The Perfect Suitor (Bewildering Love Series) by L. A. Hilden

licked his lips. His gesture and Paxton’s intense glare were enough to make Evelyn excuse herself from the table immediately. Henri stood as she hurried off to an empty parlor to remove the pastry.
    Suddenly the door to the parlor she had stepped into closed behind her. She turned to find Paxton with fists clenched and looking uncomfortably angry. It seems my mishap riled the Earl of Devonhurst. Did he think I dropped the blasted pastry intentionally? Of course he did, since she had given him a brazen smile before she went to take a bite.
    “What are you doing here?” Eve asked hesitantly, feeling utterly stupid having any discussion with a pastry positioned between her breasts.
    “Do you like making a spectacle of yourself?”
    Eve didn’t move as he came toward her. He looked down her bodice at the small square dessert.
    “Do you?” Eve retorted, referring to his flirtatious behavior with the widow. He had been intentionally trying to irk her with his fawning manner toward that woman, even if he was not likely to admit it.
    “I know you dropped that dessert into your bodice on purpose, and if you think to play with me… I warn you, you are playing with fire.”
    “Perhaps I like heat,” Eve said boldly, and with her chin held high, she met his gaze, loving the passion she saw within his obsidian stare.
    ***
    Paxton couldn’t help himself. The woman was impossible. His cock was hardening at an alarming rate. He pulled Eve toward him, and dipping his head toward her chest, he gently removed the pastry with his tongue and teeth. “Mmm,” he murmured quietly as she stiffened in his arms. He kissed the top of her breast for good measure. A part of him realized he should not be behaving in this manner, but he justified his actions since she was the one who started the fire by toying with him in the first place.
    He smiled as he felt her body tremble and weaken with desire as she leaned against him. He slowly chewed on the treat. He then stepped back and she caught herself with a hand on the stuffed chair behind her. “An innocent like you doesn’t understand the intricacies of heat.” He watched her face as it conveyed a sense of yearning and need. Lady Evelyn wanted him as fiercely as he wanted her.
    She seemed to take exception to his tone, for she said, “I’m not that innocent.” She had lied and he knew it, and so he merely smiled. “Why don’t you teach me what I don’t know?” She came up on her toes, wrapped her hands around his head, and pulled him down to kiss him with all the desire he had stirred up inside her.
    Paxton clutched the back of her head, increasing the depth of the kiss, sliding his tongue into the moist recesses of her mouth while pulling her up against his body and the hardened length of his arousal. He tasted her, wanted her, needed her to appease his hunger for her. At her moan of passion, reality raised his head and he quickly backed away. “What you want, my sweet, is something I’m not willing to give.”
    ***
    Eve tried to recover from the passionate embrace. She knew her face was flushed, and she could feel an odd throbbing sensation between her legs. Good heavens, the man removed a flaky dessert from my cleavage and slid his tongue across my breasts. And when they kissed, she had tasted the raspberry filling from the pastry as her tongue met his in a kiss she had only imagined in her dreams. Her head swam, her heart raced, and her knees wobbled. She had never felt anything so wonderful or magical in her life. She tried to comprehend what he had said. “You don’t want me?” She cursed herself at the hurt lingering in her voice.
    He was staring at her kiss-swollen lips as if he wanted to kiss her again. “Come here.”
    Eve moved forward, closed her eyes, and raised her head in the hopes of receiving another intoxicating kiss.
    “You can open your eyes.”
    She opened her eyes and watched as he took her hand and placed it over his hardened arousal. “Proof that I