“I had no reason to look at your end of the table.”
He braced one arm on the wall above her head, leaning closer. “You looked at me earlier.” He sounded as if he were speaking through clenched teeth.
It was embarrassing to find that the merest glance at his lips made her knees feel weak. But she managed to summon up her self-respect. “You should be spending time with Lala. Go!”
He paid no attention. “Do you know that most people find me intimidating?”
Meeting his eyes made India drag in a deep breath and begin to turn sideways, to dart toward freedom. But his body closed in, and his mouth came down on hers. Their kiss was deep and wet—not sweet, but scorching, as if there was no air in the world other than what she took from Thorn’s lips.
It was silent, this desperate kiss, so insistent that she could actually feel her lips becoming bee-stung. His hand shoved into her hair, and the pins that had held in place a pyramid of elaborate ringlets tinkled to the floor.
“No,” she gasped. But his mouth found hers again. She hardly registered that she had launched herself away from the wall, and she was now plastered against him, as close as if she were trying to melt into him.
In fact, she didn’t notice at first when his hands slipped under her skirts. Not until she realized that they were cupping her bottom, hitching her higher and backing her against the wall again. Her legs instinctively curled around his hips as he pushed his pelvis against her, sending flames arcing down her legs.
She said something in a shamefully weak voice. It might have been “No.” But even worse, it might have been “Yes.”
Whatever it was, he ignored her. His fingers slipped into the silky tuft of hair between her legs. The moment he touched her, her lips opened in a cry that he caught with his mouth.
His kiss and caress tumbled her into a haze: her head spun and she couldn’t see or even breathe. She clung to him, his clever, clever fingers igniting a fever in her blood. Need rose in her like a dark storm.
“No!” she whispered hoarsely, pulling away from his kiss. “You cannot spend the afternoon with Lala and then come to me. You cannot seduce me while you’re betrothed to another.”
He met her eyes, his face strained with desire but confused. “I am not betrothed to anyone. I have said nothing about marriage to Lala or any other woman.”
India stared at him. It was hard to think when her body was shaking. His fingers had stilled, but they were still there, touching her. “You’re sure you’re not betrothed? Even informally?”
He shook his head. His eyes had darkened to the color of a storm over the sea, and his fingers started that caress again, touching her in a teasingly regular pattern that made her body oddly lax and tense all at once.
As if she was waiting . . . waiting for something.
“I have spoken to Lala’s father, but given the circumstances of my birth, he declined to consider the matter unless I received Lady Rainsford’s approval. I never asked Lala for her hand.” The words grated from his throat, and India believed him. Whose fault was it that Lala was dreaming about marriage to Thorn? Probably every other woman in London was dreaming about Thorn.
The thought drifted away, because Thorn lifted her with one arm—her weight seemingly nothing—and unbuttoned his breeches with the other, pulling himself free. She gasped when their bodies came together again, her thighs instinctively tightening around his hips.
“I did not spend the afternoon with Lala,” he growled at her, his voice jolting, as if he were in a runaway carriage. “I was at the rubber factory, trying to make that damn machine work.”
“Oh,” India breathed as he nudged her softest, most private spot.
“May I?” he growled, his eyes holding hers. Her arms tightened around his neck. She could no more say no to him than she could tell the sun not to rise. She wiggled against him at the very same moment he drove into her.