“The blarney you throw around, Mr. O’Reilly,” said Fiona, granting a quick scan of his face to confirm his nonsense.
“Damn, did I mention Chen can fly, and run on water, too,” confirmed the Irishman.
“Adapt or perish,” Zachary warned O’Reilly.
“Perish,” dared O’Reilly.
Elizabeth caught Chen’s gaze, looking at Zachary out of the corners of his eyes, and implying with his expression that they should keep O’Reilly bound and gagged.
“You mustn’t use swear words, Daniel,” said Fiona.
“Your pardon, ladies, I call them sentence enhancers.”
Chen grunted.
Elizabeth lifted her head and studied the passive Chinaman. Did Chen and Zachary have magic powers? Their movements bordered on miraculous.
“I believe he can,” said Mrs. Merriweather unable to hide the adoration in her voice. When they arrived at her residence, the tall Chinaman assisted her. “Mr. Chen, I owe you, my life. If you ever need a favor, don’t hesitate to ask.”
Chen bowed to her.
O’Reilly winked at Zachary. “I’m going to have a long walk home with Fiona and Chen.”
Zachary knocked on the coach, giving the driver the Spencers’ address. He’d have a few moments alone with Elizabeth.
“Why haven’t you contacted me?” she demanded when the others had departed.
Carriages whooshed by in sheets of dirty spray. Rain-swollen clouds tumbled high above the skyscrapers, blowing and shifting. She was ready for a fight. Deservedly so. He had ghosted her. “I was told to stay away from you.”
“You don’t seem like the type to be threatened.”
“I’m not. I have a company to build. I can’t risk losing my financing.”
“You are no different. Money is your modus operandi?”
“That’s not fair and you know it.”
“You just admitted it.”
Her gaze burned his skin. A frozen silence rose in him, and in the very stillness, he traced every angle of her face, committing it to memory. How he wanted to grab fistfuls of her long, honeyed hair, scatter the pins to the floor, and wrap the sumptuous strands around him, entwining them forever. To settle his mouth on her lush lips. To ease her bodice down and sample her luxurious breasts.
His brain faltered. Could he hear the hard hum of lust in her veins?
No. He could not give in to the strum of his heart. That insistent banging voice in the back of his head warned him to stop.
Nor could he not look away, and for one moment, he thought he’d kiss her. She leaned to him, as if she wanted to come the rest of the way but couldn’t. He enclosed her in his arms, trying to ignore the incredible feel of her crushed against him. He wanted to kiss her, but he was afraid to knowing her history. Instead, he just held her with her face cradled against his chest and slowly stroked her long, lustrous hair. Everything felt right with the world.
“You saved my life again. You make me feel protected.”
In that moment, he found a thousand things that he loved about her.
Very slowly and gently, Zachary lifted her chin and kissed her. He kissed her long and lingering, with all the aching tenderness in his heart, and she laid her trembling fingers against his cheek and began to kiss him back.
Her soft lips parted with only the slightest urging from his probing tongue into her mouth, and then she gave him hers. He teased her, tormented her, offered himself to her by thrusting deep with his tongue, then retreating and thrusting again and again, until Elizabeth was clinging to him, her mouth moving back and forth over his in passionate surrender to the wild, erotic kiss.
Shivering and tentative, she pressed her form into him, her full breasts flattened against the soft cotton of his shirt. Shyly, she moved her hands up his chest, and without guile, her fingers continued upward until they stroked the dark hair at this nape. Stunned by the force of the need pulsating through his blood, he had to stop this madness before it went any further, before he pinned her to the carriage wall like a beast. Elizabeth was an innocent. Stop. Now.
Growling from deep in his throat, he tore his mouth away and stared into her passion-drugged eyes. “I must end this before I do something I regret.” He touched her cheek with his forefinger, tracing the elegant curve of her cheekbone. How he adored her spirit, her freshness. She was warmth and awakening passion, headstrong and sweet, loyal, intelligent and witty. His pearl beyond price.
