“I didn’t.” He sighed. “After I took over the shop two years ago now, I found myself bored. There’s nothing wrong with honest work, but wanting to provide for my mother was the only thing that made me wake up every day. So I started experimenting, trying to recreate what I’d seen in books or in some of the big houses nearby, the cathedrals in Bath and Bristol. That Christmas, I made her a set of andirons.” He chuckled. “Theywere supposed to be roses but looked more like turnips. She lied and said she loved them anyway.”
Adelaide’s smile lit something inside him, the warmth loosening his tongue further. “I’m good enough that I can sell small pieces or repair some of the finer work in the area, so I saved funds for my mother to live off while I’m apprenticing again.”
“So you can create beautiful things.” She sighed, pressed a hand to her breast. Lord, now he was looking at her breasts again.
“Beautiful and useful.”
She blinked several times, and he wanted to tug her to his chest, wrap himself around her as they rolled in the grass. He wanted to kiss her and ravish her, protect her and do all sorts of wicked, filthy things to her. She bedeviled him, would be his undoing if he let himself be foolish because a beautiful girl listened to him talk about his feelings.
Will stood, brushed the crumbs from his lap. “Can I show you something?”
When she nodded, he extended his hand and tugged her to standing. Together they climbed up the mild slope behind the walnut tree and around a thicket of wild gorse strung through with vines. Yellow and white trumpet-shaped blooms hung stark and fragile against the saturated green foliage, their scent catching his attention and bringing memories to the top of his mind.
He plucked one blossom, smaller than his thumb, from the vine. “Have you ever seen honeysuckle before?”
She shook her head. “I’ve heard of the fragrance, in perfumes and such, but I didn’t know they grow wild.”
“Yes, and they were everywhere in the woods when I was growing up. My father showed me how to get their honey.” Holding the blossom in a delicate grip between his thumb andforefinger, he pressed his other thumbnail into the base of the flower, slicing off the bottom but leaving the stamen intact.
“If you bring the stamen—the long part in the middle, see?” He waited for her to nod before continuing. “If you drag it, slowly, you’ll get—”
The bulbous end of the stamen came free of the blossom, leaving a round orb on the end. He couldn’t help a boyish grin as he transferred the nectar to his fingertip and extended it out to her. “Honey.”
Her lips parted on a soft gasp. “Hence the name.”
“Exactly. Would you like to—”
He hadn’t planned for what came next, for her leaning forward, wrapping those berry-stained lips around his finger. She drew back, the tip of her tongue darting out and sweeping over her lower lip.
Surely he would die now, as his heart seemed to trip over itself as blood rushed from distant lands to his cock.Here lies William Shipley, felled by Adelaide Kimball’s pink tongue.
By the time he’d regained consciousness, Adelaide was reaching into the vines, plucking blossoms and attempting to replicate Will’s actions, although she hadn’t quite gotten the measure of it. Every time she broke the stamen or pulled too hard, she’d huff, her lower lip popping out in a delightful pout. He wanted to pull that lip between his teeth, bite it, then soothe it with his tongue, then move on to herotherlips—
“I can’t do it.” Her shoulders slumped, and the urge to wrap her up and feed her by hand until the end of days returned tenfold.
Will huffed (although he suspected she saw through his feigned annoyance) and extracted another dollop of the nectar, then extended his fingertip.
Did he want her to suck on his finger again? To hold his gaze while she swirled her tongue around the tip? He would deny thatwas his intention until his dying day, but her lips closed over his fingertip once more, and her tongue twirled, once, twice, around the tip. Then shesucked, her cheeks hollowing the barest amount before she released him.
His breath escaped in a hiss. “Adelaide—”
“Last night,” she interrupted, a blush blooming high on her milky cheeks, “when you… when you put your head between my legs… I enjoyed it very much.”
An incredulous laugh burst from his chest. “I could tell.”
She bit her lower lip and freed it. Damn that lip. If she didn’t stop calling his attention to it, he might expire on the spot. “I was thinking about the illustration in my magazine, the one you saw in the stable that first night. Do you remember it?”
Where was that lemonade? His throat was a desert. “I couldn’t forget it.”
“Neither could I.” She heaved a breath, then held his gaze. “I want to do what that woman did to pleasure a man.”
This couldn’t be real. His voice lowered, darkened. “Meaning? Use your words, sweet.”
Her lips curled into a mischievous grin. “I want to suck your cock.”
He’d have to revise his gravestone.Here lies Will Shipley, felled by Adelaide Kimball saying the word “cock.”
He stammered, his mouth working for a moment before he mumbled something between “of course” and “yes” and “good lord, you are every fantasy I’ve ever had come to life.”
