“You will take my advice, my lady, because I will say it only this one time.” He pulled her closer to him, and she gasped at the hardness she felt pressing into her belly. “And trust me when I say you will be pleased.” The rumble of his voice sent tingles racing up and down her spine.
Her arms wound themselves around his neck in a tight embrace, and she lifted her eyes, capturing his gaze with her own in a hot, bold stare of naked desire. “Then kiss me, Tavis,” she pleaded. “Show me.”
He muttered a strangled curse and lowered his mouth to her eagerly awaiting one.
With as much tension as there was humming between the two of them, she had expected him to claim her lips in a rough, demanding kiss. Instead, his mouth brushed her cheeks with featherlike kisses and then proceeded to caress every inch of her face, bestowing soft kisses on her closed eyes, her nose, down the sides of her neck, and then—finally!—she felt his firm lips tease the corners of her mouth before possessing them with his on a low growl.
So this is what it’s like to be kissed.
Tavis had ceased being gentle, and now his tongue impatiently tested the seam of her mouth, which opened on a gasp of surprise. He took the opportunity to thrust within the warm caverns of her mouth. Tentatively she moved her own tongue against his and was rewarded by a throaty moan and an increase of pressure from his lips.
She was surrounded by him. His musky scent. The way he tasted, dark and spicy and hot. The feeling of his muscled frame pressed against her flesh. He pushed her past the limits of her control. Anchoring her fingers in his hair, she held him to her while he moved his hands to grasp her hips, which allowed her to better feel how the thrusting of his hips mirrored the motion of his tongue in her mouth.
Pulling away with a gasp, she tried to fill her lungs with air. Tavis continued his assault on her senses by pressing passionate humid kisses down her neck and onto the trembling white flesh above her bodice. She shuddered when he slid his nose along her cleavage, and almost crumpled into a heap when his hot tongue slid in and out of her generous cleft.
Without warning, he pushed her away, and she stayed upright only by clinging to the back of the chair.
“Tavis? Is something wrong?” He looked as dazed as she felt, which, given her limited experience, she guessed was a good sign, yet he had stopped and shoved her aside.
She took a tentative step toward him only to stop when he held up a hand to halt her advance. Confusion and hurt warred within her, and she wanted to scream. “I promised myself…I wasn’t going to do that…until we were wed,” he said between labored pants.
“I don’t understand. We’re to be married tomorrow. What harm is there in one kiss?” She reached out to touch him. When he shied away, she retracted her hand as if it had been burned.
“We have much to discuss before we wed.”
“What…?” But his eyes were shuttered, and she could no longer see the bright flame of passion that had illuminated them moments ago.
“It’s late. You should go to bed.”
“But…”
“I’ll be sleeping out by the horses. Good night, Amelia.” Turning abruptly, he walked out into the night, leaving her to wonder what had happened.
Chapter 10
“Good Christ but she makes me nervous,” Tavis swore once he was outside and away from the siren’s call that was Amelia. In fact, he had been nervous ever since they left her father’s grounds. He would be happy when this mission was over and he could go back to being plain Tavis McGuire, decorated war hero and the fifth Earl of Stanton. All of this secrecy and lying didn’t sit well with him or his conscience.
Making his way to the side of the hut, he pulled his jacket closer around his ears as he settled in near his horse under the makeshift lean-to that housed them for the evening. He wasn’t fit company for anyone this night, but at least the horses wouldn’t look at him with hurt green eyes and tempt him with plump, red lips begging to be kissed. As it was, it had taken all his will power to leave Amelia standing there with her clothes on when all he really wanted to do was bury himself in her for several weeks and only come up for air when they needed to eat.
“That was a close one, Magnus,” he said to his horse, who had reached down to nibble at the top of his head. He swatted his horse away and scooted off to a far corner, away from the curious mouths of the assembled equines.
