Devil in Spring

His fingers spread over the back of her head, cupping the curve of her skull, and he broke the kiss to work his way down the side of her throat. She began to breathe in gasps at the feel of his lips moving slowly over the most deliriously sensitive places, the most delicate skin. The wet velvet friction caused gooseflesh to rise all over. She lost the feel of her bones, sinking against him while pleasure pooled at the pit of her stomach like melted sun.

Reaching the joint where her neck connected with her shoulder, Gabriel lingered there, touching it with his tongue. The edges of his teeth clamped down in a soft bite, and a helpless shiver wracked her. He worked his way back up with supple, searching kisses. By the time he reached her mouth again she couldn’t hold back a mortifying whimper of eagerness. Her lips felt swollen, and the firm, savoring pressure was an exquisite relief. Clutching her arms around his neck, she pulled his head down, urging him to kiss her harder, longer. She dared to explore his mouth the way he had hers, and that drew a low pleasured sound from his throat. He was so delicious and silky that she couldn’t stop herself from putting her hands on the sides of his face and claiming him aggressively. She kissed him harder, deeper, feasting on the luscious interior of his mouth with uncontrollable greed.

With a smothered laugh, Gabriel pulled his head back and gripped a hand in her hair. Like her, he was panting for breath. “Pandora, love,” he said, his eyes brilliant with mingled heat and amusement, “you kiss like a pirate.”

She didn’t care. She needed more of him. She was throbbing in every limb, feeling too much at once, shaking with a hunger she didn’t know how to satisfy. Clutching his shoulders, she sought his mouth again and arched against the hard masculine contours of his body. Not enough . . . she wanted him to crush her, take her to the ground, and hold her there with his full weight.

Gabriel kept the kiss light, trying to gentle her. “Easy, my wild girl,” he whispered. When she refused to calm down, still shaking, he relented and gave her what she wanted, fastening his mouth over hers, siphoning pleasure from her with sweet erotic pulls.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” A woman’s exasperated voice came from several yards away, startling Pandora as if someone had just tossed a bucket of cold water on them.

It was Phoebe, who had come back along the holloway to find them. She had discarded her robe and stood there in her bathing costume, hands braced on slender hips. “Are you coming to the beach,” she asked her brother irritably, “or are you going to seduce the poor girl in the middle of the holloway?”

Disoriented, Pandora became aware of a flurry of jubilant movement near her legs. Ajax had run back along the holloway to bounce and prance around them, and paw at the skirt of her robe.

Feeling the way she was trembling, Gabriel kept holding her, his palm resting on her back between her shoulder blades. His chest moved with the ragged rhythm of his breathing, but he sounded calm and collected as he replied. “Phoebe, the fact that I asked you to be a chaperone should have made it obvious that I didn’t want a chaperone at all.”

“I have no desire to be one,” Phoebe retorted. “However, the children are asking why you’re taking so long, and I can’t very well explain to them that you’re a libidinous goat.”

“No,” Gabriel replied, “because then you would sound like a parsimonious prig.”

Pandora was perplexed by the quick, fond grins the siblings exchanged after the sharp words.

Rolling her eyes, Phoebe turned and strode away. Ajax bolted after her—with Pandora’s hat clamped in his mouth.

“That dog will cost me a fortune in hats,” Gabriel said dryly. His hands stroked her back and neck, while the rough pounding of her heart eased slowly.

It took at least a half-minute before Pandora could speak. “Your sister—she saw us—”

“Don’t worry, she won’t say a word to anyone. She and I like to bait each other, that’s all. Come.” Nudging her chin upward, he stole a last swift kiss, and pulled her along the path with him.

Chapter 8

They emerged from the holloway into a landscape unlike anything Pandora had seen except in photographs or engravings . . . a wide belt of pale sand extending toward a white-frothed ocean, and more blue sky than she’d ever seen at one time. The foreshore was backed by dunes anchored in place with bushy grasses and spiky flowering plants. Toward the west, the sand graded to pebble and shingle before the ground ascended to chalk cliffs that bordered the promontory. The air was filled with the rhythmic collapse of waves and soft rushes of water flattening across the sand. A trio of herring gulls pecked over a bit of food, squabbling with thin, sharp cries.

It didn’t look like Hampshire or London. It didn’t seem like England at all.

Phoebe and the two boys stood farther along the shore, engaged in unwinding the string of a kite. Seraphina, who had been wading in ankle-deep water, noticed Pandora and Gabriel, and scampered toward them. She had removed her shoes and stockings, and the trousers of her bathing costume were sodden from the knees down. Her strawberry-blonde hair hung in a loose braid over one shoulder.

“Do you like our cove?” Seraphina asked, with an expansive gesture at their surroundings.

Pandora nodded, her awed gaze traveling across the scenery.

“I’ll show you where to put your robe.” Seraphina led her to a bathing-machine that had been left near a dune. It was a small enclosed room set on high wheels, with a set of steps leading up to a door. A removable hook ladder had been affixed to one of the outside walls.