Chapter 5 #2
She suspected, however, it was already too late. He may have already permanently imprinted himself onto her.
He reached her side, and—oh, Lord—she dare not glance up, instead presenting him with her profile, her gaze fixed, unseeing, on the horizon. But what she saw at the edge of her vision…that was another matter.
He crouched beside her. “Lilah,” rumbled low in his chest.
“Hmm?” She didn’t have to unclench her jaw to make the utterance.
Below the scent of salty ocean traced citrus and cedar—him.
She caught it in her lungs and didn’t let it go for the span of a dozen rapid heartbeats, even as her left cheek blazed beneath the heat of his gaze.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” he said, the low murmur quaking through her. She felt a tug below her bottom.
Then she understood.
She was still holding his clothes captive.
And he wanted them back.
So he could dress himself.
Right.
She shifted to the side, and he slid the folded pile from beneath her. Indirectly, she watched him dress. Fustian trousers sliding up long, muscled legs. Efficient fingers buttoning the fall. Brown homespun slipping over his head. A quick tuck of the shirt into the waistband of his trousers.
Not yet fully dressed, but made decent enough for delicate, feminine eyes, she darted a glance toward him as he lowered to a seat beside her, his shoulder just not touching hers as they stared out to sea, side by side.
His proximity made her oddly nervous, as if the blood in her veins had a life of its own.
“I must admit I’m a little disappointed,” he said.
“And why is that, Your Grace?” She needed the distance his title provided.
“You didn’t attempt to extract a ransom for my clothes.”
“And what should my price have been?” she somehow asked.
He shifted to face her, his intense golden gaze landing on her to devastating effect.
Her lungs forgot how to breathe.
Her heart forgot how to beat.
This man… What was he doing to her?
Actually, that wasn’t the question on her body’s mind.
It was more concerned with what he presently wasn’t doing to her.
Awareness crackled through the air.
It occurred to Sebastian that he could reach out and take the nape of Delilah’s neck in his hand, his fingers sliding through silky blonde curls, and draw her forward.
The look in her eyes suggested she wouldn’t offer resistance.
But was that what he wanted for their first kiss?
First kiss.
A word that suggested that if there was one kiss, then another would surely follow.
But he wanted more from a Delilah kiss than a lack of resistance.
He wanted her to feel as if she would die without it.
He wanted an enthusiastic yes.
And while she might be close, she wasn’t quite there yet.
So, he snorted.
Her eyebrows crinkled together, and she blinked as if released from a trance. She also looked slightly disgruntled. Then she sniffed, and her gaze shifted toward the sea. “We cut inland tomorrow.”
Was this Lady Delilah Windermere making small talk? He hadn’t known her capable of it. He supposed he could play along, even as a pang of disappointment shot through him.
He should’ve kissed her.
And now the moment was lost.
“Aye,” he said, the syllable emerging on a grouchy note.
“And the bonfire tonight,” she continued. “Will you be attending?”
Ah. So it wasn’t small talk. “Why do you ask?” he asked, knowing exactly why, but wanting her to say it anyway.
She shrugged a shoulder.
“So you can decide whether or not to come yourself?” He wasn’t truly asking.
Her lips twitched as if deciding whether or not to smile—or frown. “Possibly.”
He chuckled. He couldn’t help himself. One thing he’d always appreciated about this woman: she was honest. “If you must know,” he said, “I’ll be collecting wood for the bonfire and helping construct it, so I shall, indeed, be in attendance.”
She released a deep sigh. “I didn’t have you down as one to involve himself in pagan beach happenings.”
“Well, Lady Delilah, you don’t know me at all.”
It had to be said.
Incredulous eyes swung his way. “I’ve known you for well over a decade. What a ridiculous thing to say.”
He shook his head. Though sand shifted beneath his arse, firm ground stood beneath his feet. “You’ve been acquainted with the Duke of Ravensworth, I’ll grant you that.”
“You are the Duke of Ravensworth.”
“That was the title I was given from the moment of my birth. Should I list all my other titles for you?”
“What exactly are you getting at?”
“The titles don’t make the man.”
She blinked, slowly. “You are the Platonic ideal of all that is Ravensworth. Who are you if you’re not him?”
“Seb, builder of beach bonfires and enactor of pagan happenings. But my point is, aren’t you curious about who I am? Who I truly am?”
A question she wasn’t ready to answer. He could see it in her eyes. She wanted him to be Ravensworth. So she could keep him tidy and contained within a single dimension.
All because of what happened at Eton.
In that moment, he decided. The time had arrived to have the truth of that day out between them.
He was opening his mouth to do precisely that, when she opened hers first. “About what happened,” she said. A light blush pinked her cheeks.
Though it sounded like a continuation of his own thoughts, she wasn’t speaking of Eton. Only one happening could provoke that particular blush… Their, erm, tête-a-tête beneath the stage.
“You’ll have to be more specific.” He wouldn’t be helping her with this.
