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“This is your friend whose mother grew lemon trees,” Neal spoke quietly, both thumbs making small circles.

His memory was keen.

Talking to him was dangerous. She wanted to share more of herself than was wise. Maybe she was through with talking.

She took a breath and jumped to his barrel. He swayed backward and clasped her against his chest, but he didn’t lose his footing. He wouldn’t. He was the lithest man alive.

“We have to leap from barrel to barrel,” she said, mouth muffled by his cravat.

“Mmm,” he said. “Those were hogsheads we leapt between, twice the size of these barrels. And we weren’t full-grown.”

He was full-grown now. Hard and tall and full. Held close, she rose and fell with his breaths.

“I’ll return to my barrel, then,” she said, her reluctance an invitation, and tipped her head to look at him. His mouth met hers, that bright taste on his lips, his tongue stroking into her, the feeling inside her sweet and then sharp, an urgency that made her twine her arms around his neck, crush her breasts against his broad chest.

He felt it too. He deepened the kiss, one hand tracing down the side of her body, the swell of her breast, the dip of her waist, the flare of her hip, before he caught her beneath the buttocks and gathered her more fully into him. Oh, he was gorgeously thick and firm and strong, and safe. The barrel might splinter beneath their feet and send them crashing to the flagstones, but she’d leapt to him. She couldn’t be hurt, not in his arms.

Now his teeth were running lightly down her neck, and he was licking the curve of her shoulder, lingering there before kissing back up the front of her throat, burning kisses. His chin rasped skin warmed and wetted by his mouth. He bit the lobe of her ear and she moaned aloud, felt his smile on the soft underside of her chin as he nuzzled her, forcing her head back. As her back arched, her breasts pushed up, and his hand wandered over her collarbones, cool leather sliding down the slopes of her breast, then tangling in lace.

This, too, this could take a good while.

Provided Neal’s strength held.

And the barrel.

In fact, the situation was rather precarious. Physically. Not to mention that a few feet away, beyond the open door, the whole village of Kyncastle was assembled.

She opened her eyes as he dragged his mouth from her neck. His eyes were gleaming, lids heavy with desire, but that glint—his teasing look.

“This barrel is going to go the way of that stone wall,” he predicted.

“I won’t bear all the responsibility.” Her voice shivered only slightly. And he couldn’t hear the wild pounding of her heart. She sounded almost as teasing, as collected, as he did.

“Everything is ancient here and near to crumbling,” she said. “And you outweigh me by five stone.”

Gently, he put her from him, lifting and shifting her again without any apparent strain until her heels came down on her own barrel.

He wasn’t senselessly, torrentially in love with her. But the desiring, teasing, burning-hot look in his eyes was encouraging, to say the least.

If they weren’t in a musty, dusty, spider-filled storage room from the Middle Ages, he wouldn’t be heaving that sigh, crossing his arms. He’d be doing something else. To her. With her.

“Shall we join the dance?” he asked.

She stared at him, that blunt, rough face spangled with those luxuriant eyes, and considered her course of action.

Was it better to wait it out in the antechamber or make a dash through the crowd for the door? Both had their risks.

“We’ll stay right here,” she said. “If I’m to learn to jig, I prefer a private lesson.”

“Snob,” he murmured.

“What kind of snob kicks up her skirts on a barrel?” she demanded, crossing her left foot over her right, then her right over her left, adding a little hop once she had the way of it. Not a jig, exactly, but he couldn’t discount the effort.

He didn’t. He clapped his hands along with the music, grinning his admiration.

“My kind of snob,” he said.

Chapter Nine