When the Scoundrel Sins by Harrington, Anna (8)

Belle stepped out of the predawn shadows at the edge of the pond and breathed a long sigh, expelling all the pent-up tension she’d carried on her shoulders for the past two weeks.

Since Quinn and Robert arrived, she hadn’t been able to sneak away for her usual evening swims, instead having to remain at the house to help Lady Ainsley with hostess duties before dinner. So after yet another restless night, when there was no point in lying in bed any longer and trying for sleep that wouldn’t come, she’d decided to selfishly enjoy the peace and quiet of a dawn swim before her day began. Before she had to face Lady Ainsley’s plans to marry her off. Before she had to deal with all the estate’s ongoing problems.

And before she had to suffer the continuous exasperation that was Quinton Carlisle.

Despite Lady Ainsley’s close watch, the audition process for future husbands—and truly, wasn’t that what it had turned into?—was off to a less than auspicious start. After the first week, the score was Gentlemen Callers 2, Carlisle Brothers 28. Quinton was resolved to protect her, yet as equally resolved to never marrying her himself. And they had yet to find a way for her to keep Glenarvon except through marriage.

Her only consolation was knowing that Glenarvon would be hers and that she would never have to leave her home. Instead of being relieved, though, she felt trapped.

She removed her half boots and stockings, then walked to the edge of the pond to dip a bare toe hesitantly into the water to test it. A weary sigh escaped her. If only she could test the temperature of men this way, how much easier her life would be!

She reached behind her back to unfasten her dress—

“So you ventured out of the library,” a deep voice drawled behind her. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

Quinton. She rolled her eyes. Of all the people to interfere with her one moment of solitude…“Books don’t sneak up on people uninvited,” she threw back pointedly.

He gave her a half smile as he walked down the sloping bank toward her. “Then invite me to swim with you.”

She shot him her best ice-cold glare, knowing the answer before she even asked. “Will you behave yourself?”

His smile blossomed into a full-out grin. “Have I ever?”

“No,” she answered earnestly and reached again for the back of her dress. “So you’d better go back to the house.” She’d come here for a swim, and she wasn’t going to let him stop her from taking this bit of solace. “After all,” she muttered dryly, “you have a herd of husbands to prepare for.”

“I wouldn’t have to if you gave up this notion of marriage.”

“You’re right,” she agreed with a heavy sigh. Her fingers worked free the half dozen buttons down her back. “You’re not behaving yourself.”

“Then I’ll keep misbehaving until you come to your senses.”

“What other choice do I have?” she challenged. “You’d rather I remain unmarried and lose Glenarvon?”

“I’d rather you be happy.” His voice was quiet on the morning air, curling around her in the blue-gray shadows with its sudden seriousness. “Wherever you live.”

Her throat tightened with emotion. “Now you’re playing dirty.”

Widening his stance, he crossed his arms over his chest, in his best impersonation of an unmovable mountain. “Whatever it takes, Annabelle.”

Her shoulders sagged as the suffocating frustration she’d been living under once more settled over her. The moment of peace she’d hoped to have vanished like the morning fog. “I don’t want to argue about this anymore.” Shaking her head, she freed the last button and let her bodice sag loose. “So unless you’ve found a way out of this for me, there’s nothing more to talk about.”

She pulled down her sleeves, the bodice dropping around her waist and leaving her modestly covered in her stays and shift from the waist up.

His eyes flared, and his voice grew uncharacteristically hoarse as he demanded, “What are you doing?”

She paused, and beneath the curious warmth of his attention, a knot of nervousness tied in her stomach. But something deep inside her thrilled to it, too, that she’d caught him by surprise and inverted whatever bluestocking—and false—notions he held about her. She might be forced into marriage, but she certainly wasn’t a mouse. And she’d never wanted to prove that to anyone more than she did at that moment to Quinton.

She forced down her rising nervousness and casually shrugged a shoulder. As if she removed her clothes in front of men all the time. “Undressing.” And hoping to make you leave.

But when he didn’t move, she gathered her courage, resigned what little dignity she had left, and dropped her dress to the grass around her bare feet.

“Annabelle, stop.” He ran a shaking hand through his blond hair and looked away.

He was…nervous? She gave a soft laugh of disbelief. “I’m surprised that you’re offended by the sight of an undressed woman.”

