He led her to a flat, grassy area beside the lower pools of the little falls before releasing her hands to catch the fingertip of one glove in his teeth and tug it off. He removed the other in the same fashion, and then he shucked his coat, spreading it over the long grasses.
With a flourish, he gestured to the spot he had made. “Sit.”
Surely he did not intend to…do wicked and forbidden things to her…here. Did he?
“Here?”
“Where better?” His grin returned, along with the blasted dimple that ever failed to charm her. “There is no chance of interruption here.”
He did.
An answering pulse of awareness bloomed low in her belly.
“Oh,” she said stupidly.
“Unless you would prefer to return?”
And miss more of his decadent mouth upon her? Never.
“No.” She seated herself on his coat, not an easy feat with her cumbersome skirts andtournurebillowing around her, to say nothing of the rigid strictures of her corset. It pinched her sides mightily, but despite the discomfort, her need for him raged on, a fire in her blood which refused to be contained.
His grin deepened. “Lie down, darling.”
Ohindeed.
Yes, she supposed that would prove a more amenable position.
She did as he asked, taking care to make certain she did not strike her head on the profusion of rocks marring the grass. He was already on his knees at her feet, his hands like hot brands on her ankles beneath her gown and petticoats.
“Have you done this out of doors before?” she asked worriedly, averting her gaze from his handsome face to the sky and clouds and trees overhead.
Although they were a significant walk from the manor house, she was keenly aware of the open spaces around them. Nature was so very immense.
“Yes.” He flipped her hems up past her knees, his hands coasting over her calves. “The mechanics remain the same, I assure you.”
“But anyone could see us.” She shifted, looking around wildly to determine they were yet alone.
“No one will see.” His head dipped, and the warmth of his kiss was on first her left knee, then her right, burning through her silk stockings and drawers. He caressed her thighs. “Let me give you pleasure, darling. I owe you.”
He owed her nothing. She was the reason they were in this predicament, after all. Izzy and her stupid broken heart and Ellie’s idea that she must attend the Greymoor ball with head held high and terrible Arthur and that dreadful Miss Harcourt with her impossibly tiny waist and—
She inhaled sharply, her thoughts fleeing her as his knowing fingers found the slit in her drawers and he touched her there. Just a fleeting touch over her pearl at first, then a long swipe down her sex to her entrance, where he toyed with her.
“So wet for me,” he said, voice low and deep as he kissed his way up her inner thigh. “Damn. I have not even properly pleasured you yet.”
It was his kisses, the rakehell. His scent. His tall form. That dimple. The brokenhearted man he had once been. Those eyes and the way they devoured her. That mouth.
It was him.
Just him.
JustZachary.
Her hands bunched in her skirts, pulling them higher. Their location ceased to matter. His knowing lips were traveling nearer to where she longed for him most. And she was recalling everything he had done to her the night before, all the sensations he had brought to life. The many times she had reached her pinnacle, until she had been scarcely more than a quivering mass of sensation, sated and weak.
“Show me that pretty cunny,” he growled. “Hold your hems higher, darling.”
She parted her legs and raised her skirts, until they pooled in a flurry of silken roses and flounces at her waist. For the first time, the notion of a less-cumbersome gown was appealing.
