And she’d never been more miserable in her entire life.
If this was being an adult, a grown woman, then she wanted nothing to do with it.
Closing her eyes and holding her breath, she slipped under the pond. Into the murk and the deep where the lack of air helped to steady her mind and the water pressing down on her chest helped to ease her racing heart. When her lungs began to burn, she kicked her legs and swam to the top, her hair flying over her head in a streaming arc of sleek, wet red as she burst through the surface.
She blinked to clear her vision, and when her gaze was immediately drawn to a tall shape at the edge of the pond, blinked again.
Was that…?
Could it be…?
“Adam?” she said, circling her arms.
“Can I come swim with you?” He’d already removed his jacket, shirt, and tie. In the sunlight, his chest was a sculpted masterpiece of light bronze. A piece of art that wouldn’t have looked out of place beside Michelangelo’sDavidor Myron’sDiscobolus. And even though she was submerged in water, Eloise found that her mouth was dry.
“Yes.” She paddled closer. Towards the bottom of the pond, the temperature dropped dramatically. But where her toes and calves had been cold a few seconds ago, now her entire body was hot. So hot that she wouldn’t have been surprised if steam began to collect on the surface.
Taking off his boots but leaving on his pants, Adam began to wade through a cluster of cattails. When the water lapped at his navel, he stopped, his piercing gaze intent on hers. “You realize I’m asking for more than a swim, Eloise.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I do.”
Her sisters, Lenora especially, would be appalled. Her parents, were they alive, would likely be ashamed. But if she was unable to appease them with her best behavior, why not embrace her worst? Maybe she couldn’t be who they wanted her to be. But she could be whoshewanted to be. And for as much as he irritated her, and annoyed her, and made her want to pull her own hair, when she was with Adam…when she was with Adam, she felt the most like herself.
A few more steps and then the shallow end of the pond dropped away, forcing Adam to swim. He was agile in the water, his strokes long and powerful. Not that she’d expected anything less. He went around her and she spun to follow him, but she wasn’t quick enough. On a husky chuckle, he came up from behind and closed his arms around her ribcage, his legs around her ankles.
“Caught you.”
She let her head fall against his shoulder. “I wasn’t running.”
“Eloise…” His voice was ragged. His breaths uneven. He turned her around so that they were facing each other. So that she could see the torment in his eyes, and the quiet, almost desperate yearning. “It wasn’t supposed to be you.”
Before she was able to ask him what he meant, he kissed her.
But it wasn’t like his other kisses.
This kissconsumedher.
Mind, body, soul.
Adam.
She twined herself around him as their mouths parted and their tongues came together. Her heels went around his waist. Her nails sunk into his neck. Her breasts pressed against his chest. They bobbed up and down, splashing water, but he managed to keep them afloat even as his hand dove lower, then lower still. He cupped the wettest part of her, using a single finger to explore the delicate petals that surrounded her core.
When he dipped inside, to the first knuckle, then the second, then all the way to the third, she shuddered, her thighs tightening around his hips. He captured her wrist, prying it loose from his nape before directing it between their bodies to where his trousers were plastered to his skin and he throbbed with need.
“Touch me,” he demanded hoarsely, his lips skimming along the shell of her ear, and then he showed her what he wanted. How to close her palm and glide it from base to tip. How to make him tremble. How to make him groan her name. “Eloise. My God,Eloise.”
They’d drifted closer to the shallows. She could tell his feet were once more on the pond floor when he gripped her hips and raised her up, so that her bottom skimmed the top of the water…and with his eyes fierce on hers and his jaw clenched, he began to lower her slowly onto his cock.
She braced against the pressure. The slight, burning twinge. But then there was only a sense of fullness. Of passion. Of two pieces coming together. And just when she thought that she couldn’t possibly take any more, he proved her wrong in the bestpossibleway.
“Oh,” she said, her eyes widening. “Oh,my.”
Water splashed as their bodies began to move in earnest. Locking her elbows and placing her palms on his broad shoulders, she found that she was able to lift her own weight…and when she plunged to the hilt, she nearly went mad from the pleasure of it.
Holding her to him with his left hand splayed across the small of her back, he grasped her chin with the right…and kissed her wildly as they sought their reward in unison. Cresting, cresting, cresting before, with a mewling whimper and a husky snarl, Eloise and Adam soared into sweet release together.
11
