And for posterity, I’ve always loved the color of your skin, even when we were children. Me, the color of paste, and you, so beautifully golden-brown as if you were lit from the inside with pure sunlight.”
The sweetness of the sentiment moved him, but Courtland couldn’t savor it. He would later, if they got through the next few seconds. She twisted to turn the doorknob, her attention slipping from him for one heartbeat, and he dove, launching himself across the room. His attention was on the pistol in her hand and making sure neither of them accidentally got shot if Rawley did come through that door as Courtland suspected he would.
Sure enough, the door shoved open at the same time that she unlocked it, the force propelling her body in his direction as his cousin attempted to barrel his way inside. By pure luck, Courtland managed to shield her with his frame and knock the gun upward in the moments it took for the two of them to tumble onto the plush Persian carpet.
The pistol discharged into the wall with a boom, making his ears ring. The scent of spent gunpowder singed his nostrils as he wrestled the weapon out of her grip when they collided with the floor. He absorbed most of the impact, the breath whooshing from his body, and he grunted, but he didn’t release his hold on her even as they rolled to an ungainly halt in a lewd tangle of limbs.
Chest to chest, hip to hip, her heart galloping wildly against his, they’d landed in an obscene heap, his thighs wedged indecently between her trouser-clad legs, his body sprawled over hers in mimicry of an act he was beginning to crave with every rapid beat of his pulse. All of Courtland’s hard edges cradled into her softer curves…perfectly as if they’d been crafted for each other. In that moment as he collected his absent breath, even though she’d very nearly put a bullet in him, all he wanted to do was kiss her.
The fall had damaged his brain, clearly.
A breathless moan breached those tempting, parted lips, the sultry sound daggering through him. It wasn’t a sound of pain, but one of unguarded pleasure, and all of his marauding senses distilled to one thing—her.
Courtland was already at half-mast; now his lower body leaped to painful, rock-hard attention. She felt him. He could see it in her widened pupils and hear it in the tiny hitch in her breathing. Heated copper eyes peered up into his, and a pink tongue darted out to swipe at her plump lower lip. That hot gaze slid to his mouth. Did she want him to kiss her? Her hips shifted infinitesimally as if in silent answer. He narrowed the distance, hovering over her mouth and leaving the last millimeter up to her.
Hell, he’d die if she didn’t want it as much as he did.
But the daring hoyden didn’t hesitate, her lips surging to meet his.
The feel of her was sublime, the demanding pressure nearly making his eyes roll back in his head as she fused their lips together. She smelled of lemon balm, but beneath the citrus, he detected the slightest hint of plumeria. Courtland breathed in, curving his arm up behind her shoulder to cup her nape, parting his lips and coaxing her to do the same with an urgent flick of his tongue. Moaning into his mouth, Ravenna opened instantly for him.
Not wasting a single second, his tongue delved in and found hers, seeking her warm, pliant depths, another sound of pleasure escaping her. A hint of wine from earlier at the tables clung to her lips and tongue, but beyond that was a taste all hers. Like dessert and decadence. Honey with a hint of hot island peppers. Intoxicating.
Craving more, he thirsted for every silky inch of her skin. Dragging his lips away, he dropped heated kisses down her jawline to the poorly tied cravat that hid the length of her elegant neck. Her pulse fluttered madly, echoing the equally frantic thud of his.
“May I?” he muttered insensibly, fingers hooking into the knot.
She sighed yes, eyes dilated with need, and he wasted no time in removing the offending fabric gathered at her throat. He’d barely tugged it off before his lips descended again in nips and brushes and desperate licks against her fragrant skin. His busy fingers anticipated his wants and moved to the opening of her shirt. Courtland was a hairsbreadth away from ripping the damned thing in half when the clearing of a throat halted him midmotion.
Ravenna froze beneath him, and they wrenched apart to stare at the gaping door, where half the hotel stood, including a grinning Rawley and one red-faced, utterly aghast Mr. Bingham.
* * *
“There’s no hope for it. They’ll have to marry at once.”
The solicitor’s solemn proclamation broke the spell that was holding her body in place, pinned like a rag doll beneath the Duke of Ashvale’s very muscled, very hard bulk. Ravenna could feel every last inch of him, including the straining ones pressing lewdly—deliciously—between her thighs.
Despite being untouched, Ravenna wasn’t that innocent. A girl didn’t pretend to be a man and live on a ship without hearing about more than a few filthy things. But for the first time in her life, she wanted to experience all the erotic stories she’d overheard. Why had no one told her what kissing a man could feel like? That a tongue could be so sleek and persuasive? That teeth could scrape and nibble and tease into a frenzy. That the world could end and she wouldn’t even notice.
She’d felt that kiss in her breasts, in her belly, and between her legs…taking over her every nerve like a tidal surge. Suddenly, she wanted him to kiss her again, their uninvited audience be damned.