by Lois Greiman
“’Tis just the reason I did not suggest a carriage ride.”
At first glance, one didn’t see the wit, the raw, dry humor of him, for he looked stern and un-giving, but it was there, just beneath the surface, waiting. His own brand of earthly magic. “I don’t see how a garden would be much of an improvement.”
“What of—”
“Or a kitchen, a stable, or a belfry.” But all three sounded exciting, among the crockery, the harnesses, the…whatever the hell they kept in a belfry.
“I could do better,” he murmured, low-voiced, and the promise shivered over her skin like a caress.
“I doubt it,” she breathed, and felt his attention home in, sharp and focused. She amended her statement immediately. “Because you shan’t ever get the chance.”
“Because of the miller’s son?”
She managed a sigh. “I fear he is hopelessly alluring.”
“Is he?”
He was very close now, all but touching her, searing the torrid memories in her head. “Like a Greek statue.”
“Hard of head and mostly naked?”
“All naked in my dreams.” She sighed again, then worried she had overplayed her hand.
A half smile played with his fairy-god lips. They were the only part of him that looked soft. “Tell me truly, lass, how do you keep the men from you?”
She raised her brows. “In all honesty, sir, most aren’t as tenacious as you.”
“That cannot be possible.”
She glanced about as if searching the foliage for intruders. “Are there others hidden hither and yon?”
“There are not,” he said.
She laughed. “Don’t tell me you checked.”
“As you wish.” His tone was dutiful.
“You checked?”
“Yes.”
She raised a brow, thinking. Who was this man? “Why?”
He stared at her as if she must know the answer, then: “Because you are you. Because you are entrancing,” he said.
Well, yes, she was, if she wished to be. If she used her powers, if she made an effort. But she hadn’t. Not with him. Indeed, the opposite was true. So why was he here?
“I am hardly entrancing,” she said.
He watched her a moment longer, then reached out with slow deliberation and touched her face. Feelings shivered down her neck, tingled in her nipples, zipped away to her stomach. “In truth, lass, you are the most alluring woman I have yet to meet.”
His fingers felt like gossamer waves against her skin, but she steeled herself against his touch. “Just how long exactly were you at sea, sir?”
He didn’t smile, didn’t allow her to lighten the mood. “A lifetime,” he said.
“Perhaps then…” she began, but in that moment he tilted his head down and kissed her. Feelings stormed in like midnight clouds, stealing her breath, scattering her thoughts.
“Sir Drake,” she said, pressing a hand gently to his chest and feeling her heart hammer hopelessly, helplessly, against her ribs. “Surely there are other woman you could seduce.”
“I too would have thought that to be true,” he said, and trailed the flats of his nails down her throat. She tried to suppress the shiver. “But since I met you…” He scowled, let his voice fade away as if he had lost his line of thought, as if she were all-consuming. “What kind of magic do you possess?”
For a moment her breath caught in her throat. What did he know? What did he suspect? she wondered frantically, but she hammered down the fear. His words were nothing more than the ploy of a desperate man. He had admitted himself that he was randy. “Surely you don’t believe in such nonsense,” she said.
He skimmed his hand over her shoulder and down her bare arm. “What nonsense is that then, lass?”
“Spells and curses and all that foolishness.”
“You think magic foolish?” he asked, and lifting her hand, kissed her palm.
Feelings trembled like a rising chant through her, but she forced herself to speak. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
“Then you’ve not lived in the green hills of me homeland,” he murmured, “where the wee folk frolic like lambkins upon the hillocks.”
She stared at him, trying to ignore the shivery rise of hair at the back of her neck. Trying to ignore how his eyes shone like moonlight on water and his voice was made of music and promises. “I never imagined you as a poet, Drake,” she said.
“I never imagined you at all,” he said, and kissed her again.
Her heart beat slow and heavy. Through the frail silk of her lavender gown, his legs felt granite-hard against hers. And above that his desire seemed just as firm, long and ready and eager.
