Chapter 4 #2
“Would you?” There was no fear in his tone, no anger, not even any sense of urgency.
“The thought is tempting.”
His chuckle floated up to her, easing her nerves, and she wondered what sort of boy Sir Westcott had been. If she ever met this stepmother he spoke of so fondly, she would ask her.
Taking a deep breath, she gripped the rope and tugged it.
It seemed to be holding firmly. She braced one boot in a chink in the wall, and with the other, searched for a foot hold, sliding the toe of her boot into a space where the mortar was missing.
Hand over hand, very slowly, she’d almost reached the jutting timber, when a loud crack sliced the air around her head.
A piece of timber whizzed past her ear, and the rope dropped from her hands as she clawed at the wall, and then at open air.
With a scream and a whoosh, she flew, landing sprawled on her stomach, caught by strong arms. The loud oof she heard came from Sir Westcott, knocked backwards to the floor.
Long moments passed before she could catch her breath, and then more long moments as her heart pounded and all her senses alerted.
She’d not only landed on Sir Westcott, she’d landed atop him, her breasts smashed against his waistcoat, her heart pounding in time with his, his arms holding her close. The lantern had gone out. They were submerged in darkness.
But her other senses were working quite well; too well. His breathing was as ragged as hers. Dear Lord, she could feel the taut muscles of his chest moving up and down, and smell the starch in his neckcloth.
She lifted her head, and her nose touched his chin, scratchy with evening stubble. If she just lifted her head a little higher…
“I say, Sybil. Are you injured?”
How did he not sound breathless? There was real concern in his tone.
“N-n-no,” she said on another ragged breath, and the shock of the fall, of flailing about in the air hit her. She choked back a sob.
His hand stroked her back. “Shhh.”
The tenderness in his voice sent warmth spiraling through her. Perhaps he’d rail at her later, but for now…
“Apologies,” she said, rallying. “Are you all right?”
A long pause followed, and he finally said. “In truth, never better.”
There’d been nothing flirtatious in his tone. He’d been dead serious, and that intensity had her senses reeling again with awareness. She ought to roll off him. She ought to... Dear Lord, she wondered about kissing him. She had to get hold of herself.
“Not light as a feather then, am I?” she asked, trying to break the spell.
His chuckle vibrated near her ear, sending more warmth through her and a growing, dazzling, mad temptation. He smelled so delicious—of good soap and some pleasant masculine scent. Despite chasing her across half of Devil’s Dyke, he smelled clean.
As she lifted her head, the clouds outside moved and faint light glimmered through the high window, illuminating his lips. They were curved up in a smile.
In all her twenty-four years, she’d never let a man kiss her. She’d never initiated a kiss.
She’d never felt this way before.
His hand moved to the back of her head. His eyes gleamed up at her, and the smile on his lips faltered and transformed to a look of wonder.
“Sybil,” he said.
Dragging her hand up, she cupped his jaw, dipped her head, and pressed her lips to his. Warmth, softness, the scent of brandy made her dizzy, unable to think, unable to do anything but feel ripples of pleasure as his hands moved over her.
* * *
Wes’s brain functioned feebly for a few minutes more. He’d kissed and been kissed before, but he’d never been flattened. Which he had been in all ways except, well, that one.
He’d managed to catch Sybil and then roll back awkwardly without bashing his head on the crates. He’d managed to cushion her fall to this floor, which was not the hard-packed earth he was expecting. Between the shock of it and her luscious body pressing into him, his brains were addled.
Hers must be, too. When he kissed her—or was it her kissing him?
—her lips touched his ever so gently, ever so briefly.
As she lifted away, his fingers found her head, tunneling in the soft curls and sliding away the tie that restrained them.
He was a gentleman, that was true, but she was a handful of woman laid out atop him.
She needed to stop him. He prayed she would stop him.
“Oh,” she said, and her lips came down on his again, and now she truly was pressing and moving her lips over his.
He angled her head and parted his lips and entered her with his tongue and felt her pause, but for only a moment until she joined him in a proper kiss that had her writhing, and him grasping for sanity, for the part of him that knew he mustn’t go any further.
He pushed them both up to sitting with her still atop him and buried his face in her neck, searching for the spot that drove women wild. Sybil’s legs straddled him—thank heavens she wore trousers. She sighed loudly and then stiffened.
“S-sir Westcott,” she said.
“Call me Wes,” he murmured into her neck, and tugged her tighter. And then remembered… he was a gentleman. This was Sybil, the girl he was meant to be courting.
Courting, not trying to swive.
“You’re right,” he said. “Apologies.”
She scooted off him, none too gently, and they both got to their feet. “I kissed you first. I’m… I’m not sorry. I’ve never been kissed.”
“Never been kissed?”
“Never allowed it. Did you notice,” she said, rattling on, “under the layers of dust and dirt, this floor is wooden? This must have been a granary. It’s set on a slope, but it’s level, held up by staddle stones, you know, to keep out the vermin.
To keep out water as well. We’re right above a stream that surely must swell in heavy rains.
These lower walls are flint and bungaroosh—perhaps we could kick a hole in them.
Or pick out a hole with our blades. Or maybe pry up a loose floorboard. ”