Chapter 29
The rocking chair very nearly went over backwards.
Nigel just managed to save them from disaster by wrapping his arms tightly around her body, activating his core, and somehow, valiantly, surging forward enough to counter the pull of gravity.
This, in turn, nearly sent them tumbling to the flagstones, but he braced his legs, bent over her, his mouth still caught hard against hers, his heart thudding with the thrill of a plunge that didn’t quite happen.
And not altogether certain he wasn’t dreaming.
Still holding her tight, still feeling the overwhelming sensation of her arms around his neck, he drew his head back a little, gasping for air as the suction between their lips broke. Luna’s dark eyes stared up into his.
“I love you too,” she said.
“What—?” he began.
But she lunged again, and backwards they rocked.
Her mouth sought his wildly, this time not one kiss, but a series of desperate kisses, fast and hard and full-lipped.
“I—love—you!” she said, the words punctuated between kisses in short, gasping breaths.
“I—” She stopped and kissed him harder, her fingers twining in his hair, dragging him into her, as though she meant to swallow him alive.
He began to fear he would lose oxygen altogether, but she broke away just before he blacked out, and finished all in a rush, “—love you, Mr. Grimm!”
His chest heaved. His lungs struggled to gather in several great gulps of much-needed air. He blinked at her, his mouth opening and closing, until he finally managed to blurt out, “I think you can call me Nigel now.”
“Oh, Nigel!” she cried, a little whimpering sound that completely undid whatever small strands of restraint to which he still clung.
This time, when she lunged for him, he answered her kisses in kind, hot and hungry and a little too rough for comfort.
She didn’t seem to care. She devoured him right back, her head changing position again and again as though seeking to taste him from every possible angle.
Her tongue flicked against his lips, and he opened to her, shocked at her boldness, thrilled, elated.
His hands ran up the silky back of her nightgown, found bare flesh at her shoulders and neck, then tangled in the limp strands of hair for a moment before traveling back down to her waist. Always conscious of gentlemanly boundaries, but only just.
She was much less reserved. Her fingers moved from his hair to his chest, slipping inside his unbuttoned shirt to explore the planes of his chest. The feeling of her small palms on his flesh was a sensation of which he had scarcely dared dream, and Nigel knew she must feel his heart racing right through his ribs in response.
With a groan, his mouth moved from her lips to her jaw, her ear.
Little trilling cries sang from her lips as she lifted her chin and leaned her head back, exposing her long neck to him.
And who was he to resist such an invitation?
He let his mouth descend that pale column, felt how each brush of his lips, each scrape of his teeth, each flicker of his tongue, sent shivers through her, rippling down her spine, felt in the palms of his molding hands.
He came to her collarbone, pressed a kiss to that sweet indent, then journeyed up again, this time on the other side, discovering new points of sensitivity, new ways to make her quiver and whimper.
She was so deliciously responsive to every touch, her body alive in his arms and brimming with an energy which intoxicated his senses.
He reclaimed her mouth and kissed her forcefully, his groan mingling with hers.
He did not break that connection, but pressed deeper, harder, his hand cupping the back of her head while her own hands clung to his neck.
When he pulled away at last, he growled, “I should have done this a long time ago.”
“Yes! You should have!” She drew back to look at him, a frown creasing suddenly between her brows. “Why didn’t you?”
“Well . . .” He paused, blinking. “I don’t know.”
“Idiot,” she said.
“Completely,” he replied and kissed her again.
She shimmied in his arms a little, and his searching hand, moving once more up her spine, discovered that the strap of her nightie had slipped down her arm.
That brought back a rush of heated memories, memories he had fought long and hard to suppress since Green Yule’s Eve, but which were still very much alive and kicking.
A whole new burst of fire roared through his veins.
At this point, with the way she straddled him, he didn’t think there was much hope of hiding what she was doing to his body, but .
. . well, that didn’t mean he had to be a complete rake, did he?
He glided his hand along the lovely line of her neck and her bared shoulder.
Then he grabbed the strap of her nightie and slipped it back into place.
Luna stiffened. He felt a little frown forming under his mouth, but when he pressed her with more ardent kisses, she answered, mewling sweetly, and the frown disappeared.
She shimmied once more, a lovely quiver of her slender torso.
His hand made the journey up her spine again, only to find that, this time, the other nightie strap had fallen.
Once more, he allowed his fingers to trace along the lovely curve uninterrupted.
Giving in to a moment of temptation, he dropped his head, planting a kiss right there, in that delectable patch of skin where the strap should be.
Then he slid it back into place again.
“Mr. Grimm!” Luna yipped, her voice sharp. “What are you doing?”
Nigel yanked his head back, surprised. He found her glaring fiercely at him, and some of the fire in his veins abated in a sudden rush of fear.
Had he overstepped? Gods, he shouldn’t have kissed her shoulder!
That was too much, too far. He must remember how innocent she was, he must remember to protect her, he must—
Removing her hands from his neck, Luna looked him straight in the eye.
Then she pulled both straps off her shoulders. They fell most of the way down her soft upper arms, and the low-cut front of her nightgown slipped dangerously lower.
Nigel’s soul left his body. He was nothing but an empty vessel filled with molten heat. He could feel lava surging through his hollowed-out core, flames bursting from the corners of his eyes, tongues of fire licking from his panting mouth.
Luna took firm hold of his wrist. “Stop trying to be a gentleman,” she growled, “and make love to me.”
And she placed his hand precisely where she wanted it.