“I’m not offended,” he assured her. Then, as if to prove it, he let his gaze travel languidly over her. Everywhere he looked, heat prickled over her skin. “Quite the opposite, in fact,” he murmured, and she felt a ribbon of heat slowly thread itself through her, from her breasts down to between her legs. “I’m only concerned about your reputation.”

She laughed at the absurdity of that. Her life as she’d known it was ending, and he was worried about her reputation? Not one of the gentlemen calling on her cared whether she behaved properly, not as long as Glenarvon remained in her dowry. It would take more than getting caught taking a morning swim—even a naked one—to run them off. “My reputation be damned!”

Not caring if she’d shocked him with her outburst—good if he was!—she untied the front lacings of her stays and let them fall away to join the dress at her feet. Lifting her chin in defiance, she reached her hand up to the shoulder of the shift, preparing to push it down and remove even that last bit of clothing if she had to in order to chase him away…although she sent up a silent prayer that she wouldn’t have to. Not in front of those blue eyes which now stared at her as hungrily as a tiger contemplating the best way to devour a gazelle.

“I’m going swimming, just as I always do. So go away if it bothers you.” Her fingers trembled as they slipped daringly beneath the neckline of her shift. “If not, then…”

He crooked a brow at that, and she could read on his face the question of whether she was about to issue an invitation to join her for her swim. Oh, she should do just that! It would serve him right to have all his preconceived ideas about her destroyed.

She would enjoy it, too. God help her, even now her heart raced beneath his intense gaze, staring at her with such obvious arousal that she shivered from the heat of him. To have the full attention of a man like him on her, to know that he wanted her as much as he’d wanted those London ladies with their Parisian silks and well-practiced flirtations—

And destroy what little dignity she had left.

No matter how tempting, she wasn’t ready yet to go quite that far. She still had her pride, albeit a dwindling amount of it each unmarried day that drew nearer to her birthday, and she wasn’t willing to cast it aside. Not even for Quinton Carlisle.

“Then turn around,” she finished, her shoulders sagging.

Blowing out a frustrated breath, he turned his back to her and looked instead at the cover of thick bushes and trees surrounding the pond.

She slipped out of her shift and dived quickly into the pond, the cold water engulfing her heated body and quenching the fires he’d started beneath her skin. With her quiet strokes through the water rippling the mirror-like surface, she swam out several yards as she always did, to that place where she could just barely reach the bottom of the pond with her toes and the water cooled up to her neck.

He turned around then to watch her.

“You should leave now,” she told him, her voice quiet on the soft morning air.

He shook his head. “I’m staying until your birthday.”

That wasn’t what she meant, but her belly tightened into a knot of gratitude just the same. Quinn was irritating and bothersome, but he was also her ally. Of a sort.

“My wedding, you mean,” she corrected, hiding the bitterness in her voice by dipping beneath the surface, then rising to smooth back her wet hair.

“Your birthday,” he countered firmly, “by which time we’ll have discovered a way for you to keep Glenarvon without having to marry.”

The conviction behind his words showed her in spades how much he’d matured since the last time she’d seen him. The brash man she remembered who thought he could prove his manliness by cutting a swathe through London by drinking, fighting, and bedding every merry widow who smiled at him was gone, and in his place stood a man of resolve and ambition.

She stared at him through droplets of water clinging to her lashes. It wasn’t hope that now warmed her belly and tickled at the backs of her knees. But something just as good.

He bent down to yank off his boot and dropped it to the grass beside her discarded dress.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, a prickling unease rising inside her.

He reached for the second boot. “Going for a swim.”

“But you can’t!” she protested with a soft gasp. “It’s scandalous!”

He sent her a lazy grin. “My reputation be damned,” he repeated, throwing her words back at her as he unbuttoned his waistcoat.

Fuming to hide the rush of nervousness, she slapped her hand on the water’s surface. “Don’t you dare!”

Ignoring her, he shrugged away his waistcoat and let it fall to the ground.

“Fine,” she bit out, forcing herself not to care that he was undressing. Not one whit! “When we’re found together like this, you’ll be forced to marry me after all, and all my problems will be solved.”

He drawled in a deep voice that wound a ribbon of heat all around her, even in the cold water, “Have to be caught together first.” He pulled off his neck cloth and let it trail away to the ground. His eyes locked with hers across the surface of the pond. “And I don’t see anyone in sight to catch us, do you?”

Anger flared through her. “You scoundrel!”

His only reply was a slow, wolfish grin.

She slammed her mouth closed. Oh, this was all her fault! She should never have agreed to let him help her find a husband, should never have proposed to him—she was mad to have thought of it, madder still to think she could trust him.

