Heavenly. Luscious. She did squirm now, to try and relieve the pulsing need torturing her more and more. His head lowered to kiss her again, then he used his tongue and teeth to make her arousal unbearable. She held on to his bare shoulder while wave after wave of incredible sensation crested in her body.
“Are you a virgin?” His question feathered into her ear while his touch continued tantalizing her.
She barely heard. Barely answered. Finally she nodded.
Fingertips rolled over her two nipples until she was breathless and immobile. His mouth began its devastating arousals again, while his caresses claimed all of her. Her hips and thighs, her bottom and back. All of her. A sensual stupor engulfed her.The need pulsed more and more, aching and wanting. A frantic yearning entered her euphoria. It grew until it absorbed the pleasure within itself.
Then, unmistakably, he stilled. His hands did, and his whole body. Her body screamed in frustration, but beneath her silent chaos she heard what he heard. Noises came through the quiet day, from around the other side of the house.
Horrified, she looked at herself, and at him. Reality forced itself into her stupor. More sounds now. Gareth stood with her in his arms, carried her over to the door of the house, and set her on her feet. “Come with me.”
He led her into the kitchen, then up to the first level. “No one will come inside, I promise you. I will see what is happening. Go upstairs and wait for me.”
He strode toward the front of the house. She ran up to the public rooms, fighting to get her chemise and dress back on as she did. She ran to the front room and looked out the window. Down below the sounds came again. She opened the window a crack.
“You are back, sir. That is a surprise. Did not expect you so soon.” It was Erasmus speaking. “I seem to have disturbed your rest. I apologize. I just came to bring that stone in the wagon there for the wall, and saw these things here. More must’ve heard of Miss Russell’s instructions that things taken be returned. I thought I would bring them inside.”
“That is not necessary. I will do it,” Gareth said. “Just bring the stone to the garden.”
“I’ll take the wagon to the back garden portal, and unload it there. Are you home for a time now, sir? Should Harold and I come tomorrow?”
“I may leave again for short journeys, but you can both come tomorrow morning. I will come along and help with the stone.”
Eva stared down at her haphazard dressing. Her close call stunned her. What if Gareth had not heard Erasmus, and they had been discovered like that, both half-naked? What if Erasmus had not come at all?
She finished fixing her garments. She fastened her dress with trembling fingers. When the wagon wheels outside faded away, she slipped out of the chamber and down the stairs.
***
Gareth tried to give a damn about the stone wall while Erasmus explained what must be done. He had found similar stones at a mason’s farm a bit to the south, he explained, and had taken it upon himself to procure it.
All the while Gareth’s mind was on that bench, with Eva on his lap. Her astonished cries of pleasure formed a melody behind Erasmus’s drone.
Had they not been interrupted... His mind’s eye saw Eva totally naked, straddling his legs, her eyes glistening with her abandoned joy.
He glanced to the bench near the garden door. A brown smudge caught his eye. Eva’s pelisse. The fantasy vanished. Erasmus’s voice seemed to boom. The last hour presented itself with ruthless objectivity.
What in hell had he been thinking? Nothing sensible, that was clear, if there had been any thought at all. He could not remember. A lie, that. He had thought plenty, and would have taken her except for the interruption. Even when he sent her above to dress, he fully intended to join her and unfasten that dress again.
That brown pelisse loomed on the bench, visible out of the corner of his eye. If Erasmus saw it, there could be hell to pay.For Eva. Always for the woman. His own reputation had long ago become famous for such things, but he hardly suffered for it.
He pictured her above stairs, worried about that pelisse, perhaps watching from a window. The way she had accepted pleasure had charmed him. Incited him. Still, he prided himself on control. He did not act impulsively. He did not put women at such risk. He did not even trifle with women like Eva Russell.
“It should only take one or two days,” Erasmus explained, summing up what had been a lengthy lesson in wall building. “Less time with help from Harold.”
Gareth pulled half his mind out of his crotch. “It will be good to have the garden secure again.”
Erasmus nodded. “I’ll be taking the wagon back now, unless you want me to put all those things from the portico away.”
“No need to do that now. Be on your way.”
Erasmus walked toward the garden’s back portal. Gareth strode to the house, grabbed the pelisse, and entered.
He formed his apology on the way upstairs. He went to his dressing room and pulled on a shirt, then went looking for Eva. He looked forward to correcting his inexplicable error in judgment.
He could not find her. He threw open the door of the final room he searched. It was empty too.
He strode to the window. In the distance, he could see a small brown form moving quickly along the road to where it bent out of sight.
