Thorn just grinned. “Don’t worry. I would tell Vander that nothing happened between us.”
“It’s not just that,” she said, trying to explain in a way he would understand. “My life—any lady’s life—is made up of morning calls, and musicales, and balls. I would be thrown out of society. No one would receive me or send invitations. That’s what it means to be ruined.”
They reached the bottom of the hill. “The life you describe sounds damned tedious. I can’t picture you just going to balls and making calls, India.”
She smiled wryly. “I have trouble imagining it myself.”
“Hell, I should ruin you just so you don’t get caught in such a boring life. It would be my good deed for the year.” He pulled her around and his mouth was on hers—not coaxing, as when they’d first kissed, but hot and demanding. This time his mouth was a burning command, a direct order that she relinquish all control.
India opened her mouth to him without hesitation, aware that her body had been longing for his taste and his touch, aware that she instantly started shaking, just a little. Aware that her arms wrapped around his neck as if she were drowning and only he could save her.
When he pulled her even tighter, she cried out, the sound muffled by his mouth. His leg pushed forward, between hers, and she ground against him, electrified.
There was a rough groan and a curse, and Thorn snatched her up, took one long stride, and released her. India shrieked and fell, landing not on the hard ground but on a stretch of canvas suspended in midair.
“It’s a hammock,” he said, laughing down at her. “Haven’t you ever been in a hammock?”
She looked up at the ropes that held the canvas above the ground. “No! We can’t do this. I need to—”
Thorn lay down beside her in a practiced gesture that revealed he’d spent night after night in hammocks.
“Is this what mudlarks sleep in?” she whispered, hardly able to shape the words because of the searing heat of his body settling against hers.
He shook his head, dusted her mouth with his. “We slept on the ground between graves, in the churchyard. Nice and quiet there.”
“When were you in a hammock?”
“Aboard ship,” he said. “I made one voyage with the East India Company.”
She meant to ask something else, but his hand had cupped her head, just enough to turn it to his mouth. And after she fell into the potency and storm of his kiss, that hand moved. . . .
It trailed along her throat, a caress that seemed almost innocent. India squirmed closer to him, her arms pulling him on top of her, parts of her hungry in a way she’d never imagined.
But she couldn’t think about it, because their kiss was wet and hot, and so fierce that her head tilted back and the hammock enveloped them and pushed their bodies together, as close as the satyr and his lover.
Thorn’s hand drifted below her neck, and a sound broke from India’s throat as his touch rounded the curve of her breast. She tore her mouth from his, an involuntary cry floating into the air.
He muttered a curse and his mouth covered hers, just as his thumb rubbed across her nipple, sending a streak of golden fire through her. India’s cry was swallowed by his kiss. Not that she consciously realized it, because she could only think about his hard, warm body pushing against hers as she arched shamelessly toward him.
When Thorn gave her breast another rough caress, India’s heart stopped beating for a moment. When it started again, it was racing. She bent one of her knees and pushed it between his thighs, and this time the groan was his.
“I want . . .” she whispered, breaking off. But the raw words came from her throat, willy-nilly. “You and I.”
He was tugging gently at her bodice, which gave way instantly. He lowered his head again and kissed her collarbone. India felt a shiver rock her entire being as she waited for his lips to drift lower.