With Love (Blackwood & Friends #1)

Chapter 14: Saved by a Kiss

Chapter 14: Saved by a Kiss

Whatever tentative platform of equilibrium Nicola had been balancing on suddenly tilted and ricocheted her off. His lips dropped to hers softly at first, and she had sucked in a breath from shock alone, hearing the same sound from him but for what reason she would never know.

His hand was at her waist, pulling her close, then other cupping her jaw, tilting her mouth up to his, and then his lips were crushingly sweet, moving with taunting ardency against her. The potency of the moment, of having Jason Blackwood kissing her, struck her with mindless shock she could scarcely take a breath with the reaction her body was having to him.

The two men coughed loudly. "It seems the Marquess of Northwick has found a tasty bit of entertainment for the evening," one of them leered suggestively. Jason dragged his lips up her cheek, caressed the shell of her ear. "Nicola, kiss me back," he rasped, his voice barely a whisper, ragged and needing. Then his mouth returned to hers and she obeyed, opening for him, moving her lips in shy imitation as he had moved his over hers. She felt him shudder, the hand at her waist flexing and banding against her back, hitching her closer.

His tongue dipped into her mouth, testing, sweet, and she gasped, opening for him wider, and he accepted the offer, deepening the kiss with a sigh. "Put your arms around my neck," he whispered, breaking away long enough to murmur the instruction. Nicola did, her fingers trailing up the lapels of his coat while he settled his lips against hers once more, until her arms were around his neck, pulling him close, and a groan of approval escaped him, his tongue delving inside her mouth with a slick, sinful heat.

There was laughter from the two men who had approached, but she scarcely heard it. Her world was consumed by the man kissing her, the way his lips were an intoxicating combination of firm and softness, the way he tasted like sweetness and sin, his breath warm and coaxing as it mingled with her own. When his tongue slid against hers, her knees buckled, her weight supported by the tree and his body, his hard, solid body.

A sound escaped her, a desperate plea for more, for anything, as his fingers spread in the sides of her hair, compressing her mouth into his. When he withdrew slightly, bit her bottom lip with teasing firmness, a hot shard exploded low in her abdomen, almost taking her breath away, and she clung to him desperately.

He whispered something fiercely, tearing his lips away, and tilting his head to the side, but the silence suggested they were once more alone, the two men having moved along after clearly witnessing the Marquess of Northwick consumed in an illicit embrace. The hand in her hair dropped and settled on her shoulder. She hadn't heard them leave, hadn't heard anything other than the furious thunder of her heart in her ears, the ragged sounds of his breath.

Jason scanned her face, so close to hers she could still feel his breath meet and dance with hers. "They are gone," he murmured, his eyes hooded, and his voice edged with a husky timbre, the sound making molten waves course through her in response. Slowly, ever so slowly, the reality of the moment began to seep into the corners of her mind, and she blinked, dimly understanding why he had kissed her, why he had asked her to kiss him back, to hold him...

They were gone, her mind repeated dully, and he had kissed her to shield her identity from whoever had passed through the forest, had shown her how he could shatter her world without knowing any way to piece it back together. The kiss hadn't meant the same to him, she reasoned, the kiss had been a decoy, a clever ruse, to protect her.

She swallowed, hard, and lowered the arms that she had still entwined around his neck, still in his embrace, still pressed up against his body. "I should go," she said, her voice shaking and brittle. His eyes caught the sound, dropped to her lips and stayed there, not releasing her from his hold.