“You’re not getting away. Not yet.” His deep voice sent ripples through the water. “We’re going to have this out, you and me. Right here. Right now. I’m going to tell you every wild, erotic, depraved thought you’ve inspired, and then you’re going to run home scared. Lock your bedchamber door and stay there for the next month so I can concentrate and do my damned duty.”
“That sounds like a very poorly thought-out plan.”
“Thinking’s not my strong point, of late.”
This rush of sensual awareness . . . oh, it was dangerous. She could grow to enjoy it. To be honest, she already enjoyed it. But she could grow to crave it, and that would make for difficult, lonely times ahead. She knew he needed a bit of human closeness. Perhaps because of the war he’d gone without it for too long. But at most, he had in mind a frantic tangle of body parts, not a meshing of hearts and souls.
“I want you,” he said simply. Starkly. Composure-destroyingly.
See? she told herself. He couldn’t be any more plain than that.
“I want you. I dream about you. I am desperate to be near you,” he said, sending a fresh shiver down her spine. “To touch you. All over.” His hands roamed over her arms and back. “What is this hideous thing you’re wearing?”
“It’s a bathing costume.”
“It feels like a shroud. And it’s too damned opaque.”
“Yes, well. That’s rather the point. Opacity.” Her breathing was quick; her words, stupid.
One of his hands slid down to capture her fingers. He raised them above the water’s surface, shaking them as though they were some kind of damning evidence. “Who wears gloves in the ocean?”
She swallowed hard. “I do.”
“These gloves of yours, they drive me mad. I want to strip them from your hands. Kiss those slender wrists, suck on each of those long, delicate fingers. And that would only be the beginning. I want to see the rest of you, too. Yours is a body made for a man’s pleasure. It’s a crime against nature to hide it.”
This could not be happening. Not to her. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. “Lord Rycliff. You’ve forgotten yourself.”
“No, I haven’t.” His green eyes held her captive. “I recall precisely who I am. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Victor St. George Bramwell, the Earl of Rycliff since a few days back. You’re Susanna Jane Finch, and I want to see you bare. Bare, and pale, and soaked to the roots of your hair, glistening with moonlight and drops of seawater. I’d lick the salt from you.”
His tongue swiped over her cheek, and she gasped. Her ni**les peaked, straining against the rough, wet fabric.
“You’re mad,” she breathed.
His lips grazed her ear. “I’m perfectly clear of mind. Want to test my recollection? On Mondays, you have country walks. On Tuesdays, sea bathing. Tomorrow, perhaps I’ll come find you in the garden and pull you into the shrubbery.”
The suggestion made her weak. She imagined his body, atop hers. The heat of him, contrasting with the cool, damp ground. Her mind conjured the scents of grass and earth.
“And on Thursday . . .” He pulled back and gave her a wicked look. “That’s interesting. We never did get to Thursday. Please tell me on Thursdays you oil yourselves up and wrestle Grecian-style.”
She gasped. “You are horrid.”
“And you love it. That’s the worst of the matter. You want me every bit as badly as I want you. Because I’m exactly what you need. There’s no one else in this village strong enough to take you on. You need a real man, to show you what to do with all that passion seething beneath your surface. You need to be challenged, mastered.”
Mastered? “You need to be caged, you beast.”
“A beast is just what you want. A big, dark medieval brute to throw you to the ground, tear the clothes from your body, and have his wicked way with you. I know I’m right. I haven’t forgotten how excited you were in the aftermath of that blast.”
The nerve of him!
How could he tell?
She lifted her chin. “Well, I haven’t forgotten the sound you made when I first touched your brow. It wasn’t even a moan, it was more like . . . like a whimper.”
He made a dismissive sound.
“Oh yes. A plaintive, yearning whimper. Because you want an angel. A sweet, tender virgin to hold you and stroke you and whisper precious promises and make you feel human again.”
“That’s absurd,” he scoffed. “You’re just begging to be taught a hard, fast lesson in what it means to please a man.”
“You’re just longing to put your head in my lap and feel my fingers in your hair.”
He backed her up against a rock. “You need a good ravaging.”
“You,” she breathed, “need a hug.”
They stared at each other for long, tense moments. At first, looking each other in the eye. Then looking each other in the lips.
“You know what I think?” he said, coming closer. So close she could feel his breath wash warm against her cheek. “I think we’re having one of those vexing arguments again.”
“The kind where both sides are right?”
“Hell, yes.”
And this time, when they kissed, they both made that sound. That deep, moaning, yearning, whimpering sound.
That sound that said yes.
And at last.
And you are exactly what I need.
She could feel the tension and urgency coiled in his muscles. But his kiss was patience itself. His mouth brushed hers, teasing her lips apart. Her pulse hammered as he made that first tantalizing pass with his tongue.
Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
There was passion, stockpiled inside her. He’d called her a powder keg, but that would be understating. She saw it all now, stretching in her mind’s eye. Vast storehouses, whole magazines. Here were crates of kisses, never shared. Casks of sweet caresses kept sealed from the rain. Row upon row of breathy moans and sighs, all carefully bottled and tightly corked.
He uncapped one now, with a clever flick of his tongue. Pressed his thumb to the hinge of her jaw, unlocking yet more desire. He kissed her slow and deep, taking time to explore.
“Bram,” she heard herself whisper. She pushed her hands through his cropped, sleek hair. “Oh, Bram.”
The further he raided, the closer he came to the other rooms. Those unused, cobwebbed chambers of her heart. Would he dare to venture there? She doubted. Jumping off a cliff was a flashy sort of courage, but a man would need true strength and valor to break through those padlocked doors. There were dark, uncharted spaces within her that had been built to house love, and even she was afraid to explore them. Terrified to learn just how vast and how achingly empty they truly were.