Nigel bucked.
He couldn’t help it. His whole body jerked violently. There was a moment of weightless suspension of all reality, where every focus zeroed in only on that point of contact where his palm met silk and flesh and then—
The rocking chair hit the flagstone floor with a loud crash. The back of Nigel’s head cracked along with it, and Luna’s forehead connected with his. He saw stars. Not the same, brilliant stars he was seeing moments ago. A whole new host of red, painful stars, whirling.
“Ouch,” he said.
“Ugh,” she answered.
Her palms found his chest once more, and she pushed up a little bit to stare down at him. His legs pointed straight up in the air, while her knees were oddly pinned on either side of him. And his hand was still most interestingly positioned.
“Well!” Luna breathed, casting a furtive look around. “Let’s hope that didn’t wake the aunties!” Then, heedless of their painfully uncomfortable position, she pressed her mouth aggressively to his again, and all the pain in Nigel’s head vanished in a flood of far more agreeable sensations.
For a moment, he was tempted to do as ordered.
To give in to every single urge pulsing through him, body and soul.
To do exactly what he had longed to do since almost the first moment he saw her, though he had fought valiantly to suppress the more specific details in his imagination in a bid to honor her dignity and personhood.
But those desires had always been there.
Suppressed or otherwise, they lived, they burned.
But no! No, this wasn’t how he wanted this to go! This wasn’t how he wanted things to be between them. Certainly not with his feet in the air, and his spine squashed into rocking chair rungs, and her knees digging into his hipbones.
With a little cry and determined push, Nigel pressed her back from him.
A series of wiggles, and somehow he managed to scoot out from underneath her.
He backed away across the flagstones until he hit the wall.
His shirt hung open, his hair was all askew, and he stared at her like she was a wolf on the make.
Luna crawled awkwardly off the chair and knelt on the hearth, sitting up and pushing her hair back from her face.
This brought her nightie straps mercifully back into proper position, but the firelight emphasized just how very light and sheer that nightie was, doing very little to help the situation.
“Nigel?” she queried, looking at him with an expression of innocent confusion that did not correlate with her kiss-swollen lips, flushed cheeks, and tousled hair.
“What’s wrong? Don’t you . . .” A silver shimmer gleamed in her dark eyes. “Don’t you want to make love to me?”
“Oh, Luna!” He uttered her name like the last breath of life itself. “Luna, I don’t want to be your lover!”
Her eyes widened. Her mouth dropped open.
“Oh,” she whispered.
Only then did Nigel hear how his words probably sounded. “Wait,” he said. “Wait that’s not what I—”
“Oh!” Luna clapped her hands to her cheeks, her expression flooding with horror. By the glow of the firelight, he watched first as all the blood drained from her cheeks only to be replaced by a terrible red flare. “Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry! Oh, I should have—I can’t believe I—”
Quicker than thought, she scrambled to her feet, the hem of her long nightgown falling nearly to her ankles.
Nigel, still a bit dazed from the crash and everything preceding it, wasn’t quite as fast, but he managed to get up and spring after her.
He caught her just as she reached the first step of the stairwell, his fingers closing around her slender wrist. “Luna!” he barked. “Stop!”
“No, no!” she cried. “I’m so, so sorry, Mr. Grimm! I can’t believe I—Oh gods! Just let me go! Let me go!”
This last came out in a desperate little scream, and she wrenched her arm, trying to break his hold. But Nigel slipped his other hand around her waist, forcing her to turn and face him. “Luna,” he growled roughly, “I said I don’t want to be your lover because I want to be—”
In that moment, the stillness of the Crimble Mountain night was broken by a horrific caterwauling: “Oooooooh, luuuurv! Li-ga . . . liga rooooooose inna raaaaaain!”
Drunken, tuneless. Loud enough to wake the dead. The owner of that voice staggered up to the back door of Tealeaf Cottage and pounded on it repeatedly. “Oi! Aunties!” the songster slurred. “You got any o’dat nasty tea? My pa’s gonna whoop me a good one if’in you don’t fix me up!”
Nigel, who had startled at the noise and whirled to face the door, heard Luna’s soft curse like a sob behind him. “Oh, Green Mother, it’s the vicar’s stupid son!”
With that, she slipped free of his grasp and raced up the stairs, two at a time.
Nigel turned to call after her, but his voice was cut off by the slam of her door, followed by a sudden flash of light bursting into the kitchen.
Auntie Arabella emerged from the back of the cottage, her hair in rollers, clutching a shawl with one hand and holding up a candle with the other.
“I’ve got you, Horace, luv!” she called out.
“We’ll get you sobered up in no time, don’t you worry! ”
She paused when she saw Nigel standing there at the base of the stairs.
Her quick gaze flicked to take in the tossed paperback novel, the knocked over rocking chair, and his flushed complexion.
A smirk creased her thin lips. It didn’t look like the sort of expression that belonged on a little old spinster lady’s face.
“Get on upstairs with you,” she said, jerking her chin. “I’ve got to take care of the vicar’s son, and you’ll only get in the way down here. Go on! Scoot!”
“Erm,” Nigel said.
Then, because he didn’t know what else to do, he turned and started up the stairwell. Behind him, he heard the back door open and a drunken voice saying, “Auntie, did you know there’s a big kitty in your yard? Like a really big kitty!”
Auntie Arabella’s answer faded from hearing, however, as he stood outside Luna’s door, blood throbbing in his ears. Summoning up all the courage in his soul, Nigel knocked.