She shook her head, face buried in his shoulder.
“Tell me,” he urged, trying to ignore how good she felt in his arms. How her body melded with his as if she’d been fashioned for him, alone.
“I tried with all my might, but couldn’t clear the opening. I was trapped, and I knew no one was coming.”
He leaned back—which took some doing—crooked a finger under her chin, and guided her sooty face upward.
“Sweetheart, if you think for one instant that I wouldn’t have come looking for you, that I wouldn’t have unearthed every stone in the castle, in the kiln, on the bloody island to find you, you are sadly mistaken. You were trapped, yes, but it was never anything but temporary. I would have come for you.”
I’ll always come for you.
His echoed thought took him aback—and he shoved it from his mind.
Her chin wobbled, but rather than cry anew—it was clear she’d shed many tears—she managed a petulant, “Why would you? You’ve made it no secret you’ll be glad when I’m gone. Glad to be rid of the burden of me.”
He shook his head, sending her a soft smile. As if they had a mind of their own, his fingertips traced over her cheek. Beneath the salt and grime, her skin was soft. So ridiculously soft. Like a newborn kitten’s fur. “You’re wrong, Annabelle.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. Then her face crumpled into an expression of abject misery. “Oh no,” she wailed, drawing out the last word.
“What?” he demanded, blood icing as he anticipated yet another disaster he hadn’t foreseen. “What is it?”
“You heard me singing again, didn’t you? That’s how you found me. That’s why you’re being nice. You pity me for my lack of feminine grace in such a fundamental…”
Her words died at Sterling’s bark of laughter. In the next instant, she started to push out of his arms.
He held her fast. “You silly little fool. There’s not a hair on your head that isn’t feminine perfection. Your singing voice”—he snorted in exasperation—“or lack thereof may be naught but I’m sure it was a kindness our maker doled out for the rest of the women on this green earth to even the scales, even slightly.”
“Y-you like how I look?” Unmistakable hope laced her words, as if she truly had doubt.
He wanted to shake her. “How you look, how you move, how you smell. I can’t describe the scent, some combination of herbs, flowers, and spring.” He laughed as if poking fun at himself. “I can only attest it drives me bloody mad with the need to get close enough to you to breathe it in.”
“My…” She broke off, and a chagrined smile tugged at her mouth. “Gaston always said I smelled of hay.”
Gaston. If he wasn’t already dead, he’d have a long line of offenses to answer for as far as Sterling was concerned. “He lied,” he gritted out.
Her lips formed a perfecto. “It’s a sachet. I wear it pinned inside my clothing.”
“I…beg your pardon?”
“A sachet. I fill it with herbs, or flower petals, or really anything that takes my fancy. My old governess made me one many years ago. She always smelled so nice, like sunshine and happiness. One day she made me one for myself, and I guess the habit stuck.”
“I see.”
She smiled up at him. “You like the way I smell?”
“I do. Very much.”
“Mm,” she murmured. Then her gaze drifted like a feather to his mouth, where it lingered.
The sexual hunger he’d kept at bay slammed to the fore, driving out all rational thought, save his awareness of her. Her softness locked against his hardness. Her full breasts heavy against his chest. Her hips nestled against his.
Her sweet lips begging to be kissed.
His cock swelled with every beat of his heart until he was fiercely, achingly erect.
Like a man moving through quicksand, he bent his head, slowly,slowly, giving her every chance to push him away, every chance to voice her protest.
She didn’t, and the inevitability, therightnessof what he was going to do surged through him.
