“By yourself?”
“Usually.” Jack looked at the opposite bank, where the trees and shrubs crowded down to the water. “The village is a fair distance away, and there’s no other farm close. To get here any of the local lads had to cross a lot of manor land, and they were scared of Cruikshanks, our gamekeeper.”
Beside him, Boadicea stared at the smooth surface of the pool. “There’s rarely anyone here.” She glanced up and caught his eye. “I often walk this way. It’s a lovely spot and almost always deserted.”
Precisely why he’d steered her there. He raised his brows at her. “You fish?”
Her brows rose even higher, infinitely more haughty. “Not here, but I do fish, as it happens.”
He blinked. “Another activity not on the list of recommended occupations for a marquess’s daughter.”
She laughed and turned along the path. “I have three older brothers. When we were children, they disappeared with their rods whenever they could.”
“And little sister followed?”
She inclined her head. “Whenever I could. Which was more frequently than my stepmother would have wished, but then she was one of the principal reasons I used to slip away.”
“You didn’t get along with her?”
“No, but my going fishing wasn’t only because of that. Much to her disgust, I was never particularly concerned with being a ‘proper little lady.’” She glanced back and caught his eye. “I was never little, for a start, and, of course, I was always being lectured that fishing was for boys, which only made me more determined to enjoy it.”
Jack smiled. He found no difficulty imagining a much younger Boadicea determinedly forging her own path through life. Elements of her background as James had described it floated across his mind; clearly willfull self-determination was a deeply ingrained trait.
She was drifting along the path, not strolling as they had been, but nevertheless moving on. He shifted, soundlessly followed. A beam of sunlight struck through the canopy and caught in her hair; it glowed richly, facets of blood-red garnet flaming in the dark mass of her chignon.
His fingers itched to slide into the silky weight. Burned to stroke the fine satin of her nape, the evocative curve exposed and vulnerable as she looked down at the path.
He closed the distance between them, caught her arm, drew her to face him, halted, and smoothly drew her into his arms.
She blinked, eyes widening as she realized. He smothered a gloating, too-hungry smile. “We haven’t yet celebrated our victory over Jones.”
She didn’t pull back, didn’t even tense; there was no recoil, no resistance in her. Her eyes searched his, then her brows rose lightly. “No—we haven’t.”
Her voice was a touch breathless, but there was no trepidation—no equivocation—in her lovely eyes. Her direct gaze sent desire lancing through him; she was waiting, calmly agreable, to see what he would do….
“I think we should.” He bent his head.
She lifted her lips. “So do I.”
Chapter 7
The kiss started innocently, a light brush of lips; that lasted for all of one second. Hunger erupted, unexpected, unprecedented, and roared through them both. Their lips fused, melded; she pressed closer as he gathered her to him.
Her lips parted beneath his, inviting, inciting; he plunged in, seized, plundered, and sensed her delight.
He molded her to him, urged on by the flagrant fire in her kiss, in the wordless but eloquent invitation she blatantly laid before him. She wanted as he did, with the same single-minded purpose, with the same urgency, the same need.
A need he for one didn’t fully understand, one that overwhelmed with just a kiss, that too easily—effortlessly—swept them into a conflagration that threatened and demanded but one end. An end they both transparently desired; she sank against him, her arms locked about his neck, her fingers spearing through his hair to hold him, to snare him, to willingly surrender to him.
Her wish was implicit in every shifting, seductive slide of her long, sumptuous body against his. In every shared gasp as they kissed, in every tantalizing stroke of her tongue against his. Desire answered, roaring through his veins, thudding in his fingertips.
Here. Now.
He heard the clamor clearly, sensed it not just in the throbbing hardness of his body but in the heated softness of hers.
But…the same instincts that had kept him alive through thirteen long years still functioned. It was unlikely anyone would venture by, yet they were in the open. Taking her here, now…no.
Such a coupling, however passionate and satisfying, would necessarily be restricted by their clothes, and when he first sank into Boadicea, he wanted her naked beneath him. Wanted to be naked, too, to feel her skin against his, feel the satin smoothness of her thighs grip his flanks as he rode her….