“This is…” She pushed him away with her hand to his chest, meaning to retreat. But the muscle beneath her palm felt so ridiculously intriguing, she found she could not quite leave him. “This is a bad idea.”
He watched her, dark eyes entrancing. “Are you certain, lass?”
She almost failed to speak. “Yes.”
“’Tis not my fault, you ken, that my father was a merchant.”
She tilted her head in question.
“Had I foreseen the future I would have insisted that he become a miller.”
She laughed. “’Tis not the occupation that I find so hopelessly alluring.”
“Then there is hope?”
She forced herself to sober. “You shouldn’t have come here. ’Tis not right.” And yet it felt right, right and real and filled to the brim with promise. “It’s…disturbing.”
He skimmed his thumb over her bottom lip. She refused to shiver. “I admit, lass, that it disturbs the hell out of me.”
She scowled, trying to listen to his words, not simply stare at his mouth. Trying to decipher his meaning, not imagine him nude. That was rude.
“I’m a practical man, lass,” he rumbled. “I do what I must. What I should.”
“And what should you do?” she murmured.
He paused for a second, watching her. “I should get gone from here. Should put you far behind me. But I canna seem to manage it.” His burr was particularly heavy tonight. “Might you guess how spooky you are?”
“I am not spooky.”
“Why can I think of naught but our time in the carriage?”
“Because you’re a man?” she guessed, but indeed, she had thought of little else herself. Beneath her fingers, his skin felt warm and firm. Muscles played enticingly. Through the fabric of his shirt, his nipple felt rigid and demanding. What would it feel like to pull it into her mouth? To make him mad for the feel of her?
“I am ever so pleased that you noticed,” he said.
“It was hard to ignore.”
“It is hard again,” he said, and she felt herself blush, which was strange, for although she had not seen it all, she had seen a great deal.
“Have you no shame?” she asked.
“Very little where you’re concerned.” He skimmed his thumb across her palm. “Perhaps you should remove your gown.”
“What?” She drew back with a little hiss of surprise.
He caressed her face with his gentle fingertips. “You are hot,” he whispered.
He was right. She felt feverish, but his skin felt just as warm. “As are you.”
“’Tis not healthful to overheat.”
“How true,” she murmured, and found with some surprise that her fingers had already begun releasing the wooden buttons of his shirt. He closed his eyes and let her have her way. Perhaps she felt him shiver, and perhaps it was that shiver that made her lean forward with aching anticipation and kiss his chest. He rasped something indiscernible between his teeth, but she could not be distracted. Pulling his shirt from his breeches, she rested her hand on his abdomen. It was like velvet on steel. Sunlight on marble. She moved her fingers sideways, dipped her thumb into his navel. He jerked his head back but said nothing. Not moving away, not rushing her. And perhaps it was that shivering patience that made her touch her lips to his
nipple just as she had imagined. The muscles jerked tight beneath her hand, but he remained as he was, breath quickening. She slipped her hand upward, felt the full, heavy muscle against her palm, and sucked the nipple into her mouth.
“Holy God, woman!” he rasped, and gripped an overhead branch in one powerful hand. She drew back a fraction of an inch, body aching for release, and lapped her tongue across the erect nubbin.
Then everything happened in a blur. His belt buckle fell open. His erection throbbed against her palm. He moaned deep in his throat, and then she kissed him, crashing her mouth against his with insane ferocity.
And suddenly she was clinging to him, straddling him. His back was against the chestnut’s smooth trunk. He gripped her bottom in steely fingers and plunged into her. She threw back her head at the first thrust, rocked to her core, and he plunged again. The rhythm was erratic. The footing was uncertain, but she didn’t care, couldn’t care. She clung to the rigid muscles of his shoulders, striving, pumping, until he growled his release and shuddered against her.
She gasped at the summit of her own climax, then fell, sated and sweaty, against his chest.
