Remember? There was no remember, he thought, there was only now. He began jerking open the buttons of his waistcoat.
She continued. “I suggested that I did not enjoy Iceland? It wasn’t the country—obviously. It was my own reckoning here that scared me. Speaking strictly as a travel agent, I can tell you that Iceland does three things like no other place on earth: mystical landscapes, northern lights, and heated pools.” She kicked her feet in the water.
“I’ll never see anything but you...” he rasped, “sitting there... like that... ever again.” He shrugged from his coat and ripped off his waistcoat. His shirt, boots, and buckskins came next, tangled in a heap on the canyon floor.
There was no time for heated pools, of course. In the back of his mind, he knew this. The crew of theFeatherwould set sail as soon as Isobel and he convened with the captive merchants in Stokkseyri.
Tactically, it was a disaster to strip naked andswimin the middle of the night, with pirates in pursuit.
Jason didn’t care. He cared only for her.
When he’d stripped to his drawers, he dropped beside her on the lip of the pool, sinking his feet in the warm, fizzing water. Isobel reached for him at once, taking him by the shoulders, climbing into his lap. He gathered her up with a groan, kissing her deeply with his tongue, with his soul.
“In, in, in,” she urged, pulling him from the lip of the pool into the steaming water. Jason sank down, his aroused body now buzzing with gooseflesh from theeffervescent water. He hiked her legs around him, carrying her, and waded in. The pool was shallow, but he moved slowly. He was losing his mind. He could step off into an abyss and he would not care. She kissed like his wildest fantasy; the thin lawn of her shift and drawers floated away from her skin. She was soft, and slick, and writhing in his arms. Above them, the heavens bloomed color.
When his knee bumped a smooth rock he pivoted, sinking to his shoulders to sit. His hands slid over her slick body of their own accord, palming her pert breasts, tracing the curve of her hip. She dug her fingers into his hair, massaging his scalp, delving down his back.
“You’re remarkably formed,” she whispered. “So strong.”
He kissed her hard and mimicked the motion with his hips, pulsing his erection against her. She moaned and arched her neck, pressing up.
“Please don’t make me beg,” she whispered. She reached her hand between them.
“Isobel,” he pleaded between kisses, “this is not what we discussed.”
“We discussed the real world,” she mumbled. “This is not real. This is a fantasy.”
“I assure you, this is very real,” he rasped, grinding his very real erection into her hand.
“We are alone in a cauldron,” she said. “The sky is on fire. We’ve bestedpirates...”
She kissed her way from his mouth to his sideburn; she traced the whirl of his ear with her tongue. She whispered, “Not real.”
Jason growled and gathered her closer, but he plucked her hand away. He pumped his erection against hercenter, and they both moaned. He interlocked one hand with hers and brought up the other to cup the back of her head.
“I’ve fallen in love with you,” he said.
She smiled at him. “But don’t you see? That’s the beauty of this moment. You don’t have to profess love to me. You don’t have to do anything but—”
“There is virtually nothing I do because Ihave to, Isobel,” he told her. “I do and say what I want; I always have.”
“Except for the dukedom,” she said.
He frowned.
She continued, speaking almost nose-to-nose. “You will assume all the responsibilities of a duke because youhaveto do it.”
“I didn’t mea—”
“And if you do it correctly, as you’ve told me you are determined to do, the real-world Duke of Northumberland will not have the freedom to profess love to the real-world Isobel Tinker.”
“Iwill,” he told her, kissing her hard.
She shook her head, and he saw tears had begun to roll down her cheeks.
“You will not,” she told him softly. “Loving a woman like me is not a part of being a proper duke. Not the type of love that I want. Legitimate love. Family love.Give-me-your-namelove.”
“We will marry,” he declared. He kissed her again, and she was silent for a beat.
