A Lady's Guide to Improper Behavior by Suzanne Enoch

body pressing her against the wall, close enough to kiss but not doing so. “I don’t want to,” he murmured.
    Her heart skittered. “Do so anyway, Colonel,” she ordered.
    “Call me Tolly.”
    “You are…not behaving,” she bit out, realizing both that she could fairly easily push him down the stairs and that she had no intention of doing so. He might act like a wild creature who went about grabbing women by the bosom, but she would not misbehave in turn.
    “I’ve never found much benefit in following the rules.” He raised his free hand again, this time to brush his fingers against her hair. “I haven’t heard a woman say my name in a long time, Theresa. Say my name.”
    She pulled in a hard breath, pretending to be annoyed rather than unsettled and excited by the intimacy. “Very well. Tolly. Better?”
    “Infinitely.” Slowly he ran his fingertips along her cheek, making her shiver. “So many handsome gentlemen courting you, Tess,” he whispered, “and yet here you are.” Finally he brushed his mouth against hers, lightly at first, making her ache, then hotter and more insistently. He shifted his confining hand to join the other at her shoulders.
    The cane clattered onto the step and then down to the small landing below. She noted the sound distantly, every ounce of her immediate attention on where Tolly touched her. Mouth first, expert and delicious and breathless, then his hands tugging her hips forward against his. The immediate, insane desire to put her hands on his bare, warm skin seized her, making her moan.
    “Tess? Where the devil are you?” Amelia’s voice echoed from the hallway just above them.
    With another hot, openmouthed kiss, Tolly broke the embrace. “I can’t run,” he murmured, brushing a fingertip down the front of her throat. “You should.”
    For a heartbeat she didn’t want to move. She wanted more kisses, more touches. His cynical gaze, though, brought her back to herself. He expected her to flee. She could even guess what he was thinking. Why would she want anyone to know that she’d been compromised at all—much less by him ?
    Theresa narrowed her eyes. No one had seen them, and she refused to be intimidated. Not by some aggravating man who thought none of the rules applied to him. “I’m on the stairs, Leelee,” she called. “With Tolly.”
    He blanched as she lifted an eyebrow at him. “You little…” With a curse he grabbed her hand and placed it around his waist, sliding his free arm across her shoulders and turning back down the stairs as Amelia came into view above them. “I lost my balance,” he grumbled, his eyes glinting.
    Amelia made a sympathetic sound. “Oh, dear. Shall I call for Stephen?”
    Even through his clothes Theresa felt Tolly’s spine tense. “Oh, no,” she said aloud, waving her free hand up at her cousin. “We can manage. We’ll meet you around front, shall we?”
    “Of course. Thank you for the ear bobs. I’ll see you in a moment.”
    As soon as Amelia’s footsteps faded from hearing, Tolly jerked halfway around to face her. “I’m not meeting anyone around front. Go to your own damned party.”
    With him down a step, they were eye to eye. His expression could likely melt glass, but she didn’t feelin the mood to be trifled with, either. “You’re dressed for it,” she noted, meeting his furious, frustrated gaze squarely. “And I think we’ve established that you have a thought for at least your own reputation. So yes, you are going with us to the Ridgemont soiree.”
    Whatever the condition of his leg, she knew without a doubt that Tolly James was not a man to be bullied into something he didn’t wish to do. When he uttered another curse and continued down the stairs, she felt both relieved and thrilled. He wanted to go. With her.
    “I don’t need your damned help,” he growled, shrugging out of her grip.
    “You’re the one who put my hand there.”
    “Only because I was in error about you having common