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Her gaze shot up and she met his changeable gray-blue eyes, a mix of storm cloud and sky. Their beauty took her breath away.
Proof enough that she was getting too attached, and that her own inability to modulate her feelings would be her doom.
“But you’re not an ass.” She cleared her throat and smiled. “I heard you’re a Leo.”
Now he laughed. “I’m sure you heard a lot of things from Miranda and the rest.” He hesitated, a shadow chasing the mirth from his face. “I realized on the ferry that I find the notion somewhat disconcerting.”
She drew in her breath, surprised.
The shadow vanished. His look was bright again, and teasing. “Ass isn’t a sign of the zodiac, by the way, although it probably should be.”
“Probably.” She agreed automatically, peering up at him with new eyes. He was slouching with his customary rakish grace, cycling cap perched at an angle on his wind-mussed hair. He wore his self-assurance so easily. It could make you suppose he never needed to be assured.
She remembered the way he’d stood, frozen, on the threshold of the parlor in the Falmouth Hotel. She felt like the ass. All afternoon, he’d filled the air between them with obsessive monologues, and she’d failed to note the nervous undercurrent that sped his excited speech. She’d seen only the workings of an outsized competitive streak, and sexual frustration.
“You are disconcerted,” she said slowly. “By the party.”
He waved this away. “Not as disconcerted as I was by all those sheep.”
“Kit.”
“I like it when you say my name.” His eyes flashed.
“God almighty,” she muttered.
“That too.”
She gave his shoulder a soft shove, and he caught her wrist, trapping her hand. His expression darkened.
“I don’t like that you heard that other name,” he confessed, voice tight. “I know you won’t say it, but I don’t like that you could even think it. I don’t like that it’s in your head.”
“It’s not.” She responded instantly. “It is not in my head. I promise you. My head was far too full of Gilbert and Sullivan.”
His former name had glanced off her. A different name stuck.
But this wasn’t the moment to ask about Lucy.
She pulled away from him and snapped to attention, shoulders back, chin high. “I know the Kings of England, and I quote the fights historical, from Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical!”
She gave him a salute, panting and slightly off-balance.
He smirked. It was a strange, sweet kind of smirk, filled with humor and relief and tenderness.
“You are the very model of a modern Major-General.” He stepped into her, arm wrapping her waist. “What are my orders?”
The low growl ignited a fuse that ran all the way down her spine.
Burn for me. Burn for me as I do for you.
One couldn’t command such a thing.
His sinful lips had parted, and his eyes mirrored the light, like the rock pools, and with a sharp inhalation, she caught herself before she softened and forgot everything but the warmth of his mouth, the intoxicating scent of his skin.
“Seaweed,” she murmured, breaking the circle of his arm. “Make your sketches.”
“I was hoping for make love to me on this rock.” He sighed and sat, legs crossed, sketchbook on his knee. “Seaweed it is.”
She sat too, heartbeat slowing, and gazed into the pool. “This is what I wanted you to observe. Living plants. Their shapes and colors, how they move and catch the light.” She glanced up and intercepted his stare. “You can stop observing me.” She gestured toward the pool.