Yet when he stripped his shirt off over his head, she watched shamelessly. Her eyes traced over the hard muscles of his shoulders and along the trail of golden hair that dusted his chest and down across the ripples of his stomach, to disappear at his—oh my.

Working on the estate, she’d seen many shirtless men before, but never one who looked as mesmerizing as Quinton. Not just muscles, not just the golden look of him in the fading shadows, but all of him drew her, exactly as he had six years ago for that kiss beneath the roses. Exactly as he had last week among the ruins for something far more than only a kiss. And just as he did now, despite her knowing better.

With a crook of his brow, he silently dared her to keep watching as he reached for the fall of his trousers. Her breath caught in her throat at his audacity, but a throbbing blend of tempting curiosity and tingling excitement jolted through her as she watched him loosen the first button—

Dear God, what was she doing? With a gasp, she spun around and squeezed her eyes shut.

His laughter rang out across the quiet dawn. Humiliated anger burned in her cheeks. Oh, blast him, blast him, blast him! God had never created a more antagonizing creature.

A loud splash echoed against the trees as he dove into the water. She didn’t dare turn to look, no matter how much she wanted to. Her heart pounded furiously at the soft splashing as he swam up behind her.

All kinds of sensations swirled through her at knowing he was standing right behind her in the water, as naked as she was…nervousness tinged with excited anticipation, an electric giddiness that left her light-headed, a craving to be kissed and knowing that if he slipped his arms around her, she wouldn’t refuse. But not one of those emotions was embarrassment. Having him here with her like this, surrounded by the stillness of the pond and the blue mountains rising in the distance as the shadows of night faded into the golden hues of sunrise, felt right.

“Lucifer’s balls, it’s cold!”

She bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“Good God!” he exclaimed. “How can you stand this?”

She looked at him over her shoulder, a sly smile playing at her lips. “Can’t handle a little cool water?”

“Cool water?” He grumbled, “There’s an ice flow near the bushes!”

“Southerner,” she mocked, fighting back a laugh.

He chuckled, the deep sound rippling to her through the water and tickling at her bare back. “If you can stand it,” he declared, although his voice lacked conviction, “then I can stand it.”

And also standing awfully close for a naked man. But she didn’t have the willpower to step away. Not with the way her heart raced at having him so close. It was wholly improper, downright scandalous…and too thrilling to stop.

“Don’t worry,” she teased, despite her nervousness. For once she’d turned the tables on him and was enjoying it immensely. “I’ll let you know when your lips turn blue.”

“Well then.” He drawled playfully as he stepped forward and slipped his arms around her waist beneath the water, “How can any man resist such a welcoming invitation as that?”

She gasped at the unexpected contact, sucking in a deep breath. His mouth lowered against her bare shoulder.

“Mmm…mermaid,” he mumbled against her skin. “My favorite kind of seafood.”

She laughed. Quinn was always a charmer, even when wet up to his ears.

Then his mouth brushed back and forth across her shoulder, sending her heart pounding as he took increasingly bolder kisses.

She tensed in his arms. The playful teasing between them had instantly changed. An electric throbbing blossomed between her legs when he brushed her wet hair aside to nibble at the back of her neck. When his hands spread out across her belly, heat flared through her and curled her toes into the mud at the bottom of the pond.

He took another step forward until his body pressed against hers. Her back rested against his bare chest, and her bottom nestled against his…oh my.

“Annabelle,” he murmured as his hand slid over her hip.

Beneath his caresses, the world and all her problems disappeared, until she no longer cared about anything except the wicked sensation of his warm hands on her water-chilled skin.

Yet she felt compelled to protest, albeit extremely weakly. “Maybe we shouldn’t…”

“Can’t help it,” he admitted in a husky murmur, keeping himself pressed against her. “You’re too tempting.”

She was tempting? Impossible. Yet he didn’t back away, didn’t stop his hand from trailing down her bare leg—

She jumped, startled at the boldness of his touch.

“Relax,” he murmured reassuringly against the back of her neck.

Relax? Was he daft? How on earth was she supposed to relax?

Yet she exhaled a deep breath and willed herself to unwind the tension spiraling tightly inside her. But the churning nervousness was simply too strong to will away, the growing tingle at her core too insistent to ignore. Each breath she expelled emerged as a tremulous shiver.

