Free A Fool Again by Eloisa James Page A

had taken out a mutton pie and broken it in half. Without even asking, he handed it to her. It was still warm and smelled tantalizingly good.
    Ladies never eat out of doors! Genevieve took a bite. It was so good that she took another. Rain was dashing to the ground now, and the only people still braving the Commons were a group of lads playing a fierce game in which the teams appeared to be named after Queen Mary and Lord Spencer. The boys ran this way and that in wild abandon, shrieking “Come on Spencer,” and “Come on Mary,” and generally getting as wet as possible.
    Tobias pulled her against his shoulder. She heard a little squeal of indignation as he shoved the piglet away from his boots. The only other sound was the faint shrieks of boys and the silver-white rain slanting down and bouncing from the ground.
    â€œI should like to kiss you,” Tobias said suddenly.
    Genevieve had her head tucked against his shoulder, and she’d been thinking the same thing except, of course, it was only due to nostalgia. Because she was desperately in love with Felton. Yet Felton and all his elegant refinement seemed very far away at the moment. So she turned her face up to his.
    Tobias was not one to wait for a second invitation. His head blocked out the rain so fast that Genevieve might have closed her eyes. If ladies didn’t eat in public, they definitely didn’t—
    But she lost the thought. His mouth felt sinfully sweet on hers, a wild sweetness that melted her bones with his very touch.
    â€œTobias,” she breathed, putting her hands into his hair and pulling him to her. He didn’t mind her forwardness: He groaned against her mouth and pulled her onto his lap. Through the thin muslin of her gown she could tell exactly how he was feeling. It was there: in the strength of his arms around her, in the barely audible groan that burst from his throat, in the way his mouth wandered away from her lips, tasting her cheek, her eyebrow, her earlobe.
    Genevieve was trembling all over. The only thing to be seen through the door was a curtain of silver rain. No one could see them, and they could see no one. It was as if the world had narrowed to Tobias’s mouth, slanting hard over hers again and again, those locks of hair sliding past her fingers. Thoughts crept into her head that weren’t ladylike— they weren’t even within the bounds of ladylike! Touch me? No lady would say such a thing. Why did he have his hands on her shoulders when she wanted—she wanted— No lady wanted such a thing!
    â€œTobias,” Genevieve heard herself say breathlessly.
    But his answer was inarticulate, more like a purr than a word.
    She took his hand in hers. He pulled back instantly and looked down at her. His face was in shadow. “Genevieve?” he asked.
    She knew with a swift flash of perception that he thought she wanted him to stop kissing her. To venture out into that chilly sheet of rain and fetch the carriage. Without saying a word, just keeping her eyes on his, she brought his hand slowly, slowly to her breast. Her cheeks were burning, but the look in his eyes made ladylike seem a foolish, piddling word.
    â€œAh, Genevieve,” he said against her mouth, and his hand was there, shaping her breast. She gasped into his mouth, feeling her nipple strain against his palm, in tandem with the burning weakness between her legs. “You undo me,” he said, and his voice was hoarse and yearning.
    She barely understood him; her legs had turned to water, and it was all she could do to lie back in his arms and watch the way his eyes moved over her breasts.
    He stood up and twitched closed the scarlet curtains, separating the Snake Charmer’s hut from the rest of the world, lost as it was in the rain. The light in the shed turned a rosy pink, suffusing a glow over their clothing. He wrenched off his jacket. Then he bent to kiss her neck, and she threw her head back, giving him an