He staggered, threatening to fall, and she unhooked her legs, sliding her feet to the ground.
“Lass,” he murmured, but in that second she heard a rustle of leaves to the left.
She jerked in that direction.
An intruder. Near the gate.
“Quiet,” she warned, and grasping the hem of her gown in one hand, bent to lift a rock from the ground.
Chapter 17
Was someone watching them? Spying on them? Drake dragged himself out of the euphoric maelstrom, trying to marshal his senses. But in that instant, he realized Ella was slipping off toward the noise.
Without thought, he stepped up behind her and snatched her back. She turned toward him with a silent snarl, and for one wild moment, he thought she might strike him. Their gazes caught, flashed.
“Stay put,” he ordered, and securing his breeches, stepped forward. Beneath the shadow of a trio of oaks, the night was as dark as black velvet. Off to the left, leaves rustled. Drake jerked in that direction, only to see a hare skitter into a tangle of foliage. The scent of lavender filled the air.
“Just a coney,” Ella murmured, and he turned, peeved to find her directly behind him.
“Did I not tell you to stay put?”
Some indefinable expression shot across her delectable features and was gone, replaced by the glimmer of a smile. “I am ever so impressed by your gallantry, Sir Drake. But I truly don’t believe there is any need for you to protect me from the fierce, feral bunnies that invade my garden.”
He let out his breath and ran his fingers through his hair. What the hell had he been thinking? He had vowed to woo her, to be patient, charming, not take her like a deer in rut. “It sounded bigger.”
She smiled. “A large feral bunny.”
Perhaps he should be able to laugh at himself, but he’d been an idiot. Again. Letting her seduce him. Letting her…But who the hell was he fooling? He was the one to blame. The one to come here, unable to stay away, to endure being without her.
“I am sorry,” he said, but was he really? Or would he do it again a thousand times, given the chance? “I did not mean to…” He paused, struggling to untangle his thoughts.
“Which makes me wonder what it would be like if you meant to,” she mused.
He watched her, breath slowing, then cupped her chin with his hand and gazed into her eyes. They shone in the moonlight, telling secrets and lies. But neither changed the fact that he could not resist her. Their lips met with hot tenderness. He kissed her, slowly, deliberately, letting her fill his senses. “’Twould be like that,” he whispered finally.
She blinked her magical eyes. “Impressive.”
Watching her, he traced her ear with his thumb, then slid his hand lower, feeling the hollow of her throat where her heart thrummed hard in the delicate shallows.
“And this.” His kissed that hollow, felt her life beat against his lips.
Her eyes had fallen closed, but her lips were parted the slightest degree, showing the glimmer of pearlescent teeth. “Oh.”
“And this,” he said, and kissed the edge of her angel’s mouth.
“I see.” She sounded breathless, and somehow that sound was nearly his undoing.
“I would spend the night worshipping you by moonlight,” he whispered, “would watch the morning sun light your face, and use the day to memorize every breathtaking detail of you.” He trailed the tips of his fingers down her sternum, then tripped sideways, trilling along the edge of her bodice. She shivered beneath his touch.
“’Tis lucky indeed that you don’t mean to, then,” she said, and lifted her gaze to his.
“And why is that, lass?”
“Because I might feel the need to do this,” she said, and rising on her toes, kissed him with mind-numbing intensity.
“Holy God,” he murmured.
“Or this,” she said, and slipping both hands up his torso with bold intimacy, stroked her palms down his arms, plowing his shirt aside. It fluttered to the ground behind him. Her hands made a slow caress down his biceps, then dropped to trace a languid path along the quivering muscles of his abdomen. He let his eyes fall closed to the shuddering beauty of it, and stood before her, entranced by the feelings.
“Which would be most embarrassing,” he said.
“Wouldn’t it just?” she quipped, and spreading her fingers, ran her hands up his torso so that her thumbs brushed his nipples in tantalizing unison.
