Chapter 13 #2
When he reached her, he was breathing hard, as much from the beads of water rolling down her temple as from the exercise. He could stand with his shoulders just above the water, though she still treaded lazily beneath the surface. The boughs above cast shadows on her pretty face.
“You were right,” she whispered. “It is freeing. I feel wind-light and sun-clear. Adjectives, both. Meaning… how this makes me feel. How… you make me feel.”
He felt light, too, his heart a kite. But certain parts of his body were tightening, becoming heavy and unignorable.
A droplet rolled down her cheek. He wanted to lap it up. He wanted to tie her around him so she could never float away.
“You will not feel so free,” he rumbled, “if we are caught, and you are forced to marry me.”
“You would not allow that. Think of what it would do to your rakish reputation.”
“Solidify it.”
“Banish it. You’d find yourself married to a staid spinster.”
“Is that how you see yourself?”
Her gaze tracked across every inch of his face, lower, across his shoulders and what was visible of his chest.
“Excellent architecture,” she mumbled.
“I’m sure you’ve seen better. On the Continent.”
“I can’t be sure. Perhaps I should… investigate further.”
He swam closer. “Perhaps you should.” He was supposed to be avoiding touching and kissing and all those things he wanted so badly.
But then she swam closer, too, and she cupped the back of his neck, and her bare legs brushed against his, and he quite forgot why he was supposed to avoid them.
Nose to nose, they inhaled and exhaled the same air, and Remmy’s world narrowed to the steady hazel of a well-known woman’s eyes. Heat and lapping water and skin against skin.
And then a kiss.
Her hand curled in his hair, proprietary.
Good. He was hers.
But her lips tasted him as if they had never kissed before.
Unacceptable. He needed more.
He may have dropped his brain somewhere in the middle of the lake.
Beneath the branches and in the shadows, he became his body, grasping her hips and pulling her flush against him.
Her legs knew what to do, wrapping round his waist. The more of her skin melted into his own beneath the water, the hungrier he grew.
He teased the seam of her lips, and she parted so easily for him with a sigh that tilted the entire world.
Her core clenched against his abdomen, and he cursed into the kiss. She made little moans as she rocked against him, kissing him as if she’d been doing it for years.
She tasted of sunshine and Tessa, and her wet hair was a heavy tangle against his arms as he held her tight, kissed her hard.
Her arse perched on his stacked forearms, and she weighed nothing in the water.
Together they were feather-light and, hell, he felt like walking right up out of the lake holding her just as he was and marching around the house for all to see.
“Mine,” he growled against her lips.
She broke the kiss with a gasp, and he took the opportunity to explore.
“Mine,” he growled against her neck, biting, sucking until she whimpered and tugged his hair.
He licked a line up her neck and dotted kisses up her jaw to whisper in her ear, “Mine.”
“What do you mean?”—her voice a low drone—“when you said you would play the suitor with me?”
“I meant exactly what I said.”
“You’re courting me?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
She had a choice to make soon, and he needed to give her a damn good reason to choose him.
I love you.
Oh, Remmy, thank you.
A memory to deflate his cock.
“Because I want you.” He kissed her swollen lips, and she sighed, melting in the circle of his arms.
And that soft sound unwound him. Made him hard, too. Harder. The tip of his cock flirted with the sumptuous curve of her arse, and his body tingled, tightened.
A whistle, a little like a bird’s and a little too human. “Rem!” called a voice from the shore above the rustle of leaves and branches.
“Horace?” Remmy hissed. He clutched Tessa to him, turning so his back was to the shore and she was hidden from any prying eyes.
“Yes. You’d better get out of there and up to the house.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Keeping watch, mate. Wouldn’t do to have you caught, now would it. You can thank me later.” A bush appeared to be talking, leaves shaking with every word. “Freddy says there’s company up at the house who wants to see Tessa.”
Tessa stiffened, her limbs strangling him.
He smoothed a hand down her spine. “Don’t worry.” He lifted a hand for the bush and waved. “Thank you.”
He waited for the rustle of leaves indicating Horace had left. Then he untangled their limbs and pushed Tessa through the water. “You get out first.”
She floated backward. “Why not you? Are you hesitant for me to see you naked? Is your submerged architecture not so pristine?” Said as if her legs had not been wrapped securely enough around him to say very well what he felt like beneath the water.
“Perhaps beneath you look like Lord Brawly. All hair and three moles on the right—ahem—globe.”
“Three? That seems rather extravagant.”
“He cannot control the number of moles on his backside, Remmy.”
He shooed her toward the shore, glad their easy back-and-forth saved her from too much worry. Very few people would come to Crossvale specifically to visit Tessa, and he usually did not like how those people made her feel.