“It’s only a touch, nothing more,” he promised, although the husky purr of his voice curling through her was far from convincing. “We’re up to our necks in ice-cold water. The last thing I’ll be able to do is ravish you. Although”—he swirled his tongue along the outer curl of her ear and drew a hot shudder from her—“I’d be happy to try.”

Oh, that certainly wasn’t putting her at ease! “Quinton, be serious.”

“I am. When I kissed you all those years ago,” he whispered, his hand on her stomach tracing tantalizing patterns of seduction across her bare skin, “I had no idea that you would grow into such a temptress.”

Leaving her light-headed and tingling, all her senses alive, the world around her spun into a swirling mass of contradictions. The heat of his lips on her cold skin…the warmth of bodies pressing together beneath the cold water…the silence of the wild glen around them while her heartbeat roared deafeningly.

And most of all, there was the contradiction that was Quinn himself. The pest who had always sent her pulse racing with anger was now a man who sent it cartwheeling with desire.

“Have I truly become that woman?” she whispered, all of her on pins and needles in anticipation of his answer. “Am I at all what you expected?”

A small pause…“No,” he admitted quietly.

A stinging pain pierced her—

“You’re more beautiful than I ever imagined.”

She closed her eyes, unable to keep back a smile of happiness. Oh, he was still a charmer, through and through; it was in his nature. But only Quinn could utter such a piece of sheer flattery and actually mean it.

“Why does that surprise you so?” he murmured.

“Because no one has ever told me that before.” That the first man to do so was Quinton Carlisle—she could scarcely believe it.

“You deserve to be told how beautiful you are. How brilliant and special.” His hand caressed in long, slow strokes along her outer thigh as he murmured, “Especially by the man you marry.”

She trembled and struggled to keep her wits through the delicious fog of wanton sensations he swirled inside her. God help her. She was losing the war already, and the battle had barely begun! “That…doesn’t signify.”

His lips caressed at her temple. “Then what does?”

“Mutual respect,” she whispered. During the past few weeks, she’d resigned herself to her situation. A loveless marriage was inevitable. Now she only hoped it would be painless. “Friendship, caring…”

“And desire,” he rasped hotly. “Never forget about that.”

He drove her to distraction as his fingertips poised at the edge of her feminine curls yet teasingly refused to slip lower, to that aching place that now craved his touch. Her heart pounded like a drum, half in longing for his hand to drift lower, half in fear that it wouldn’t. “That’s not important.”

“You know you want desire in your marriage,” he admonished softly. “That you want to be touched, like this.”

His hands slid up to capture her breasts. She gasped, her argument dying on her lips.

She closed her eyes and gave over to his caresses. And oh heavens, how good his hands felt…how thrillingly wanton and warm, and oh so wicked. Beneath his massaging palms, she rose up in the water until her breasts floated on the surface. She bowed her head and watched shamelessly as his fingers teased at her nipples until they ached, already puckered hard from the coldness of the water and throbbing in time with the pulsing heat flaring up from between her thighs.

She gave a frustrated whimper. No good could come of this. He was still leaving to put half a world between them, and she would still be forced to marry another…Yet she couldn’t quash it, that delicious craving swelling inside her that only Quinn could satisfy.

She panted softly as her body arched back against his and shamelessly invited his touch. She couldn’t stop herself. To be bare to his seeking hands yet still hidden beneath the mirror-like surface of the dark pond—a delicious contradiction. And when his fingers pinched her nipples and shot a shiver of pleasure-pain straight down to that aching place between her legs, she didn’t want to stop.

“You enjoy being touched and pleasured. Even now you’re craving it.” His lips curled into a knowing smile against her temple. “You should have that, Belle. You should be with a man who wants to give you every pleasure you desire, a man who desires you in return.”

“Desire…will come…in time,” she somehow found the breath to force out as his hands left her breasts. While his right hand rested against her outer thigh, his left arm encircled her waist and held her tight against the cradle of his hips, his manhood pressing into her bottom.

“No, it won’t.” He nuzzled the back of her neck. “Desire is immediate or never, an unstoppable need to bury yourselves in each other until the two of you become one.”

When he placed a hot, openmouthed kiss to her nape, she bit back a whimper on her lips. “I don’t need to feel desire to be a wife.”

He nipped sharply at her shoulder in punishment for that untruth. But instead of a rebuke, his bite sent a wanton shiver curling through her, followed by an immediate longing to have him sink his teeth into her flesh again.

“Your husband should make you feel wanted as a woman, Annabelle. He should give you everything you desire. Especially himself.”

