Or better. It did depend on how one chose to look at the situation.

Ever so gently, Jamie McKenna touched Bliss’s lips with his own. A delicious tremor went through her; she used the only defense she had.

“Is this what you do with your Maori woman when no one is around?” she asked ingenuously.

His chuckle was a wholly masculine sound, rumbling up from deep inside his broad chest, vibrating against Bliss’s lips. Instead of answering, he kissed her.

Bliss was deeply shaken by this gentle conquering. For the first time in her life, she felt utterly powerless. She trembled as the tip of his tongue touched her lips, prodding them, shaping them, demanding of them something Bliss couldn’t begin to anticipate.

Her mouth opened of its own accord, trained by Jamie’s lips and tongue, and then he was exploring her. The sensation was uniquely pleasurable, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, absorbed in the kiss.

It was Jamie who drew back. He was gasping, as though he’d had his head held underwater, and he spat a curse.

Bliss was roundly insulted. “I didn’t start this, you will remember,” she said primly.

Jamie sat up, turning his back to her, running one hand through his rumpled hair. “Shut up, Duchess, before you get us both into trouble.”

“Where are you going?” Bliss wanted to know. She should have been relieved that Jamie had stopped holding her or kissing her, but she wasn’t.

“Not far enough that you can hope to get away,” he replied, reaching for his boots. “Do us both a favor and go to sleep, will you? We’ll be off to Wellington first thing in the morning.”

“Doesn’t it matter to you that I don’t want to go to Wellington?” Bliss cried, in a panic. Now that she knew how a kiss could make her feel, she was even less eager to marry Alexander Zate than before.

“No,” came the clipped answer. He clumped over to a rocking chair in the corner of the moonlit room, wearing one boot and carrying the other. He was beyond a doubt the most cussed man Bliss had ever encountered, and he was certainly the first one she’d shared a bed with.

“You’re wasting your time, traveling all the way to Wellington,” Bliss pointed out, sitting up and, after smoothing her hopelessly crumpled skirts, folding her arms. “I’ll only run away again, you know.”

“Then that will be your husband’s problem, won’t it?” Jamie reasoned wearily, settling back into the chair after pulling on his other boot. Apparently, if he had to give chase, he meant to be ready.

Bliss was frustrated to the point of tears. “All men are in league with each other,” she complained.

“Don’t you ever shut up?” Jamie sighed.

“No!”

The rocking chair made a squeaky sound as he rocked back and forth. “Go to sleep, Duchess. It’ll be a long day tomorrow.”

“You have no idea how long, Mr. McKenna.”

He sounded stern. “Don’t be threatenin’ me, lass,” he warned, lapsing into the brogue again. He indicated an infinitesimal space between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s this far I am from takin’ you over me knee!”