He flashed her a very unrepentant grin. “Nay, I just wanted to see if you cared.”
Ellie shook her head. He truly was incorrigible. But it didn’t bother her anymore. Not that she’d let him know it. “Do that again and you won’t be pretending.”
He just smiled, a tad too smugly for her liking. “Aren’t you curious about the surprise?”
“What use is there being curious when Iknowyou won’t tell me no matter how many times I ask?”
“There are other ways of persuasion, Ellie.”
Something in his voice made her skin feel hot and her knees turn to jelly. This strange, crackling tension between them was getting harder and harder to resist. Standing here like this, close to him, it became nearly overwhelming.
He was tempting her with his eyes and seducing her with his nearness. It would be so easy to touch him. To lean over and press her hand up against that impossibly hard chest, the contours and planes of which she could recall so vividly in her mind, and feel his warmth radiating under her fingertips. She wanted to taste him again, to feel his mouth moving over hers.
Why shouldn’t she? He was obviously encouraging her. All the other women did.
But that was exactly the problem. She didn’t want to be everyone else, and with a man like him, that was all she could ever be. Yet at times, she wondered if--
She stopped herself. “If” was a dangerous question she could not afford to ask.
Why was she even thinking about it? Whether she wanted to be or not, she was betrothed.
Ignoring the invitation, she said, “When do you plan on showing me this surprise?”
“In a few hours.” He pointed up to the hazy sky, which for February had been remarkably clear of rain for the past few days. “It looks like it’s going to be a sunny day.”
He was right. And later, when she discovered what his surprise was, she was grateful for it.
She stood pressed up tightly against him—forgetting all about her intention not to touch him—gazing over the precipitous edge of a a twenty-foot cliff to the swirl of waves below.
“You can’t be serious. This is your surprise?”
He grinned, shaking his head. “The surprise is afterward, and I’m very serious.”
Despite the relative warmth of the day, she shivered. “It’s the middle of winter.”
“The cold water didn’t stop you before.”
She gave a sharp laugh, eyeing the deep-blue pool below. It was hard to believe Candlemas had been just nine days ago. “And look where that got me. Not to mention that it took me two days to feel warm again.”
He grinned. “It won’t take you that long this time. I promise.”
Something about the way he said it peaked her curiosity. She eyed him speculatively, but he just sat there with a knowing glint in his eye.
Irresistible, she thought. Almost.
“Come on, Ellie. You love swimming,” he said. How could he know that? “You must; you swim like a mermaid.”
Her cheeks heated. The compliment pleased her too much—especially coming from the best swimmer she’d ever seen.
He removed his weapons, placed them under a rock where they wouldn’t be visible from the path, and then started taking off his clothes, carelessly tossing them to the side. She was so transfixed, she didn’t even feel the urge to fold them for him.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?”
She couldn’t form a response; her pulse was beating too fast, watching as he peeled off each layer of clothing. The man had no shame. Why should he, with a body like a finely honed weapon of war? He started to lift off the plain tunic he wore under hiscotun, and she knew the linen braies would come next.
“Don’t!” she cried with a burst of maidenly alarm (and that innate sense of self-preservation).
He grinned, and she realized he’d only been testing her.Incorrigible. But at least she wasn’t being forced to contend with his bare chest and … more.