His velvety voice swirled through her, like a ribbon unwinding from a spool, puddling in silky softness between her thighs. He meant to chastise, but the eroticism behind his words left her aching with an intensity she’d never experienced before.

He lowered his lips to her shoulder. She whimpered at the heat of his mouth against her water-cooled skin, at the light nibbles he took of her flesh when what she wanted was for him to devour her whole. A new contradiction that had her head spinning and her body tightening like a coiled spring.

“You should have passion,” he murmured against her wet skin.

“Passion is,” she panted out as he once again cupped her breast and strummed his thumb over her nipple, “overrated.”

At that wholly blatant lie, he laughed against her shoulder. A wickedly knowing sound, as if he’d read her body and found the truth there. “You’ve got so much passion in you already, Annabelle, just waiting to be released.” His lips smiled against her bare shoulder. “You probably fantasize about it when you’re lying in bed at night, unable to sleep. About what it would be like to have a man’s hands on you, caressing you until you tremble with need.”

Despite the cold water, her face flushed hot. “I don’t. I don’t think about any man doing that,” she countered. Sweet heavens, the last person she’d admit to having fantasies about— “Certainly not you.”

He purred in a dark voice that dripped like liquid flames through her, all the way down to her toes, and made them curl into the mud at the bottom of the pond, “Would you like to think about me when you lie in bed? Because I’d very much enjoy making you do just that.”

Her fingers dug into his arm as it circled around her waist, holding herself tight against him as she panted out, “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Dare to make you want me?” The amusing disbelief lacing his voice spun fresh wariness in her belly. Taking her words as a challenge, his slowly slid his hand over her front and down…until his fingertips teased at the edge of the curls between her legs. “A beautiful, naked mermaid with soft skin and inviting lips, who’s practically begging to be taught a very important lesson about desire…” He delicately kissed her nape, then smiled against her bare skin when she shivered. “What rake could resist?”

Nervousness tinged with quick arousal sent her heart somersaulting. At that moment, she knew exactly how charming he was with his deep purring voice, his deliciously scandalous words, and his wandering hands. He was pure danger. “I don’t need to learn any lessons from you.”

“Then tell me to stop.” With a flirtatious tease, he combed his fingertips through her wet curls. His fingernails scratched tantalizingly at the soft skin beneath. “Tell me you don’t want this.”

Oh, she should. It would serve him right, the arrogant devil! But she couldn’t. Because a dark part of her knew the truth. That this was exactly how she’d wanted to be touched by him, ever since that night beneath the rose bower.

“Or this,” he drawled huskily, and slipped his hand down between her legs to finally give the caress she craved.

She gasped at the intimate touch, her breath tearing from her. The inhalation on her lips died into a soft moan as he slowly stroked her. Oh sweet Lord…The sensation was overwhelming, both tender yet exciting at the same time. She closed her eyes against the way his fingers played wantonly against her folds, her body yearning for every wonderful caress he was willing to give.

“Admit it, Annabelle,” he rasped hotly against her ear. “Admit that you like this, that you like being desired.”

“I don’t,” she panted, her pulse speeding at the sweet torture of having his hand against her. Biting her bottom lip, she fought back the urge to writhe her hips against him and bring him harder against her.

“Liar,” he drawled with a throaty little laugh.

She exhaled a deep breath and willed herself to unwind the tension gripping her like an invisible fist. But the heat swirling inside her was too delicious to give up. Too temptingly exquisite to deny herself. Quinn was being so gentle yet firm as his fingers stroked back and forth against her that the anxiousness slowly eased from her, and she gave over to the pleasure.

Heavens, how good it felt! His fingers were wanton and wicked, wholly scandalous…simply divine.

Helpless beneath her rising arousal, she stepped her legs wider apart. “Quinn,” she whimpered and turned her head to nuzzle her cheek against his shoulder.

He smiled triumphantly against her wet hair. “So you like that?”

“It feels—” Her suddenly thick lips could barely form the words as she capitulated beneath the truth. “Oh, it feels so very good!”

His fingers moved harder against her now, stroking farther into the hollow at her core and flitting teasingly against her intimate lips. Each caress slipped deeper…And that felt so very wicked.

“This is what a man can do to a woman,” he murmured against her nape. “You deserve a husband who can give you such pleasures. You won’t be happy with less.”

He was right, God help her. Her body had craved this since that morning at the ruins when he first stirred the ache sleeping inside her. Now she longed for him to make the relentless throbbing even more intense, even fiercer, until it engulfed her.

