“Y-yes?”
“I’m going to do something I shouldn’t do.”Absolutely shouldn’t for more reasons than he had a brain at the moment to enumerate.But mainly because she deserved a man who made her his center.He’d never be able to do that, having no center himself, no loyalty, no heart, no soul to worship hers.
But he could give her something.
Be honest, Apollo.
He was taking this for himself.
He crept his hand down her body, cupped her sex through her sodden trousers.
“Please.”She rolled against his hand.
“I’ll take care of you, make sure that?—”
“I know.”She kissed him.“I trust you.”
But she shouldn’t.She really shouldn’t.
17
SUN AND FOG
If Sybil let him, Apollo would chatter away about protecting her from ruin or conception or something important like that.But Sybil didn’t want important.Not right now with the bright sun making his golden skin glow, not with the heat they could call up so readily between them blazing, making her clothes steam.
Not when he was only wearing smalls.
And she could only think of taking them off.
He hooked a finger into the waist of her trousers, and she realized those needed to be gone, too.But they’d become water-fused to her limbs, and any attempt to wiggle out of them had her panting, and not in the way she wanted to be.What she wouldn’t give to be wearing skirts.She wiggled and growled, huffing, tugging and pushing.
Until Apollo straddled her, stilled her hands.
“No touching,” he said, and she obeyed, dropping her arms to the grass beside her.
He set his palms at her hips, and between one breath and the next, they were glowing, warm and lovely.There was a soft sizzle as her trousers dried where his hands lay, and then he curled his fingers into the waist and tugged.They gave way so easily for him, as they had not for her, and he bent and placed a kiss just below her revealed navel.
He didn’t linger, tugging her trousers down inch by slow inch, his lips following, a hot trail of touch that burned more than the forge flames had.Soon the sodden garment was dry beneath his palms, then gone entirely.
She wanted this.
But how odd, how almost terrifying to be uncovered beneath the wide sky.They’d been kissing in shadows for days, in corners and in the dark while all the world slept.But to kiss now, to disrobe and lay bare before him with the sun high and curious above them…
She tugged at the hem of her shift, covering herself.
But then Apollo caught her gaze, and she no longer cared about her hem.Oh, she knew the rules, and she knew the risks, but never had she felt so alive than she had since coming to Foggy Hill House.A hammer defiantly in her hand, a man languidly between her legs.
He kissed his way up her leg, his warm palm lingering behind her knee.So softly sensuous.He left a kiss between her legs then stood and held out a hand.She took it, too wobbly to stand on her own.He bent to kiss her.Not too much.She was…
“Am I taller than before?”
“You must be.”He busied himself with the ribbons of her stays, untying them, loosening them.“Your head is at my chin instead of my shoulder.”
“Then something was happening.It was working.I almost had it!”She threw herself at him, hugging him hard, clutching at the back of his neck as he hugged her back, lifted her, spun her.“I’m going to get it,” she said when he put her back on her feet.“I am.I will discover my affinity.”
“I know.”The grin that curled his lips was wonderful and true, and the finger he hooked beneath her stays was clever indeed.They melted off her, and she shrugged out of the shift, leaving it a damp puddle of linen at her feet.Not terrified any longer.Not when he said the most romantic things.
I know.Those two words ruined her.Whatever happened next… worth every risk.
