“Yes,” she said, kissing him on the mouth. “Yes. Yes. Yes.” She punctuated each affirmation with another kiss. “Let me, Nathan. Please let me love you.”
Nathan turned her on her back. His lips hovered above hers. “You’re going to freeze,” he whispered.
She smiled. “Cover me.”
His mouth slanted across hers, hard and searching. He kissed her over and over—her neck, her cheeks, the sensitive spot just below her ear. His tongue ravaged her mouth, wanting, then wanting more. She helped him loosen the buttons on her blouse and together they tugged the material free of her skirt. He kissed her breasts through her chemise, laving her nipples with the rough edge of his tongue. They were raised hard against the material, and when he worried them with his lips and teeth she arched in his embrace.
She pulled at his belt and began to unfasten the buttons on his fly. She pushed at his jeans, working them over his hips while he struggled to come to terms with her split riding skirt. “What the hell do you have on?” he demanded tautly. “And how do I get it off?”
“Not that way,” she said, pushing at his hands when he tried to raise the hem of the skirt. “It’s like a pair of pants. You can’t just toss it up.”
“Don’t ever wear it again.”
“I won’t.”
He found the buttons in the waistband, undid them, and with Lydia’s help, got her out of the skirt and undergarments. He lay between her open thighs and felt her adjust to his weight and position by hooking her heels around him. Her hand came between their bodies and she reached for him, arching as she found his hard arousal and guided him inside her. His thrust was hard and sure, driving her back. She lifted, pushing against him, and he came hard at her again. His breath was warm on her face. He whispered things against her ear she only partly understood, but everything he said, everything he did, excited her to a point past bearing.
Her mouth was open under his. Their lips played, tongues sought entry, and their kisses were like the joining of their bodies, powerful and erotic and filled with desire.
It was a fire that engulfed them, shooting flames that seared and licked at their sweat-slick bodies. The heat was intense and burned rapidly and they surrendered to the hot and aching pleasure of it. Nathan’s entire body tensed. His head was thrown back, his neck arched, and he felt Lydia tightly around him, urging him toward release with just the slightest of movements against him. In his last moment of control he thrust again, breathing her name as his body pressured hers with shuddering passion.
Lydia’s fingers dug into his shoulders and she held on, tasting the cold night air at the back of her throat as she sucked in her breath. Her body curved to his. She stretched and cried out and brought his mouth down on hers as every tight spring in her body uncoiled.
Their breathing seemed loud in the stillness of the night. He was warm and heavy on her, but Lydia didn’t mind except for—“Nathan? There’s a stone under my hip.”
His laughter was soft, washing over her. “Move it.”
Lydia’s hand left his shoulder and reached under the blankets to find the stone.
Nathan shook his head. The tip of his nose brushed hers. “Move your backside,” he said. “Not the stone.”
Heat rushed to Lydia’s face, but she moved her pelvis against him. “Like that?”
“Exactly like that,” he groaned. He kissed Lydia and shifted his weight off her before he came completely out of his skin. “God, but you’re sweet.”
Lydia got rid of the stone, found her pantalets, and settled her backside against the blankets. Her skirt lay somewhere out of her reach and she didn’t care. Nathan’s denim-clad leg was thrown over hers and he tucked the blankets warmly around her. They shared his sheepskin-lined jacket like two caterpillars in the same cocoon. She could make out his features, the straight slope of his nose, the lightly colored eyes that studied her face, the shape of his mouth. His expression was grave now, intent, so completely at odds with Lydia’s giddy smile that she wondered if she had mistaken his feelings again. Her smile gradually faded.
“Don’t do that,” he said quietly.
“Do what?”
“Stop smiling. I love to look at you when you’re smiling. I don’t think you can know how good it feels to be touched by it.” His forefinger traced the line of her mouth. The corners lifted and she kissed his fingertip.
“You don’t have regrets then?” she asked.
Nathan did not answer immediately. He searched her face for some sign that she was prepared to hear what he wanted to say. The glow from the fire washed her features in a yellow-orange light and tinted strands of her sable hair auburn. He cupped the side of her face gently. “One regret,” he said.
Lydia’s eyes closed briefly under the terrible pressure she suddenly felt. Her stomach twisted and there was an agonized groan that came to her lips that she could not hold back. Giving sound to her pain embarrassed her. She tried to turn away quickly and draw her knees fetally to her chest. Nathan’s hand on her shoulder stopped her and kept her on her back.
“Look at me, Lydia.”
She might have refused if it had been a rough command, but the manner in which Nathan said those words it might well have been a plea. She found herself staring into his eyes.
“I regret that in all the times I’ve made love to you, you’ve never known you were loved.”
Lydia’s lips parted fractionally and a tiny sound that was not pain, but surprise, rushed out.
“I’ve loved you for a very long time, Lydia.” And because he was absolutely terrorized by the thought of her rejection, Nathan added carelessly, “For what it’s worth.”
