“Intrepid boy,” she said as her thumb dug into the navel of her orange. A spray of fresh citrus cut a light swath through the heavy scents of dank earth and steaming tropics.
“My mother was involved in every step of creating this conservatory. The design, the materials, the plants.”
“And what did she think of your exploits? A knighthood for your brave service to the Crown?”
Percy hesitated. Isabel didn’t know. Why would she? “My mother died giving birth to me.”
“The Duchess isn’t your . . .” she trailed and stopped at the shake of his head. “Oh. I’m so very sorry.”
Percy swallowed, a knot in his throat, the first time he’d felt it in decades. Many others had spoken such words to a motherless boy over the years, but from those mouths the words had been mere platitude. Isabel’s words held her heart.
He held up his orange. “This is my favorite food.”
“Youhave a favorite food, Lord Percival? I thought it possible that you lived on air,” she said, lightly.
“Can you peel yours in one go?” he asked.
Her brow lifted, ripe with disbelief that he would dare pose such a question. “Claro. I would have to forfeit all claims to my Spanish heritage if I couldn’t.”
Her fingers began moving to make her point, and Percy’s responded. In silence, they peeled their oranges in unspoken challenge, playfulness in the air.
Helikedthis woman.
When had that happened?
Finished, he held up one end of the rind and let the rest fall in a spiral.
“Impressive.” She balanced her unfurled rind on her palm. “For an Englishman.” When she let her rind fall, it had double the spirals of his. “At long last, Lord Percival, I have bested you.”
He smiled, he couldn’t help it. Laughed, too. He couldn’t help that either.
How long had it been since he’d smiled and laughed with his whole body?
This afternoon, actually, when they had raced.
She halved her orange and peeled off a segment. Before Percy could anticipate her next move, she brought the fruit to her mouth and bit it in half. A thin stream of juice trickled down her chin. A quickening occurred inside his body, his lungs suspended mid-breath, and hot blood rushed through his veins. His gaze had no choice but to fix on her lips.
With a laugh, she made to swipe the juice away. As if released from a coil, Percy crossed the distance between them and caught her hand mid-swipe. “Allow me.”
The moment transformed. She felt it, too. He saw it in the release of her smile, in the flare of her pupils that pushed her irises into thin green rings. He knew that flare. Responding desire.
His thumb traced the sticky trail of juice from the delicate indent at her collarbone, up the column of her neck, over her pert chin, until it stopped just below her full bottom lip. Their eyes held.
Her hand wrapped around his.
With a subtle tug, and before he knew what she was about, she pushed his thumb into her mouth. Her tongue flicked across slippery skin, and desire sparked into pure lust, raw and demanding.
Then she sucked, her gaze never wavering from his.
He could give in to it, the pull toward his innate wickedness—after all, he was only a man.
With a feat of strength of which he wouldn’t have thought himself capable, he broke away.
Her eyes filled with confusion, her lush lips, red, shiny, and slippery, formed a perfect “O” that demanded to be kissed.
He couldn’t look at those lips and say what he needed to say. Through heaving breath and a loss for words, he somehow uttered, “This can’t be.”
Then he pivoted and ran like his life depended on it.
