“No.” Tess shook her head at the memory of all the times their father had encouraged each of them to pursue various fields of study, only to find himself with two children as in love with the past as he was.
“I’m glad your father wasn’t like mine,” Dom said, a new gruffness in his tone.
“What was he truly like?” Tess asked softly, knowing a bit of the man by reputation alone but aware that Dominic wrestled with his father’s legacy.
He lowered his head for a moment and then looked over at her. “He was a bit of a colorful blur, forever on the move, always on to the next adventure. Never content. And he was truly as fearless and charming as they say.” She heard a bit of admiration in his tone, but also a thread of sadness.
“That sounds like what the papers say of you.” Tess reached out and laid her hand atop his where he rested it on the wrought-iron rail. “But they don’t have it quite right.”
A grin curved his mouth, and he turned his hand palm upso that he could lace his fingers with hers. “Are you saying I don’t live up to the picture they paint of me?”
“Oh, you do, in some ways, but I’ve seen more. The Dominic Prince I see each day is fair, openminded, and hardworking. And willing to pitch in to save local cows.”
He chuckled. “Only Daisy. She’s the only one I’d risk it all for.”
“I’m sure she’ll never forget you.”
He flashed her a blinding grin. “I’m glad you see those parts of me, Tess.”
She adored those parts of him, but she hesitated to confess that much. Hesitated to let those feelings fully expand in her heart.
Looking out at the castle walls, she returned to safer territory. “However dissimilar our fathers were, they both loved history.”
“Mmm. But your father simply passed on the love of it. Mine used it for gain.” He arched a brow as he looked over at her. “And yes, you may call me a hypocrite for doing the same.”
Tess stroked her thumb along his. “In truth, regarding the current dig, we are both doing the same.”
“But for very different reasons.”
A drop of rain landed on Tess’s hand and trickled down to his.
“It seems the rain clouds have caught up with us. Perhaps we should head back,” she suggested.
“We should...” he said, “but there’s a matter we must settle first.”
“Oh?”
“There was some talk of a prize, I believe.”
They turned to face each other.
He ran his tongue along his lower lip, and Tess thoughthow much she wanted to kiss that very spot. She leaned into him, both hands braced on his broad chest, and he stroked a hand along her neck to cup her nape.
Tess’s stomach tightened with anticipation, but he didn’t make her wait long.
After one hungry look at her as if he wished to devour her, he bent his head and swept his tongue against the seam of her lips. Tess gasped, and like the scoundrel he was reputed to be, Dominic slipped inside, tasting her, teasing her, all the while drawing her closer with an arm cinched around her body.
Like the night before, he braced her against him as if he knew that his kisses made her knees feel as if they might buckle.
With their bodies seamed together, she found herself arching into him, as molten and aching as she’d been when he touched her in the orchard.
“Dominic,” she breathed when he broke their kiss and traced his lips along her neck, nipping at a spot near her ear that made her moan.
Then he lifted his head, smiling down at her as if quite pleased with his effect on her. He traced the shape of her lips with his fingertips and then bent to whisper in her ear.
“Kissing you is the real treasure, Tess. I relish each of them, and then greedily want more. I want an entire hoard.”
She turned her head to look again at the castle walls because she felt something in her coming undone. The more she touched him, kissed him, the harder it was to keep up any defense at all around her heart.
