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to push him away. If she had, perhaps he would have stopped. Instead, desire urged him on, encouraging him to take more. He’d waited years to hold her like this and kiss her. He’d dreamt countless times of how her lips would feel against his and the way her small, supple body would curve into his own much taller one. Yet his imagination was as insipid as water to wine when compared with reality—the sensations, scents and flavors more divine than anything his mind could create.
    Mallory, my love, he whispered in his head, as he gave in to what he craved and deepened the kiss. Parting her mouth, he claimed her with a long, slow, sultry ease that was just this side of heaven.
    She whimpered again, this time with confused hesitation, the relative inexperience of her touch impressing itself upon him as nothing else could have done. She might have been kissed before, he realized, but she was still a novice when it came to sex and the sensual arts. He, on the other hand, was experienced—extremely experienced—with a knowledge of things that would have set her blushing from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. Compared to him, Mallory was a dewy-eyed lamb wandering unaware in a peaceful meadow, while he was the hungry, ravening wolf lying in wait just over the nearest rise.
    Suddenly aware of exactly what he was doing, he broke their kiss. She swayed slightly in his grasp, her eyes closed as breath puffed in tiny gusts from her mouth.
    “Oh,” she sighed.
    “Oh ” didn’t begin to describe it.
    Taking a step back, he made sure she was steady on her feet, then he let her go.
    Her eyes popped open and immediately fixed on his. “W-what was that?”
    Rather than responding, he lifted a brow, schooling his features into a calmness that hid the violent need still coursing through his body.
    “I-I mean I know what it was,” she went on in a breathless voice that made shivers run down his spine. “But why? Why did you k-kiss me?”
    She looked utterly and completely bewildered.
    “Because, my sweet,” he drawled in a smooth tone, “you looked as if you needed to be.”

    Mallory stared, her heart racing frantically in her chest.
    Stars and garters, she thought, Adam just kissed me. And not a peck either but a full-blown, passionate claiming that was unlike any kiss she’d ever had before. Even Michael had never kissed her like that, and he’d been her fiancé.
    She paused suddenly at the thought of Michael, yet she was so dazed, so bemused, that the usual melancholy she felt when she thought of him didn’t appear. All she could do was stand there, her entire body tingling with heat and pleasure.
    For years, she’d been aware of the rumors about Adam’s prowess and reports of all the women who secretly—and not so secretly—clamored to share his bed. Once at a party in London, she’d accidentally overheard a pair of women—one a widow and another who wished she were—comparing a list of their lovers. None of them, the widow told her friend, came close to the ecstasy she’d found in Adam Gresham’s arms. Then she’d gone on to bemoan the fact that she’d only been with him once and that despite her best efforts to win him back, he wasn’t interested.
    Apparently, Adam had a habit of never staying with any one woman for long, his elusive behavior seeming only to enhance his already formidable appeal among the fairer sex. And now that she’d experienced his kiss, she could see that his reputation for pleasuring women was in no way an exaggeration. Fully two minutes had passed since he’d ended their own kiss, and she was still worried the top of her head might blow off, her riding hat along with it.
    “Are you hungry?” he inquired, jarring her out of her musings. “I had Cook pack us a little something again just in case.”
    Hungry? How could he possibly think of food at a moment like this? Then she recalled why he said he’d kissed her.
    Because, sweetheart, you looked as if you needed to