Free The Millionaire Rogue by Jessica Peterson Page A

have
definitely
buckled. Good God, never did a man look so delicious in his looming as Mr. Thomas Hope.
    â€œSophia,” he repeated.
    She ran her tongue along her bottom lip, suddenly alive with sensation.
    The words came before she could stop them, a defense against his questions; a plea of desire.
    â€œDo it again.”
    Thomas paused. “I beg your pardon?”
    â€œKiss me. Like you did for the princess. Do it again.”
    His eyes searched hers, moving from one to the other. With every sense she implored him to action, tilting her chin so that her lips waited just beneath the soft curve of his own. The air between them tightened, pulling them slowly toward one another.
    Sophia vaguely heard Thomas’s hat dropping to the ground beside her; and then his hand was cupping her face and his hair was falling into her eyes and his skin brushed against hers. He took her lips with his own, an urgent but luxuriously careful caress that drew a moan from the back of her throat.
    He moved ardently over her now; no time, no need for introductions or assurances, just desire, sure and swift, beating between them.
    Taking her bottom lip in his teeth, he opened her mouth to him, his tongue sliding along the slick insides of her lips. In her veins her blood pounded.
    For the second time that night she surrendered to the ruin of Hope’s expert touch, his hands and his shoulders, and dear God, this
kiss
.

Seven

    I t was her curiosity that did it, the challenge that sparked in her eyes.
    That, and her damnably luscious lips. While Miss Sophia Blaise wasn’t entirely guileless—she had, after all, helped him swindle the French Blue from Caroline’s grasp—the debutante-cum-actress hadn’t the slightest idea how alluring she could be.
    Especially with that bottom lip caught between her teeth.
    Then there was her sudden, impulsive request.
Do it again
.
Kiss me.
    Good Lord. What was a decent man to do but oblige the lady, and oblige her most thoroughly?
    As for his fear that he’d forgotten how to kiss—it boded well, didn’t it, if Sophia asked for another?
    Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew she was using the kiss as a weapon against him, a way of avoiding questions she quite clearly did not wish to answer. Her presence in La Reinette’s chamber was, to be fair, none of his business.
    But when it came to Sophia, Hope did not feel like being fair. Fair was for business, for money, for duels. For cards and the races. For ledgers and war and the shops on Bond Street, the grocer, the steward. Fair was predictable and dull.
    No. There was certainly nothing fair about Sophia; her egregious loveliness, her scent. There was nothing fair about the way she stoked his growing desire for her with every word she said, her unexpected bravado and the full, honest sound of her laughter.
    He would find out what she was up to with La Reinette, come hell or high water.
    Just after he kissed Miss Blaise senseless. Yes. He would find out then.
    This time he held nothing back. He kissed her with a passion that was at once foreign and intoxicating, driving deeper, softer; the more of her he possessed and discovered, the more of her he wanted. He felt wild, his body and his heart pushing him forward, his hands cupping her face as he coaxed her lips apart with his tongue.
    He’d forgotten just how lovely kissing could be.
    Sophia yielded to his caresses, parting her lips. Their kiss deepened, slowed for a moment as he gently explored her warmth. Beneath him she shifted, running her palms up over his chest to land on his shoulders. She slid a hand up the side of his throat, and he groaned when she buried her fingers in the curls at the back of his neck, pulling him closer. With her thumb she gently stroked the cut on his cheek; her touch was featherlight, soothing the wound’s sting.
    He sensed his own fingers tingling for the feel of her bodice as her breasts pressed far too invitingly against