“I have never been so insulted.” He moved as far from her on the boulder as possible.
She tamed her face and swallowed her giggles. “Oh c-come n-ow. I don’t… I mean you d-don’t—” She dissolved into laughter once more.
“This is truly insupportable.” He helped himself to a hefty swallow of wine. If he got good and foxed, he’d deserve that reprieve from this humiliation. He might already be good and foxed. The world was fuzzy at the edges. The sky rocked like ocean waves.
When she’d quieted down enough to breathe, she rolled her lips between her teeth and took several steadying breaths then spoke with her eyes closed, the corners of her lips twitching, damn them.
“Oh heavens,” she sighed, “I think I’m brandy brewed.”
“Brandy brewed?”
“Adjective. In a state of having consumed so much brandy, you’re practically steeping in it.”
“Then I’m wine brewed.”
“No, you’re wineruined.”
“That sounds more like what happens the next morning.”
She chuckled and let her head fall back. Long neck, gently sloping bosom, the elegant line of her jaw. She kicked her legs gently, swaying her skirts, and he inched back toward her, kicked his legs, too. Their hands rested side by side on the rock between them, warm and snug.
With the small woods between the house and lake and their rock situated beneath the trees, the world seemed inhabited by two. All as it had been years ago.
No.
Years ago, he’d been nothing more than a sad puppy dog begging for scraps of affection from a woman who did not know she held the damn bone in her hand. She’d patted his head and called him friend, and he’d been coward enough to let her, to not risk everything they had for what might be. His parents had been right—he hadn’t been good enough for Tessa King.
“Iama rake.” The words came out sharp, angry. They were the truth though, because otherwise he wouldn’t be looking at his friend’s lips. Perhaps it was because he was wine ruined, but they looked like a dream, like a smear of paint across one of her canvases. “Admit it.”
“Never.” Those lips curved. She tapped the end of his nose. “If you were truly a rake, I would never be here with you, sitting safely within reach. You’d have me flat on my back in two breaths. Yet here I am. Unseduced.”
“You’re right.” He watched the rise and fall of her chest for one breath.
Then he pounced. The wine bottle made a thud as it hit the forest floor.The Rake Reviewflew up into the air andfluttered to the ground. And Remmy caught the nape of Tessa’s neck as he leaned over her, carrying her head gently to the rock.
In two breaths, he had her flat on her back.
He grinned. “Now do you believe me?”
Her cheeks were pink and her lips parted. Little red flyaway hairs curled around her face, and she’d gone still as one of her portraits. When she fluttered back to life—cheeks surging from pink to oh-so-scandalized red—she swatted his chest.
“Oh yes, Your Rakishness. I’m trembling and terrified. Please do not ruin me.” The way her mouth shaped the words with easy humor, the skepticism in her eyes—she didn’t believe he’d do it. She was grinning up at him, the breaks in the canopy above dropping streaks of sunlight across her face, innocent and unaware. Her or the sunlight? Damn, he was drunk.
Still cradling her head, he moved over her, closer, closer, until they were belly to belly, nose to nose, legs laying side by side—his, hers, his, hers. “Oh, sweet, innocent Tessa King. Iwillruin you.” He inhaled slowly, trailing his nose along her hairline, lingering at her temple. Her skin held the bite of paint and the sweet scent of a warm summer day. The brandy on her breath drifted up to him. Everything familiar and not at the same time, having her beneath him better than he’d dreamed.
She slapped her palm against his chest, firm and likely with the purpose to push him away. But she didn’t. She just let her hand rest there.
And that warm hand tilted the world even more than the wine already had. It burned a hole right through muscle and bone, and when he spoke next, his voice caught on each breath.
“I know just how to do it.” He twisted a curl near her neckaround one finger and tugged lightly. Her head followed the gentle tension, opening the slope of her neck to his perusal.
His friend’s neck.
The neck of the woman who’d shattered his soul.
The wine didn’t care.
The wine ranhis thumbdown the length of Tessa’s neck. “Ruining isn’t about what you think it is, Tessa. It’s not about the moment a man enters a woman?—”
