“Is that how you see yourself?”
Her gaze tracked across every inch of his face, lower, across his shoulders and what was visible of his chest.
“Excellent architecture,” she mumbled.
“I’m sure you’ve seen better. On the Continent.”
“I can’t be sure. Perhaps I should… investigate further.”
He swam closer. “Perhaps you should.” He was supposed to be avoiding touching and kissing and all those things he wanted so badly.
But then she swam closer, too, and she cupped the back of his neck, and her bare legs brushed against his, and he quite forgot why he was supposed to avoid them.
Nose to nose, they inhaled and exhaled the same air, and Remmy’s world narrowed to the steady hazel of a well-known woman’s eyes. Heat and lapping water and skin against skin.
And then a kiss.
Her hand curled in his hair, proprietary.
Good. He was hers.
But her lips tasted him as if they had never kissed before.
Unacceptable. He needed more.
He may have dropped his brain somewhere in the middle of the lake. Beneath the branches and in the shadows, he became his body, grasping her hips and pulling her flush against him. Her legs knew what to do, wrapping round his waist. The more of her skin melted into his own beneath the water, the hungrier he grew. He teased the seam of her lips, and she parted so easily for him with a sigh that tilted the entire world.
Her core clenched against his abdomen, and he cursed into the kiss. She made little moans as she rocked against him, kissing him as if she’d been doing it for years.
She tasted of sunshine and Tessa, and her wet hair was a heavy tangle against his arms as he held her tight, kissed her hard. Her arse perched on his stacked forearms, and she weighed nothing in the water. Together they were feather-light and, hell, he felt like walking right up out of the lake holding her just as he was and marching around the house forall to see.
“Mine,” he growled against her lips.
She broke the kiss with a gasp, and he took the opportunity to explore.
“Mine,” he growled against her neck, biting, sucking until she whimpered and tugged his hair.
He licked a line up her neck and dotted kisses up her jaw to whisper in her ear, “Mine.”
“What do you mean?”—her voice a low drone—“when you said you would play the suitor with me?”
“I meant exactly what I said.”
“You’re courting me?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
She had a choice to make soon, and he needed to give her a damn good reason to choose him.
I love you.
Oh, Remmy, thank you.
A memory to deflate his cock.
“Because I want you.” He kissed her swollen lips, and she sighed, melting in the circle of his arms.