He whispered hotly into her ear, “You need this.”

What she needed was him, but he wasn’t hers to have.

“No,” she whispered, even as his clever fingers did such things to her that she could barely keep her breath. “You’re wrong. I don’t—”

A low moan tore from her as he stroked again, this time so deep that two of his fingers slipped inside her.

She shuddered at the delicious contradiction of his water-cold fingers plunging inside her warmth, at the way her soft body clasped hard around him. And at the biggest contradiction of all, that it had to be Quinn who shared this first intimate touch. Somehow she’d known that all along.

She grasped onto his forearm as the sensation swelled through her that she was rising up and floating away, yet she was desperate to stay with him, right there in the circle of his strong arms. He drew such pleasures from her that she could barely keep from crying out at the intensity of them.

Then his touch changed. No more teasing, flitting caresses. Now his hand worked in a steady, relentless rhythm to push her toward the breathless edge. Her thighs quivered as he continued to plunge his fingers into her warmth, swirling inside her and growing the ball of unbearable heat at his fingertips.

“You deserve to be desired, Belle.” He licked at her nape. The erotic caress shivered through her, connecting the ache of her puckered nipples to the relentless throbbing between her legs. He delved his thumb into her folds, to tease against the aching nub buried there. “You deserve to have passion and pleasure. In your heart, you know that as well as I.”

His words cascaded through her in a waterfall of flames, and the mounting ache at his fingertips grew more ferocious until she could no longer remain still. With a whimper of need, she writhed her hips against his hand to demand release—

A gasp tore from her throat, and her hips bucked against his hand. All the tiny muscles inside her clenched down around his fingers, then released in a shuddering, electric jolt. With a soft cry, she shattered and went limp in his arms. Her body pulsed with waves of pure pleasure that radiated out from his hand at her core, and she sagged down into the water, to welcome its coldness against her heated flesh.

He wrapped both arms around her and held her against him, murmuring her name against her shoulder.

As she regained her breath, the lingering pulses of residual release gradually ebbed away. And in its place came self-recrimination. Good God, what had she done? With Quinton! The most impossible man for her.

She struggled free of his arms and shoved herself away, hot tears blurring her eyes as she turned toward him. Concern darkened his face. When he reached for her, she held up her hand.

“Don’t,” she warned.

He lowered his arms. The concern on his face vanished, and his jaw set hard at her rebuke.

Embarrassment squeezed her chest. Not that he’d touched her, but because she’d so shamelessly encouraged it. And because she now wanted nothing more than to do it again. Worse, she wanted even more. She wanted his hard body moving inside hers, giving her the greater pleasures she knew he was capable of bringing to her at the same time he soothed away all her pain and sorrow. Even now her body shook with longing for exactly that.

“It was only a touch, Annabelle,” he reminded her. “Nothing more.”

Oh, he was so very wrong about that! “You shouldn’t have done that,” she chastised, wrapping her arms protectively over her breasts, even though he couldn’t see anything through the water.

“We both wanted that,” he countered gently.

“That doesn’t—” She choked on the knot tightening in her throat. Then, letting the anger come, she sought refuge behind it from the swirling confusion he’d unleashed upon her. “Thank you for the object lesson about desire,” she bit out scathingly, jutting her chin into the air. “But I don’t need any more of your lessons, nor do I want them.”

He closed the distance between them with a single step before she could dart away, cupping her face between his large hands and tilting her head back. She saw his angry eyes blaze like blue flames for one heartbeat before he seized her mouth beneath his, daring to plunder her lips in one last blazing kiss.

Lord help her, she let him, even as tears stung at her eyes. Losing herself beneath his strength and fierce determination, she kissed him back. How could she not, when his kiss was so torturously delicious? Sweet yet passionate, and so full of promise.

He tore his mouth away from hers. “You need my lessons.” His breath panted hot against her cheek. “More than you realize.”

His burning gaze dropped to her lips as he slowly backed away from her, as if he were afraid of what might happen if he stayed, of what their anger might drive them to this time.

As he turned and waded through the water to the bank, she stared after him, averting her eyes only at the last moment when his hips emerged from the water.

A new ache thumped brutally inside her. Although she couldn’t put a name to it, this longing was completely different from the desire to have his hands on her and his body inside hers, to be physically exhausted and satiated in his arms.

It was a longing to have him. All of him. Now and for the rest of her life.

And it terrified her.