He swore and swung his gaze back, looking at her the way a Spanish bull stares at a matador’s flag. He shook his head. Once, twice. He swore in a language she did not know. She raised her face, tipping up her mouth, leaning in.
He swore again and descended on her mouth. Sabine stopped breathing, joy exploding in her chest. He was so close now, finally, after five days. She swam in the musty, soapy, male smell of him.
He’d taught her how to kiss in his bedroom, and five days had not dulled the lesson. She would never forget how to kiss him. She tasted, and sucked, and sought his tongue with her own.
He did not reach out. He didn’t touch her at all. He claimed only her mouth, feasting, breathing hard, kissing her as if his life depended on it. Sabine lost her balance—she lost rational thought—and fell a little against him, clasping his shoulders to stay upright. The bench spun, the garden spun, the world spun, but they were perfectly still, the only spot in the world that mattered, doing the thing that Sabine had wanted to do since she came upon him in the clearing.
He wants this,she thought, consuming his need.He wantsme. His desire could not have been clearer. He would easily kiss her off the edge of the bench and onto the grass if she had not pressed back, insistent with her own return kisses. She could barely breathe. It was thrilling and wonderful and not enough, all at the same time.
She was just about to wrap her arms around his neck, crawl up his body and into his lap (his wound be damned) when the wind picked up; a sharp, cooling gust. It lifted the escaped tendrils of her hair and also the letters on the bench, strewing them across the clearing.
He made a noise of frustration and kissed her harder, ignoring the wind and the mess and everything but her lips, but Sabine opened her eyes, catching a glimpse of flying parchment.
“Stoker, your letters,” she said, pulling away.
He followed her with his mouth. She kissed him once more, a firm smack, and then pressed him upright. “Look, your papers. Are they not important?”
He looked at her through half-lidded eyes, blinking as if he’d been slapped. She pointed to the dervish of papers flying from the bench.
While he blinked himself back to consciousness, Sabine leapt from the bench and began to pick up the dancing paper. Her fingers trembled and her insides were molten, throbbing need. She swore quietly, trying to pounce on one letter after the other.
Behind her, Stoker mumbled something bitter and tried to push up. “Ow!” he groaned, grabbing his wound.
“You’ve overdone it,” Sabine scolded, darting after flying paper.
He made a grunting noise and dropped back on the bench.
“I hope you can make sense of these,” she said, looking down. “They’ve been completely scrambled, but I think I have them al—”
She stopped mid-sentence and squinted at the paper in her hand. Her eyes flew over the words and froze on one sentence. Her rib cage grew tight. She drew the paper closer to her face to read it again.
She looked at Stoker.
“This letter mentions the Duke of Wrest,” she said. “Yes, right here. ‘His Grace Saul Newington, The Duke of Wrest.’”
She turned back to him. “Has the duke begun to plague you again about your paternity? Why didn’t you tell me? Are you looking again into his claim?”
“No. I’m not.”
“Then what of this letter?” She tried and failed to scan the illegible scrawl on the wrinkled sheet of parchment.
“That letter is from my investigator,” Stoker said, trying again to stand. He winced in pain but pushed on.
“Oh yes,” Sabine said faintly. “You’ve investigations unfurling at every turn. Forgive me, I forget there is the certain matter of your missing ship and the attack. I am—” She stopped and began again. “I am accustomed to only considering myself.”
“I like that you look after yourself, Sabine. Despite my worry. You should consider yourself above all.”
Sabine would file that away to consider later. Now she shook her head and waved the papers at him. “But why would your investigator mention the old duke?”
“Because,” Stoker said, “my man uncovered more than the brig and crew in Portugal. He believes he’s found my attacker. A paid mercenary.”
“You mean someone hired another man to kill you?”
“Well, someone hired another man totryto kill me.”
“Oh yes, I keep forgetting how invincible you are,” she mumbled. She was rereading the letter. “But why haven’t you told me of this?”
“Sabine, I haven’t seen you.”
