“Do your brothers fish with you?”
She felt him shrug beside her. “And Hawthorne, my sister’s husband.”
“I can’t wait to meet them.” The instant she spoke, she realized that she likely already had.
“Don’t worry. They adore you.” He held her even more tightly against him. He understood her. Heknewher.
“What do you do when you are not dashing off to Gretna Green, or boxing, or fishing in your father’s lake?” He’d already mentioned that he’d attended university.
Rock lifted his chin, staring beyond the water. “I manage estates.”
“Is it hard?” It sounded complicated. Managing workers, possibly tenants, harvests. And the effects of the weather on all of it.
“It’s challenging. I like it though. Work is… satisfying.”
“Does your employer know where you are?” She ought to have considered this before. The last thing she wanted was for their elopement to put his job in jeopardy.
“He does.” He turned to face her. “Are you worried we’ll be destitute?”
“No.” The answer was an easy one. “It never even crossed my mind.” Why wouldn’t that cross her mind?
Because he was not a lazy person and was more than smart; he was clever, quick thinking.
“You trust me to take care of you.”
Tabetha nodded, reaching up to draw a line with her fingers from the corner of his eye to the edge of his mouth. “In so many ways.”
His eyes flared.
She could not be this close, physically, without wanting him. This waiting was torture.
He dipped his head and hovered his mouth over her lips. “I want to,” he whispered. “I want to take care of you.”
She tasted his breath in her mouth. “I wantyou.” She was open—crystal clear. She didn’t care if he could see right through her.
“I want to give you everything.” His hand caressed her arm, moving around to her bodice. Tabetha arched her breast into his palm.
Please. Please. Please, she chanted in her mind. And then, out loud, “Please.”
He dropped his head and hand at the same time. “Not yet.”
But Tabetha heard his labored breathing. She felt his chest rising and falling the same as hers. She seized hold of his wrist and drew it back to her breast. “Please.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” But his fingers were stroking her over the fabric. “We need to wait.”
Frustrated, Tabetha tugged at her bodice, exposing herself to him. He faltered, gazing down at her. “God, Tabetha.” The appearance of his hands on her flesh was an erotic sight. Dark and white. Hard and soft. Man and woman. “You’re perfect.” He inhaled, and his eyelids dropped even as he dragged the tip of his tongue over his lips.
The heat of his palm, the flexing, the tight kneading, sent liquid fire pooling to her center.
“I want your mouth on me.” She wanted his mouth everywhere.
He dropped his head again, but this time, giving in to her demand, trailing his mouth down her shoulder—and lower. Grazing his face along her plump sensitive mounds.
How could she ache everywhere and feel like a shooting star at the same time? She threaded her fingers in his hair. So soft, thick, springy.
“Ah!” She gasped when his mouth claimed one rosy tip—sucking, pulling, tugging. More of that pain. More of that pleasure. He pushed her bodice lower, and she savored the feel of his hands—soothing places rarely touched, massaging lower and squeezing her waist.
Tabetha parted her legs, annoyed with her gown for keeping her from rubbing herself against him. She needed… She wanted… “Rock!”
