She wasn’t concerned with propriety—she was skittish.

“How old are you? Sixteen? Seventeen?” he teased.

She narrowed her eyes. “Twenty-eight.”

“Practically dead. And how many lovers have you had?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He rested one foot on the bottom step. “You just accused me of being a promiscuous lout. I think it’s a fair question. How many? One?”

“Two,” she said, putting distance between them by ascending another step without turning around. “And both of them could barely manage a proper kiss, much less anything else, so I can’t say I was impressed. Like I said earlier, I can take care of myself.”

Now it was Winter’s turn to be astonished. Was she saying what he thought she was saying?

She bit the inside of her cheek and looked away.

Well, well. No woman he’d known had ever admitted to pleasuring herself, and being curious, he’d asked plenty of times. Frankly, he’d started to believe females just didn’t engage in such depravity, though he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why. He was quite fond of the activity himself. He must be; he’d been doing it daily half his life.

His mind conjured an image of her sprawled on a bed with her hand beneath her skirt. Big mistake. He tried to think of what she’d said before the taking-care-of-herself bit, and that didn’t help matters. She’d admitted to two lovers, and they weren’t any good. The sudden shift of blood from his brain to his cock made that sound like a challenge.

“So you’re saying that you can judge a man’s worth by his kiss?”

“I . . . no, I don’t think that’s what I said.”

“That’s what you implied. Would you like me to kiss you, so you can judge my worth?”

“Just because you look handsome in that tuxedo doesn’t mean I want you to kiss me.”

Handsome? She thought he was handsome? Perhaps she was blind, because he knew from all the uneasy stares he tolerated every time he stepped out in public that this couldn’t possibly be true. But he used to be, once, and oh, how he wanted to believe she meant it, so he allowed himself to do so, just for a moment, and climbed one step.

She made a small anxious noise and tried to do the same, but the top step was barricaded by a piece of timber, while his body blocked the descent. The freckled wildcat was trapped on the step above him.

“Don’t come any closer!”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure, and that’s final.”

He chuckled. “You said that to Florie about the séance, then ended up pinning her to floor.”

“Yes, well . . . I mean it this time. What are you doing?”

“I’m considering kissing you.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t.”

He lowered his face very close to hers and smelled violets again. That drove him a little mad. His breath was coming faster. So was hers; for a moment, he watched her breasts rise and fall beneath the weight of her coat. “Why not?”

“I’m sure I have a really good reason, but you’re making it awfully hard for me to remember it.”

He chuckled. She gave him a sheepish smile.

“Maybe you’ll even kiss me back,” he said, becoming greedy.

“I doubt that. But if you insist on trying, what could I do to stop you?”

The heated look she gave him sent a bolt of heat through his already hard cock.

Jesus. She was teasing him. For a crazed moment, he wondered if he’d been the one to start this or if she’d manipulated him. Maybe she wasn’t skittish after all.

He leaned in closer. She smelled so good, he worried he might pass out and crack his head open on the sidewalk. He could see the gossip headline in the newspaper now: Suspected Bootlegger Succumbs to Spirit Medium’s Seductive Charms, Makes Idiot of Himself. He put a hand on one of the brick posts to steady himself. “This is what’s going to happen,” he said in a low voice that sounded far surer than he felt. “I’m going to kiss you—just a kiss. I won’t lay a finger on you. And if you find you don’t like it, if you find my worth lacking, you can shove me back down the steps. Deal?”

She hesitated, just for a moment, before answering him in a threadbare whisper.

“All right.”

Something between victory and vertigo raced through his veins. He swallowed hard and lowered his mouth—near hers, but not touching. Not yet. Her breath was warm against his lips. Their noses grazed. He tried to hold his eyes open, but his eyelids were heavier than wet sand.

Her mouth was so small. For a moment, he worried over this, feeling oafish and hulking. But he was too hungry to withdraw. His pulse swished and pounded inside his ears. He closed his eyes as his lips brushed hers, testing. So soft. He felt her mouth open against his as she breathed out the tiniest moan. The reverberation that went through him was wildly disproportionate, like a whisper causing a landslide.

Keeping his promise not to touch her with his hands, he pressed careful kisses on the corner of her lips, on the big freckle he’d first noticed that afternoon when she was in his study, then on her bottom lip, tasting salt. Her mouth opened wider, and that did him in. He was lost. He kissed her fully, trying not to swallow her whole, but unable to restrain himself when she pressed back.

She was kissing him.

Every cell in his body vibrated. Warm chills ran down his arms. He lost all good sense. His tongue slid inside her mouth before he could think that this might be crossing a line, but for some miraculous reason, she didn’t resist—she moaned into his mouth and joined him.