Sylvia Day - Passion for Him

Considering the occasion worthy of it, she had worn one of her prettiest dresses, a deep blue confection sprinkled with tiny embroidered red flowers. “Yes! He doesn’t see me as a child.”

“Because he is one! Have you kissed him? Has he touched you?”

“He is only a year younger than you.” Her chin lifted. “And he is an earl. A gentleman. He would not be caught behind a store making love to a girl.”

“It wasn’t making love,” Colin said furiously, holding her by the upper arms.

“It appeared that way to me.”

“Because you don’t know any better.” His fingers kneaded into her skin restlessly, as if he couldn’t bear to touch her, but couldn’t bear not to either.

“And I suppose you do?”

His jaw clenched in answer to her scorn.

Oh, that hurt! To know there was someone out there whom he loved. Her Colin.

“Why are we talking about this?” She attempted to wrench free, but to no avail. He held fast. She needed distance from him. She could not breathe when he touched her, could barely think. Only pain and deep sorrow penetrated her overwhelmed senses. “I forgot about you, Colin. I stayed out of your way. Why must you bother me again?”

He thrust one hand into the hair at her nape, pulling her closer. His chest labored against hers, doing odd things to her breasts, making them swell and ache. She ceased struggling, worried about how her body would react if she continued.

“I saw your face,” he said gruffly. “I hurt you. I never meant to hurt you.”

Tears filled her eyes and she blinked rapidly, determined to keep them from falling.

“Amelia.” He pressed his cheek to hers, his voice carrying an aching note. “Don’t cry. I can’t bear it.”

“Release me, then. And keep your distance.” She swallowed hard. “Better yet, perhaps you could find a more prestigious position elsewhere. You are a hard worker-”

His other arm banded her waist. “You would send me away?”

“Yes,” she whispered, her hands fisted in his sweater. “Yes, I would.” Anything to avoid seeing him with another girl.

He nuzzled hard against her. “An earl…It must be Lord Ware. Damn him.”

“He is nice to me. He talks to me, smiles when he sees me. Today, he is going to give me my first kiss. And I’m-”

“No!” Colin pulled back, his irises swallowed by dilated pupils leaving deep black pools of torment. “He may have all the things that I never will, including you. But by God, he won’t take that from me.”

“What-?”

He took her mouth, stunning her so that she couldn’t move. Amelia could not understand what was happening, why he was acting this way, why he would approach her now, on this day, and kiss her as if he were starved for the taste of her.

His head twisted, his lips fitting more fully over hers, his thumbs pressing gently into the hinges of her jaw and urging her mouth to open. She shivered violently, awash in heated longing, afraid she was dreaming or had otherwise lost her mind. Her mouth opened, and a whimper escaped as his tongue, soft like wet velvet, slipped inside.

Frightened, she stopped breathing. Then he murmured to her, her darling Colin, his fingertips brushing across her cheekbones in a soothing caress.

“Let me,” he whispered. “Trust me.”

Amelia lifted to her toes, surging into him, her hands sliding into his silken locks. Unschooled, she could only follow his lead, allowing him to eat at her mouth gently, her tongue tentatively touching his.

He moaned, a sound filled with hunger and need, his hands cupping the back of her head and angling her better. The connection became deeper, her response more fervent. Tingles swept across her skin in a wave of goose bumps. In the pit of her stomach a sense of urgency grew, of recklessness and flaring hope.

One of his hands slipped, caressing the length of her back before cupping her buttock and urging her up and into his body. As she felt the hard ridge of his arousal, a deep ache blossomed low inside her.

“Amelia…sweet.” His lips drifted across her damp face, kissing away her tears. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

But he kept kissing her and kissing her and rolling his hips into her.

“I love you,” she gasped. “I’ve loved you so long-”

He cut her off with his lips over hers, his passion escalating, his hands roaming all over her back and arms. When she couldn’t breathe, she tore her lips away.

“Tell me you love me,” she begged, her chest heaving. “You must. Oh, God, Colin…” She rubbed her tear-streaked face into his. “You’ve been so cruel, so mean.”

“I can’t have you. You shouldn’t want me. We can’t-”

Colin thrust away from her with a vicious curse. “You are too young for me to touch you like this. No. Don’t say anything else, Amelia. I am a servant. I will always be a servant, and you will always be a viscount’s daughter.”

Her arms wrapped around her middle, her entire body quaking as if she were cold instead of blistering hot. Her skin felt too tight, her lips swollen and throbbing. “But you do love me, don’t you?” she asked, her small voice shaky despite her efforts to be strong.

“Don’t ask me that.”

“Can you not grant me at least that much? If I cannot have you anyway, if you will never be mine, can’t you at least tell me that your heart belongs to me?”

He groaned. “I thought it was best if you hated me.” His head tilted up to the sky with his eyes squeezed shut. “I had hoped that if you did, I would stop dreaming.”

“Dreaming of what?” She tossed aside caution and approached him, her fingers slipping beneath his sweater to touch the hard ridges of his abdomen.

He caught her wrist and glared down at her. “Don’t touch me.”

“Are they like my dreams?” she queried softly. “Where you kiss me as you did a moment ago and tell me you love me more than anything in the world?”

“No,” he growled. “They are not sweet and romantic and girlish. They are a man’s dreams, Amelia.”

“Such as what you were doing to that girl?” Her lower lip quivered, and she bit down on it to hide the betraying movement. Her mind flooded with the painful memories, adding to the turmoil wrought by the unfamiliar cravings of her body and the pleading demands of her heart. “Do you dream about her, too?”

Colin caught her wrist again. “Never.”

He kissed her, lighter in pressure and urgency than before, but no less passionately. Soft as a butterfly’s wings, his lips brushed back and forth across hers, his tongue dipping inside, then retreating. It was a reverent kiss, and her lonely heart soaked it up like the desert floor soaked rain.

Cupping her face in his hands, he breathed , “This is making love, Amelia.”

“Tell me you don’t kiss her like this.” She cried softly, her nails digging into his back through his sweater.

“I don’t kiss anyone. I never have.” His forehead pressed against hers. “Only you. It’s only ever been you.”

Amelia jerked awake with a violent start, her heart racing with the remnants of adolescent passion and yearning. Tossing back the covers, she sat up, allowing the chilly night air to seep through her thin night rail to her perspiration-damp skin. She lifted shaking fingertips to her lips, pressing hard against the swollen curves in an effort to stem their tingling.