“What a mess I’ve made of everything,” he sighed. Between the botched mission, his unfortunate attempt at horse thievery, and his ill-treatment of Amelia, this trip had been a catastrophe. His intentions had been noble, he reasoned, but the results nothing short of disastrous.
When he realized he couldn’t use Amelia to spy on her father, he had suggested the elopement. Never in a million years did he think she would agree. At most, he figured he’d spend a couple of weeks more in London seducing her to get what he needed. Then he would be on his way with what was rightfully his. But when she agreed to his foolish plan, everything turned upside down, and he knew they needed to escape or else be found out by her father.
Once on the road, though, it became apparent escaping was the easy part of his plan. Spending his days on a horse only gave him plenty of time to stew and torment himself about how he had probably jeopardized his mission and put in peril thousands of good, brave men. He had labeled that particular torment “Reasons Why I’ll Likely Hang.”
Nighttime was a completely different type of agony he simply called “Amelia.” During the day, it was easier to forget she was with him, but at night, under the quiet of the evening sky, it was an impossible task. He couldn’t ignore her even if he wanted to, so attuned he was to her every movement and nuance of her countenance. Whether it was her quiet conversation around the campfire or watching the way the firelight flickered off her hair and skin, casting her eyes in mysterious shadows, she overwhelmed his senses. Even when she slept she called to him. Her tiny sighs and murmurs as she drifted off to sleep stirred his blood and the dormant emotions he had thought long buried.
The sooner they wed, the better for both of them. Because he knew if he had to spend one more night with her, he was not going to be able to help himself, and she would be compromised before they married. He had nearly lost control and ruined everything between them tonight when he kissed her. True, she had asked him to show her what it could be like between them, but he didn’t want to continue until she knew everything there was to know about him.
And that’s why he was sleeping with the horses. Better a cold, uncomfortable night outside with the snoring, farting horses than being warmed in front of a fire embraced by a sexy, bold redhead with breasts he couldn’t wait to bury his face in.
“Yeah,” he said from his corner of the lean-to to the lolling horses, “this is infinitely better.” He tugged the collar of his jacket higher onto his neck and petulantly crossed his arms over his chest.
“At least she still seems to want to be with me,” he said aloud after a moment, surprised at how comforting the thought was. Even after all he had put her through these past four days, she was still there by his side. It was baffling, to say the least. But since he had very limited experience with women, maybe this was how women preferred to be treated. Like equals, not cosseted like some porcelain doll only meant to be taken out and admired on special occasions.
He thought back to the one and only female in his life, his Aunt Millie, and pondered how she would have taken to riding nonstop for four days across rugged terrain on horseback with only the ground for a bed and the stars for a blanket. He tried to reconcile those two ideas in his head, but failed to make his thoughts fit with what he knew about his aunt. It wasn’t until he heard his aunt’s unmistakable brogue filling his head with, “Yer a daft idjut, me lad, for treatin’ that wee lassie like she were no more than one of yer soldiers,” when Tavis perceived how badly he had messed up with Amelia.
“And that brings me to the third anguish of this journey which I like to call, ‘Reasons why I am an ass.’ ”
Tavis rose and walked over to the comforting presence of his horse. Looping his arms around the beast’s neck, he laid his head on the furry warmth of the great barrel chest. “Even knowing next to nothing about women as I do, Magnus,” he said to his horse with a note of self-disgust in his voice, “I should never have treated her as I’ve done.”
He recalled the hectic pace of the last several days and ticked off the ways in which he had wronged her: the insufficient meals, the uncomfortable lodgings, and the tireless pace he had insisted on. He rubbed his hand where she had bitten him.
The less than gentlemanly way in which I have handled her.
Tavis groaned and smacked himself on the forehead. “I’ve treated her like she was one of my soldiers!” He shook his head in disgust and leaned into his horse’s neck. “God, I’ve been such a dimwitted idiot!” Magnus must have agreed, or he might have been irritated at being woken up, because he swung his head at Tavis and nipped at his arm.
