It almost hurt, how good it was.
“Claire,” he said as she broke off her laughter, her smile wide, her head shaking fondly. “If you come any closer, I am going to kiss you.”
She let her lips fall together, considering him from her higher ground. “Are you?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Yes.”
“How much closer? One step?” she asked, taking it. “Two?” She took two more.
“Claire …”
“How about five? Just little steps. Is that too close?” She took them, dainty, shuffling little steps that made newly formed dew sparkle around the hem of her dress. “Or do I need to come all the way? How close can I get before you go completely mad?”
“Christ,” he muttered, stomping out of the bank and the rest of the way up the stupid little hill until he’d closed any question of a gap between them. He slid the flat of his hand around her waist and to the little swelling bump where her back gave way to her bum. He pulled her against him. He made it evident, made sure she could feel that he was not bluffing. “Claire.”
She gasped, slightly and softly, but did not squirm or twist or otherwise express any desire to stop this from happening. She just tilted those big eyes up to meet his through the downy fan of her lashes.
“Well?” she prompted breathlessly.
“You didn’t come close enough,” he answered, his own voice falling to whisper in answer. He leaned a little closer, watchedthe way her chin lifted, the way she leaned into a nuzzling glance of the tips of their noses. “I had to.”
“Oh? So you aren’t going to kiss me?” she asked, taunting. She knew how badly he wanted to; she knew beyond a doubt now, with her body melded against his like this, with his ache pressed firmly against her belly. “Because you had to.”
“That’s right,” he said with no small amount of strain. “If you want my kiss, you’ll have to take it for yourself.”
It was her turn to narrow her eyes, her turn to register the fact that she was being antagonized and tormented and tempted beyond reason. And still, she did not pull away.
“You don’t think I will,” she said: an accusation.
“I don’t know what you’re going to do,” he replied, turning his head to press his cheek into hers, to inhale her hair, to punctuate how hard she’d made him. “I never know. It drives me completely mad.”
“Oh,” she said, bringing her hands up to touch the loose sides of his collar, her lips curving as he drew a sharp breath when she touched the bare skin of his throat.
It made him draw back, to blaze his entire face down at her with what he hoped was a clear edict to stop tormenting him.
She licked her lips, thereby officially striking down said edict. And then she stood on her toes, sank her arms behind and around his neck, and pulled his mouth down onto hers.
He very easily might have ceased to exist in the moment. His body felt like it had blown itself into a thousand pieces, all scattering aimlessly in the air like dandelion seeds. He could noteven move at first for the shock of it, for the staggering, titan weight of this woman’s lips pressed softly against his own.
He didn’t come back into himself until she added her tongue, sweet and hungry, sliding along his bottom lip.
He heard the sound he made then, the desperate, animal thing that managed to growl and whimper all at once. He heard it like he was far away, and then he was suddenly fully in his body again; he was cupping her face with both hands; he was tilting his head; he was returning the lash of his own tongue to her with the fervor of a starving man, a thousand-year prisoner, a castaway finally handed rescue.
He rolled his hips against her and felt her gasp into his mouth then return one of those carnal little sounds, those notes human voices only played in a single context. He ran his fingertips over her cheeks, her jaw, her throat. He tasted her deeply, a taste that had haunted his dreams across miles and years. He brushed his touch over the swell of her breasts, just as her handkerchief had done.
And then he did the most scandalous thing of all.
He pulled away.
“No,” she protested, so softly he might have convinced himself he imagined it if not for the way she pressed her face into his hand as it came up to cup her cheek again. Her eyes flicked open, blinking several times until she could focus on him. “Don’t stop.”
He groaned, dropping his head and pressing it into hers. “Don’t tempt me. We’re in full public view, Claire.”
“Don’t temptyou,” she repeated with what sounded like amused incredulity. “Yes, it is I who has been doing the tempting. Freddy, please.”
He laughed despite himself, even if only quietly. “I haven’t been flitting around dancing the seven veils, Claire. What have you been telling people?”
“Very bloody little!” she answered, wrinkling up her brow. “And you know exactly what you were doing, veils or no.”
