Ravensworth wasn’t simply daring her to look at his naked form.
He was daring her to look upon him fully—as the man he was.
Which would require her to see him—all of him.
A realization that had caught her sideways a week ago—and again now.
Was she ready to see him in that way?
The feeling snaking through her body, making her thighs squeeze together, suggested she was.
Waves lapping at his ankles, he stepped from the shoreline and strode across the sand. He ran a hand through his hair, loosing droplets of sea water, slicking his hair back, though one lock insisted on flopping across his forehead. He radiated the confidence of a duke—of a man aware of his supreme attractiveness.
It should’ve been off-putting.
It wasn’t.
The arrogant smile on his mouth…
That should’ve been off-putting, too.
It, too, wasn’t.
His dukely arrogance only enhanced his devastating good looks.
As he neared her, she knew she should shoot to her feet and make for the dunes. Yet her body refused to obey. She glanced away. It was like staring at the sun. One had to avert one’s gaze at some point, or risk having brilliant light imprint itself permanently onto one’s eyes.
She’d been risking precisely that with Ravensworth just now.
She suspected, however, it was already too late. He may have already permanently imprinted himself onto her.
He reached her side, and—oh, Lord—she dare not glance up, instead presenting him with her profile, her gaze fixed, unseeing, on the horizon. But what she saw at the edge of her vision…that was another matter.
He crouched beside her. “Lilah,” rumbled low in his chest.
“Hmm?” She didn’t have to unclench her jaw to make the utterance.
Below the scent of salty ocean traced citrus and cedar—him.
She caught it in her lungs and didn’t let it go for the span of a dozen rapid heartbeats, even as her left cheek blazed beneath the heat of his gaze.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” he said, the low murmur quaking through her. She felt a tug below her bottom.
Then she understood.
She was still holding his clothes captive.
And he wanted them back.
So he could dress himself.
Right.
She shifted to the side, and he slid the folded pile from beneath her. Indirectly, she watched him dress. Fustian trousers sliding up long, muscled legs. Efficient fingers buttoning the fall. Brown homespun slipping over his head. A quick tuck of the shirt into the waistband of his trousers.
Not yet fully dressed, but made decent enough for delicate, feminine eyes, she darted a glance toward him as he lowered to a seat beside her, his shoulder just not touching hers as they stared out to sea, side by side.
His proximity made her oddly nervous, as if the blood in her veins had a life of its own.