“You’re right, Magnus. I’ve treated her worse than a common foot soldier.” His horse nickered in response, and he gave him a final pat. Looking around the cozy interior of the lean-to at the drowsy heads of the horses, he steeled himself for a long evening.
“I don’t belong out here with the horses, either.” Dejected and miserable, he left the lean-to.
****
Tavis thought he was going to die. It was as if he had been thrown into a raging fire and had no way to escape. He was desperate to pull in a cleansing breath of air, but every time he inhaled he breathed in more of that burning heat. His entire body was now aflame, heat seared his skin, and sweat dampened his clothing. I’m going to die, he thought hazily, for this heat will surely kill me.
But upon looking down at his body, he discovered the heat wasn’t his only worry, for climbing up his limbs and torso were millions of grasping vines curling up his sides and threatening to engulf his head. Immediately he started pushing at the vines in an attempt to break them off his body, but it seemed the more he struggled the tighter the vines held him. He was going to lose feeling in his body before he suffocated to death from the heat, he decided. Already he couldn’t feel sensation in his left arm. He struggled, thrashing to and fro, trying to free himself from the soft, clingy vines.
“Tavis.” A soft, whispered voice floated to his ear. “Hmm.” Though he still felt he was likely going to die from suffocation, or worse, strangulation, the quiet voice whispering his name soothed him. Realizing suddenly the voice had come from outside his dream and not in it, he awakened with a jolt and cracked a tired eye.
The fire had long since died, but there was enough light left in the sky coming in through the dingy windows that he was able to assess the rustic hut and his pack splayed out on the old table where he had unpacked it last night. His boots, he saw, were crumpled on the floor where he had kicked them off before lying down. And then he remembered exactly where he was.
Inside the hut. With Amelia. Sometime in the middle of the night, after several guilt-ridden hours spent talking to the horses and walking about in the cold evening air, Tavis had given up his struggle to stay away from her. Yes, it had been a foolish lapse of judgment to kiss her before telling her the truth about himself. At least he hadn’t actually bedded her like he wanted. Once he had come to terms with his actions, he snuck back into the house and climbed onto the bed behind Amelia, arranging the cloak she was using as a blanket to cover both of them. She had turned in her sleep, snuggling her curvy bottom into the crook of his legs. With her warm body tucked against his, he had fallen asleep.
Only after remembering all this did he hazard a glance at his body. Amelia was wrapped around him much like the clinging vine of his dream. Pressed into his side, her legs intertwined with his, and her arms draped across his chest, she had him in a tight embrace. Her fiery red hair, lightly gilded by the faint rays of the rising sun through the window, tumbled about her shoulders. In his fists he held tendrils of her silken red strands. He must have grabbed onto it during the night and in his dream wound it around himself like the clinging vine he had imagined it to be.
Releasing his hold on her hair, he tried to extricate himself from her possessive hold. She stirred restlessly before letting go. Turning onto her other side, she curled away from him, dragging the cloak with her. His sense of relief at her leaving was great, for he now realized the blazing inferno in his dream was Amelia. Cool air brushed his skin, and he sucked in several refreshing breaths.
The relief did not last long, though, as pins and needles shot through his arm, a sure sign he was regaining sensation in the place where Amelia had rested for most of the night. He gritted his teeth manfully while he tried to shake the feeling back into his arm without disturbing Amelia’s slumber. Carefully, he scooted down to the edge of the bed and made his way to the fireplace. In no time, he had built a small but steadily rising fire.
“Tavis, what are you doing?” her sleepy voice asked. “Come here and warm me up. I’m cold.”
He snorted. No woman was less cold than Amelia. She radiated sultry heat, and he had been the unwitting recipient of it for the better part of the evening. Besides, if he climbed back into bed with her, there was no guarantee he could continue to call himself a gentleman.
“The fire will be blazing and warming you up soon enough.” He made the mistake of looking behind him at Amelia lounging in the bed.