He gritted his teeth against the sensation, but there was no stopping the shiver. “Lass,” he said, and framing her face with both hands, kissed her with trembling passion. “I would do things far better the next time,” he breathed.
“There shan’t be a next time,” she whispered, but he skimmed his hands down her shoulders, pushing the tiny sleeves away. The bodice dropped lower, baring the high curves of paradise, and there was nothing he could do but kiss the taut mounds that lay pearly and perfect above the lace.
She rasped a breath between her teeth. He kissed her shoulder. She tilted her head to the side, allowing him further access. And he took it, caressing the sharp blade of her collarbone, the tiny hollow above, moving just so to push her hair aside and lay a row of kisses along her satiny neck.
“You’re not my sort,” she insisted, but he stepped behind her to discover the row of buttons that ran straight and true down her spine. The first of them was little more than a tiny pearl between his fingers, but surely if he could scale the rigging in gale-force winds, he could manage one wee button. It opened with some difficulty, baring a small vee of her back. He placed a kiss there.
“Then there is no harm in this,” he said, and released another tiny sphere.
Her head was turned to the side, her profile perfect, limned by the moonlight, caressed by the night. Her lips were slightly parted and her eyes almost closed, heavy lashes sleepy over passion-rich eyes.
The buttons fell open one after the other, trailing down the long, graceful sweep to her waist. The hooks on her petticoat did the same until nothing hid the smooth length of her back from his sight. He kissed his way down the bumpy column of her spine to the edge of her gown, but she had caught it before it fell and held it tight to her bosom. He tugged it lower and kissed her at the crease of her buttocks. She was holding her breath, just as she was holding her garments. He kissed her again, lower still, and this time when he tugged, she let the clothing fall, trilling over her willowy frame to slip with a languishing sigh to the cobblestones. Fabric pooled at her feet, baring the sweet curve of her buttocks, the endless length of her legs. He eased one worshipping hand down the curve of her waist, then squatted to kiss her where his hand had been. She trembled, rasping something, but he was too immersed to discern her words. Smoothing his palm over one buttock, he rained kisses down the center of her being, over the crest of her trembling behind and down, where her c
heeks met below. Holding a thigh in each hand now, he urged her legs apart. They separated slowly, and he eased between them, lapping gently.
She gasped and jerked away, stumbling on her garments as she spun toward him. He rose quickly, wanting to save her, but she had found her balance and stood before him, legs slightly spread, eyes wide.
And there was nothing he could do but stare. Nothing but absorb the sight of her there, caressed by the night, loved by the moonlight.
“Lass…” he breathed, drinking her in. “It cannot be that you do not believe in magic. For you are the very essence of it, made flesh and whole before me blessed eyes.”
He took a step toward her, but she grasped his arms. Her eyes were desperate pools of uncertainty as she held him there. Their gazes caught and fused. He saw the desire warring with the discipline, the need pitted against the logic, but suddenly her hands were on his belt, tearing it open.
His air left him in a rush. “Listen, lass,” he rasped. “I would be slow about it this time if…” he began, but she was already pushing down his breeches. He clumsily toed off his boots in unison with his pants. In a moment he was as naked as she. She stared down at his erection, hard and ready, then lifted her smoky eyes to his. His throat closed up with hope and lust and aching desire.
“You must not look at me like that, lass, or…”
She stepped toward him. “Or what?”
“Or I will forget my mission.”
She stopped, nearly pressed up against him. “You have a mission?”
He scowled. “To be slow about this.”
“Ahh,” she said, and reaching out, wrapped her hand around him. He gritted a moan. She kissed him. “Perhaps slow is overrated.”
“Nay. Nay, ’tis not.”
She tightened her hand. “Perhaps fast is far superior.”
He steeled himself against the pleasant torture and felt himself weaken. “I imagine that might be possible.”
She kissed his chin, loosed her grip, and slipped her palm down his throbbing cock to the hot, loose sac of his balls. She squeezed gently, and he threatened explosion.
