before today.
She had meant the kiss to be merely a meeting of lips, in order to satisfy her side of the bargain, but the way that Rufus had kissed her—and she had kissed him—was nothing, absolutely nothing, like any other kisses Anna had suffered through in the past.
Instead she had felt claimed by him, by having his tongue in her mouth. Had felt as if she claimed him when she had felt drawn to return his passion.
His firm and chiselled lips had initially been surprisingly soft against her own, causing excitement to flutter wildly beneath her breasts. And her breasts had seemed to swell beneath the dampness of her chemise as the kiss continued, the rosy tips becoming an aching tingle, with an unaccustomed warmth spreading through the whole of her body before it had centred as a pleasant ache between her thighs.
It was an excitement that Anna had thoroughly enjoyed, until she had felt that hand cup her breast, and realised she had put a stop to these unexpected intimacies. Before it was too late.
The fact that she had needed to place her hand on the muscled nakedness of Rufus’s chest in order to push him away, and that her hand still rested against it, caused her to recoil back so sharply that she lost her balance on the branch completely.
“Steady, Anna!” Rufus warned harshly as he reached out to clasp both of her arms to prevent her from falling, his back pushing harder, painfully so, against the rough bark of the tree trunk behind him in order to maintain his own balance. “Perhaps we should get down from here? Before one or both of us is injured,” he added grimly, his lids narrowed to hide the expression in his eyes.
How had this woman aroused him so quickly and so heatedly? So thoroughly that he had touched her more intimately than he’d intended. To the degree that he had been on the edge of losing all control.
He was a man of two and thirty, and had bedded more women than he cared to remember since losing his virginity at the age of sixteen. The intervening years had rendered him both jaded and cynical where women were concerned, and he now approached all sexual liaisons with the same lack of emotions. All he wanted from his encounters was a release of his sexual tensions.
What happened just now had felt neither jaded nor cynical, but fresher and more arousing than anything Rufus had experienced before. Just as Anna herself possessed that same freshness of spirit.
Because she was fresh, you idiot, he rebuked himself. Any fool could see that Anna, despite the sharpness of her tongue, was a virgin, an innocent.
He had not meant to go so far as he had. He’d intended only to kiss her, to have a little fun himself, whilst at the same time punishing Anna a little for her recklessness in being alone out here in the woods, making herself vulnerable to any man who happened by. That the man had been him was purely coincidental.
One touch of Anna’s parted lips beneath his, the shy and then demanding caress of her tongue, and Rufus had felt himself stir with a pulsing, aching need for more. So very much more.
And that, Rufus old chap, is the road to perdition!
Because no father was going to allow a man—even a duke!—to take his daughter’s virginity without demanding some sort of recompense.
“I shall go down first,” Rufus rasped harshly before releasing her to turn away and begin his descent, his thoughts grim.
If Anna had not stopped him when she had—
Then both of them would have tumbled out of the tree and put an end to the disturbing interlude that way, Rufus assured himself, his good sense having returned to him the farther he removed himself from the lure of the warmth of Anna’s mouth and body. There was not even the possibility, even if he were to have practised all of his considerable sexual inventiveness, that the two of them would have been able to deepen the intimacy whilst still up in the branches of a tree.
Of course, he still had to resist kissing her again once they were both down on the ground, but good sense told him he had best do exactly that if he did not wish to make this situation even worse than it already was.
How the two of them behaved towards each other when they met again, probably in the presence of Anna’s father, was a subject for conjecture, but Rufus did not imagine that Anna would any more welcome her father knowing of her scandalous behaviour today than Rufus would.
No, it had been a pleasant interlude but it was not one Rufus believed it wise to repeat. His responses to her warned him that he should not demand that second kiss.
Rufus kept his movements brisk and impersonal, his gaze averted from that sensuous mouth and those creamy breasts, as he helped Anna to descend the tree. “Turn around,” he instructed briskly once she stood in front of him, intending to refasten the buttons at the back of her still-gaping gown.
Anna felt slightly befuddled as she obediently turned her back towards Rufus, disturbed by her reaction to being so thoroughly kissed, and by a man she had only just met.
His responses to her, the low groans in his throat, and the way his hands had roamed restlessly over her back before cupping her breast, had proved that he truly was not a gentleman.
Her confusion increased as she saw his expression was one of haughty remoteness as he turned away to pull on his own clothes. She sat down on the grass to put on her stockings and boots. It was almost as if he had not just kissed her so passionately, touched her more intimately than any other man ever had.
Nor had he made any demand for a second kiss in return for helping her down from the tree.
She eyed him uncertainly as she stood up slowly. “I…thank you for your help,” she murmured hoarsely.
He was now fully dressed, his glance impersonal, as he swung easily up into the saddle of his restlessly prancing stallion. “I advise that you do not make a habit of venturing out in these woods alone.” His mouth twisted into the semblance of a mocking smile. “Another man might not be so reluctant to take what you offer!”
Anna gasped at the deliberate insult. “I did not offer, you took!”
He looked down the length of his aristocratic nose at her. “You may tell yourself that if you wish.”
Anna felt the guilty colour heat her cheeks as she knew she had been a more than willing participant to their lovemaking.
Something a gentleman would most certainly not have brought to her attention.
She glared up at him. “I do believe I dislike you intensely.”
“Keep telling yourself that, my love, if it pleases you.” Rufus gave a mocking laugh as he doffed his hat and bowed in a caricature of politeness. “I will wish you a good day, Anna Juliet.” He placed his hat firmly back on his head before turning Caesar, not giving so much as a glance back as he urged the stallion through the canopy of trees and out onto the fields leading up to the majestic red-stoned residence that was the seat of the Duke of Northamptonshire.
Rufus continued to rebuke himself for his actions as he allowed Caesar his head. For allowing an innocent such as Anna to arouse him so completely he had forgotten who he was. Who she was.
A rebuke that became even more immediate when the first person he saw, as he rode into the cobbled stable yard of Banbury Hall, was Matthew Turner.
The
