He eased himself against the headboard and took the glass, his arm shaking as he swallowed. It was a manly effort, full of gusto and uninhibitedness, the sheet pooling in an inviting fold at his hips. He brushed a drop of water from his lower lip with the back of his hand, his emerald gaze never leaving her. “What time is it?”
“Nearly noon,” she said, handing him the bread and cheese. For reasons aside from watching him lounge about in the nude, she was enjoying this.
As he chewed, his gaze roamed the chamber. The pillows they’d knocked from the settee when he bent her over it were back. The quills that had hit the floor when he plopped her on the desk had been returned to the dented can. His trousers and drawers lay folded on the top shelf of his wardrobe.
“Almost as if you were never here, except for the scent of us clinging to the air, the bedding.” He dipped his head and sniffed his wrist. “My skin.”
“Ah, um,” she whispered, at a loss for any suitable reply.
He grinned, pure mischief, and pried the apple from her hand, dislodging the sheet at his waist. The cream silk slipped, revealing the dark thatch between his thighs. Unfortunately, it was not low enough to expose the rest.
Sitting back, he took a vigorous bite of the fruit, makingno effort to cover himself. “If you keep staring at me like that, Isa darling, I’m going to have you on your back in less than sixty seconds. Your eager consideration is eating me alive.”
Indeed, his arousal was visible, straining beneath the sheet.
Daring him, Isabella crossed to the door and turned the key, unhooking her bodice on the return. “We have at least two hours. They’ve gone into town, even the children. And I told the staff to leave you for the day.”
Ever snorted a laugh, raking his hand through his hair. “That was supposed to be a warning, sprite. Not encouragement.”
“Why pose a challenge about something Iwant?”
“Have it your way, then,” he said softly, dropping the half-eaten apple to the floor.
He reached for her the instant she came within reach, his arm sliding around her waist to pull her atop him. He tasted of apple and stunned affection, of something dangerously like hope, and the kiss deepened swiftly, the world falling away.
The encounter lacked finesse, his usual expertise surrendered to desire. He shoved aside the lacing of her bodice and licked her nipples through the linen of her chemise, unconcerned with removing her gown. Instead, he pushed her skirt to her waist and reached between her thighs, his touch leaving her breathless. He coaxed her to the edge more than once with ardent whispers, kisses, and strokes before settling her more firmly astride him.
“Ride me, sprite,” he murmured, his eyes going a deep, mossy green.
She shook her head, uncertain, blood pulsing through her veins as her vision narrowed to him and only him.
Bunching her gown at her hip, he guided her. “Like this.” He positioned himself at her entrance, a ragged moan roughening in his throat as she lowered herself. The sensation of claiming him, of control, defied description.
“Close your eyes, don’t think,” he whispered as he lifted his hips, repeating the motion until they found a cadence.
The position struck tender places the others had not, and Isabella soon found herself crying out, lowering until she lay across his chest, grinding as he had done the night before, desperate for connection and release.
“That’s it,” he whispered, his tone dark. “Turn me inside out, Isa.”
Her mouth found his, her hands braced on his shoulders, fingers tangled in his hair. He gripped her waist, and near the end, she watched him watchingher. The long glide, the impact, skin to skin, the force of two bodies in motion.
The arrested expression on his face was all it took to carry her over.
Chapter Thirteen
Where a smitten man oversteps.
The children’s antics on the lawn proved welcome, a harmless clatter Ever could fasten his attention to, if only to keep it from straying where it ought not. The veranda’s marble steps were hard beneath his arse—fair punishment, he decided. Despite his efforts, his gaze had seldom left the object of his fascination all morning.
Everyone knew it.
Everyone but Isabella Anstruther-Colbrook.
Catching his gaze, she crossed to his side and stopped there, breathless, precisely where he wanted her, cheeks flushed from chasing her nieces and nephews about the garden. It was not far from how she’d looked the afternoon before, stealing a lingering kiss before making her escape from his bedchamber, indigo silk trailing behind her.
Leaving him yearning, confounded by theweight of his feelings—a memory he set aside, saved for the night, when he indulged it in private.
Unfortunately, he and Isabella had scarcely had any time alone. That morning, she and her maid had accompanied him to his tenant’s temporary housing, a necessity until the damaged dwelling could be rebuilt after the fire. She stitched new curtains for Alfred, a man very dear to Ever’s heart, without sparing a thought for what a countess ought to do—which was certainly not this. She reminded him of his mother, and with a quiet ache he saw that, had his father accepted her, eccentricities and all, Langley Park would have been an altered place. His childhood, an altered life.