“Fine.” She pouted, pushing out her plump lower lip. While he stared, entranced, at her glistening red mouth, she let go of her hold on the cloak to pinch her lower lip between her two fingers before readjusting the collar of her loosened bodice. It slipped off her shoulder to reveal creamy expanses of neck and collarbone.
He turned back to the fire and shoved more tinder onto the burgeoning blaze. There were soft rustling sounds coming from the bed behind him as she resettled herself on the bed, followed by a deep sigh and then silence.
“Only a couple more hours, man,” he said to reassure himself. “Only a couple more hours.” Repeating those words like a prayer, he tore his gaze away from her supine form, pulled on his boots, and stepped out of the hut to tend the horses.
Chapter 11
Sometime later, Amelia reawakened to find herself in an empty room. Tavis was nowhere to be seen, and the fire he had started last night had since died down. Rising from the bed, she smoothed out her costume and pulled on her boots. With her fingers, she managed to brush through the thick mane of her curls and pull the wayward strands into a simple bun.
She stepped outside into the cool morning air to look for Tavis. The sun was just rising, and she was surprised to discover that, despite her troubled mind upon going to bed last evening, she had slept the night through. At one point it seemed Tavis was in bed with her, too. It had been lovely to curl up with him, the warmth of his body against hers. When she had awakened, he was gone, and she knew it must have been a dream.
The horses were still tied a little distance away from the hut, including the reassuring sight of Tavis’s huge stallion, Magnus. Though she didn’t think he would leave her, she couldn’t be too sure after last night. Even after pondering his reaction to their kiss, she still didn’t understand why he had reacted the way he did.
“No Tavis,” she muttered, scanning the area around the hut. The horses nickered in response, and she felt a sudden urge to take a walk. Recalling a small path located near the horses, she set out to see where it led. She hoped it would help clear her confused mind.
Amelia allowed the heady scent of the evergreens to soothe her frazzled nerves. All too soon, though, the anxieties she had tried to put aside crept to the forefront of her mind.
“Run away with him, Mimi,” she muttered, imitating her sister’s cool, cultured voice. “You need to live life in the light, not in the shadows.” She continued walking at a faster pace as her anger and agitation increased.
“Don’t worry about the scandal, Mimi. Everyone will think it is terribly romantic.” This time, she spoke in
the earnest, bubbly qualities of Clarisse, even adding her friend’s emphatic head bobs and clasped hands for good measure.
She was running down the path now, her boots crunching in the still of the morning. In her careless flight, her foot caught on a raised tree root, and she fell onto the path. Rolling over to glare at the lightening sky, she shouted, “I’ve run away with him, and the dimwitted oaf of a man is nowhere to be found!” The only answer she received was the muted squawking of birds she had disturbed in her heated exclamation.
Amelia picked herself up and brushed off the dirt and debris from her skirt. Hugging her knees with her arms, she put her head down toward her lap. “You never said what to do if he didn’t want me anymore.” She sniffled and was ready to enjoy a healthy, self-indulgent cry when she heard a rustling on the path. Lifting her head in alarm, she demanded, “Who’s there?”
“Amelia, is that you?”
Swiping at the tears on her face, she stood up. “Yes. It’s me. Where are you?” She looked ahead of her and behind.
There were more rustling and crunching sounds, and Tavis appeared in front of her, about three feet from where she stood.
“Are you injured?” he asked with a note of concern in his voice. “I heard some loud yelling, so I rushed up the path, worried you were in danger.” He took her arms and began to assess her person for any injuries.
“I-I was walking down the path, and I fell,” she explained.
He knelt in front of her and continued to check her for injuries, skimming his hands up her legs and down again to feel her ankles. She wobbled in his grasp.
“You are hurt,” he said, coming to stand in front of her once again. Lifting her in his arms, he held her close to his chest and strode down the path in the direction from which he had come.
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