She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “You don’t have any regrets for, erm, it?”
Regrets?
Was the woman mad?
“No,” he stated. It was the simple truth.
“No?”
He gave his head a slow shake. “Do you?”
“That’s not a question a gentleman would ask.”
She was evading.
He wouldn’t let her. “Lilah,” he began.
“I haven’t given you leave to call me Lilah,” she said, the picture of primness—except for her bare feet and the subject at hand.
He snorted. “May I call you Lilah?”
“You’re going to anyway,” she groused.
“True.” He caught her gaze and held it. “Here’s what you need to understand.”
“What?”
“I brought you pleasure, and to express regret for that would be a lie.”
“Oh.”
The awareness that ever simmered between them heated up by a degree.
Again, here was that urge to reach out and pull her close and press his mouth to hers.
But he kept his hand still at his side.
She bit her bottom lip between her teeth and released it. A new light shone in her eyes. One he’d only observed from a distance. This light had never been directed at him…until a week ago.
And now, again.
A wild light.
“You never told me what my price for the return of your clothes should’ve been,” she near whispered.
Why was she pushing this—pushing him? For the knowledge of his unanswered price shone in her eyes.
Then it occurred to him—walloped him over the head, really.
Here she was, voicing desire.
Here was her enthusiastic yes.
She wanted to pay the price.
He lifted his hand and slid his fingers through short, loose curls around to the nape of her neck. He angled forward, invading her space, so his mouth was only a whisper’s breath away. “This.”
Sweet.
That was his first impression of Delilah.
Her lips tasted of summer sunshine and fresh strawberries and salt picked up from the ocean breeze.
She tasted of everything he’d ever wanted in a kiss.
He swiped his tongue across her bottom lip. She gasped, then smiled against his mouth. She liked that. He did it again, and her tongue ventured out to meet his, its tip sliding across his lower lip, tangling with him.
Of course, these weren’t the first lips of Delilah’s that he’d experienced.
His cock, which had been at half-mast since he’d first spotted her in the dunes, went hard as stone.
And so, too, had those lips been wet.
He pulled her closer on a growl.
He’d never growled in his life.
But he was now.
For Delilah.
He caught the curve of her waist and tugged, and she released a sigh into his mouth as she swayed forward.
A rational thought pushed through the haze of desire fogging his brain.
If he went further with this kiss—crushed her body against his…
felt her cherry-hard nipples through the muslin of his shirt—there would be no turning back.
No turning back for him.
No turning back from Delilah.
But perhaps he’d already passed that point.
Perhaps he’d passed it years ago.
Of a sudden, her eyes flew open, as if she’d followed the flow of his thoughts and had come to the same realization.
But had arrived at a different conclusion, if the panic in those blue depths was a fair indicator.
The next instant, she broke away and pushed off his chest, scrambling back a good five feet.
He seemed ever to have that effect on her.
Her fingers touched lips swollen from the kiss.
“Was the price too high?” he asked.
What was this need ever to provoke her?
On a strangled cry, she shot to her feet.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
With another strangled cry, she whirled around and began clambering up the dune.
As he watched her manage to somehow slip and slide up the dune—no mean feat, that—a realization landed on Sebastian.
He was having quite a few of those lately.
This realization was one he hadn’t allowed to occur to him in all these weeks of traipsing around England in Lady Delilah Windermere’s wake.
No longer was he waiting for her to come to him.
He was actively pursuing her.
And she seemed to be meeting him somewhere near halfway.
Surprising, that.
He pushed to his feet and began following her, keeping her in his sights as they returned to camp. Whatever it was happening between them would go no farther than halfway if they didn’t have it out about Eton.
He realized that, too.
Simply, he didn’t want her to despise him anymore. Perhaps she would still despise him after he told her how and why events had transpired the way they had. But then, at least, she would despise him with all the correct information.
And, perhaps, she would stop despising him altogether.
He didn’t expect her to rush into his arms, proclaiming him her savior. But it would be nice if she desisted stabbing him with random murderous glares. Like the one she’d just thrown over her shoulder as they entered camp.
His instinct was to follow her to her caravan and have it out between them now. But two reasons stopped him.
First, the other two actresses sharing the caravan with her. Last time he’d happened upon Flora and Dorie they’d suggested each taking a turn having their way with him. Actually, it had sounded more like a promise than a suggestion.
And then there was Soppitt pointing a finger at him. The Duke of Ravensworth would’ve flicked away such a summons like a gnat off his sleeve. But Seb couldn’t. Not if he wanted to continue on in the company.
Not if he wanted to pursue matters with Delilah.
Right.
His feet switched direction. The time had arrived for him to start building a bonfire. Besides, a good stretch of honest toil was exactly what he needed.
Something—anything—to take his mind off Delilah.
Tonight.
Tonight he would have it out with her, and put an end to a past that would block some sort of future.
And while he wasn’t sure of that future, he had an inkling of what it might hold.
As flimsy as that might was, it held enough substance to impel him forward.