Beneath the water’s surface, something brushed her waist. A fish? An eel? She batted at it, whirling.
“Easy. It’s just me.” His arm slid around her waist, and he pulled her close. They sank into the water, up to their necks. With a one-armed stroke, he tugged her between two boulders.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
He glanced up at the bluff. “Giving us some privacy. We need to talk.”
“Here? Now? We couldn’t converse in some normal time and place?”
“That’s the problem.” He pushed a hand through his dark, wet hair. “I can’t stop thinking about you. All the time. Everyplace. I have work to do up there. Men to drill. A watch to organize. A castle to defend. But I can’t even concentrate, for thinking of you.”
She stared at him. This? This was the conversation he wished to have. Well, she could see why he wouldn’t come calling at the house to bring it up over tea.
“You tell me why that is, Susanna. Keep in mind, you’re talking to a man who’ll march a hundred miles out of his way, just to avoid a romantic attachment.”
“Attachment?” She forced a casual laugh. An unconvincing string of ha-ha-has. “A barrel of warm pitch couldn’t attach me to you.”
He shook his head, looking perplexed. “I even like it when you snipe at me.”
“You’ve seen me with a gun. If I were to snipe at you, I promise you’d feel it. And you wouldn’t like it one bit.” She had to extricate herself from this situation, and his big, brawny arms. She wrestled in his grip, but he only embraced her more tightly.
“You’re not getting away. Not yet.” His deep voice sent ripples through the water. “We’re going to have this out, you and me. Right here. Right now. I’m going to tell you every wild, erotic, depraved thought you’ve inspired, and then you’re going to run home scared. Lock your bedchamber door and stay there for the next month so I can concentrate and do my damned duty.”
“That sounds like a very poorly thought-out plan.”
“Thinking’s not my strong point, of late.”
This rush of sensual awareness . . . oh, it was dangerous. She could grow to enjoy it. To be honest, she already enjoyed it. But she could grow to crave it, and that would make for difficult, lonely times ahead. She knew he needed a bit of human closeness. Perhaps because of the war he’d gone without it for too long. But at most, he had in mind a frantic tangle of body parts, not a meshing of hearts and souls.
“I want you,” he said simply. Starkly. Composure-destroyingly.
See? she told herself. He couldn’t be any more plain than that.
“I want you. I dream about you. I am desperate to be near you,” he said, sending a fresh shiver down her spine. “To touch you. All over.” His hands roamed over her arms and back. “What is this hideous thing you’re wearing?”
“It’s a bathing costume.”
“It feels like a shroud. And it’s too damned opaque.”
“Yes, well. That’s rather the point. Opacity.” Her breathing was quick; her words, stupid.
One of his hands slid down to capture her fingers. He raised them above the water’s surface, shaking them as though they were some kind of damning evidence. “Who wears gloves in the ocean?”
She swallowed hard. “I do.”
“These gloves of yours, they drive me mad. I want to strip them from your hands. Kiss those slender wrists, suck on each of those long, delicate fingers. And that would only be the beginning. I want to see the rest of you, too. Yours is a body made for a man’s pleasure. It’s a crime against nature to hide it.”
This could not be happening. Not to her. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. “Lord Rycliff. You’ve forgotten yourself.”
“No, I haven’t.” His green eyes held her captive. “I recall precisely who I am. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Victor St. George Bramwell, the Earl of Rycliff since a few days back. You’re Susanna Jane Finch, and I want to see you bare. Bare, and pale, and soaked to the roots of your hair, glistening with moonlight and drops of seawater. I’d lick the salt from you.”
His tongue swiped over her cheek, and she gasped. Her ni**les peaked, straining against the rough, wet fabric.
“You’re mad,” she breathed.
His lips grazed her ear. “I’m perfectly clear of mind. Want to test my recollection? On Mondays, you have country walks. On Tuesdays, sea bathing. Tomorrow, perhaps I’ll come find you in the garden and pull you into the shrubbery.”
The suggestion made her weak. She imagined his body, atop hers. The heat of him, contrasting with the cool, damp ground. Her mind conjured the scents of grass and earth.
“And on Thursday . . .” He pulled back and gave her a wicked look. “That’s interesting. We never did get to Thursday. Please tell me on Thursdays you oil yourselves up and wrestle Grecian-style.”