“Lachlan,” she whispered, glancing nervously around them.
“Yes?” he said, leaning in.
She’d felt his nearness before; butnearhim andonhim was the difference between hungry and starving. His thighs were hard, the smell of him deliciously familiar, his mouth was so close.
Drew fixed her eyes straight ahead, trying not to look at it. She tried to see through the leafy fronds of the bower. She scouted for potential passersby. Would there be innocent people who might be assailed by the sight of—
“Miss Trelayne?” he rumbled softly, dipping his lips to the sensitive curve of neck between ear and shoulder.
“Yes?” she breathed. The leaves blurred; her eyes fell closed.
“I should like to smooth away the memory of this morning,” he breathed against her ear, “andyourwretched parents; andmywretched parents.”
She made a desperate little sound, half whimper, half gasp. Her skin had come alive, buzzing with anticipation. Pleasure radiated from the contact of his lips, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Deep down, inside the secret place he’d initiated last night, she felt an awakening. Thetips of her breasts tingled. With each nudge and nuzzle, her body came more alive, fold by fold, tip to tip.
“Thisis why you sought me out?” she breathed.
“Well, perhaps not exclusively. Actually, not even intentionally...” He spoke the words into the skin of her neck. “But now that I’m here...”
“But you cannot mean to... to.” She huffed out a breath. “Here? Out of doors? Someone might see.”
“We shall bevery,very quiet,” he said, planting kisses along the line of her jaw. “And so still. So quiet and so still, even the birds will come.”
“The birds will not come,” she assured him.
He was nearly to her mouth, and the torture of being kissed everywhere but her lips was too much. She turned her face to him, seeking.
“We’ll see about that,” he rumbled and he claimed her mouth.
She lacked the will to argue. She lacked the will to do anything but kiss him. After a lifetime of not kissing, with no guarantees of future kisses, only a fool would stop.
Her hands clenched inside her cloak. The garment was a frustration, as restricting as a sack. He sensed her distress and chuckled, sliding his fingers to the jeweled pin that held it in place in the middle of her chest.
“A spider,” he observed, working the pin free. His attention to the spider was careful, delicate; he ministered to the pin far longer than necessary. She felt each brush of his fingers through the fabric.
When the pin was free, he slipped it inside the pocket of his waistcoat. He returned his hands to the cloak and pulled it apart, like peeling open a fruit. Cold air hit her throat in the same moment as his hot gaze.
His hands found her body in the next instant. He captured her waist with his large fingers, and she reached for his neck. Before she pulled him to her, she paused, settling her hands on his jaw, cradling the sides of his face.
“Thank you,” she whispered against his lips, “for coming to me.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he warned, sliding his hands from her waist, over her hips, and down her legs.
“Oh,” she said, accepting his next kiss.
Meanwhile, his hands continued southward; he moved over her knees, down her calves and, with a flick of the wrist, beneath the hem of her skirt. He clasped her ankles, squeezing the laced leather of her boots.
“Lachlan?” Drew whispered.
“Miss Trelayne,” he replied. Every time he invoked that name, anticipation rose in her like a hot mist.
“Your Grace,” she replied, ever so quietly.
“I beg your pardon?” he teased.
“Your Grace,” she repeated, louder.
He chuckled, moving again, his hands nowinsideher skirts.
