“Yes.” He stroked her hip through her nightdress.
“Then I wanted to kick yer teeth in.”
He cast his mind backward a week, to their first meeting. He did not remember being overtly offensive.
“Why was that?”
“Because ye were so good-looking, ye made me hurt, here.” She clutched between her breasts. “Like a perfect sunrise. Like stars on a warm summer night.”
He blinked several times. This. From her. It was unexpected. As unexpected as hearing a tavern wench sing the Queen of the Night aria in a flawless soprano. Or a drunk sailor reciting word-perfectHamlet.
He made his voice gruff and adjusted the top of the blanket over both of them. “That’s foolishness.”
“I’m sure ye have heard it all before, Jack Pike.”
He shrugged. “Not really, no.”
She squinted at him. “Those ladies ye dally with are fools then. First, ’tis true. There cannae be a man more handsome than ye. I cannae and willnae believe it. Second, ye love the compliments. Ye blush like a girl. And I think yer cock gets harder. ’Tis poking at me more now.”
“Shut up, Helen.”
“Aye, Jack Pike, ye may kiss me now.”
She kept her eyes open as he leaned down. He stopped, his mouth inches above hers. “Most women close their eyes when they’re being kissed.”
“Most women are nae being kissed by someone as beautiful as ye.”
She was the strangest woman he had ever met. She changed as quickly as the weather did up here. Loathing him one moment, worshiping him the next. By turns truculent, docile, knowing, innocent.
She held still, waiting, looking at him expectantly. He had better kiss her now while she was still adoring him.
He kissed her and tasted cider.
“Kiss me back, Helen,” he murmured and when he brought his lips down against her mouth for a second time, her own lips were pursed and hungry, devouring.
It was quite a long kiss, he thought, but when he lifted his head, her mouth chased his, her neck straining, her shoulders and head coming off the pillow.
He pushed her down. “That’s enough kissing.”
Her body went rigid. “I hate ye, Jack Pike.”
He sighed. “Why do you hate me now?”
She shook her head. “If ye dinnae know, I widnae tell ye. What’s next? Oh, aye, we skipped over the nightdress.” Before he could stop her, her hands were at her hips and she sat up and whipped the nightdress up over her head. She threw it on the floor as she lay back down.
“There, I am as naked as ye now.”
“Why are you angry, fair Helen?” He stroked her arm. She was almost hot to the touch. The grass smell was stronger now. Her skin was very pale, almost translucent, with tracings of blue veins here and there. Her breasts were . . . well, there was no way around it. They were small. Achingly small, but tipped with beautiful, dark-pink peaks. He ran his hand down her flank, feeling each rib with his fingers, and finally found a buttock and squeezed.
Her voice was strained. “I. Dinnae. Want. To. Talk. About. It.”
“Shall I give you some relief now?”
“Aye.”
He moved his hand to her mound, felt the tickle of her maidenhair, and discovered her legs already spread apart.
He leaned down to kiss her but she turned her head away.
