Page 67
“Nina’s Sweets is what I’ll call my pastry shop.”
“Nina’s Sweets,” he murmured. The breeze blew again, cool air streaming around them. A cove of warmth had formed between their bodies. He leaned toward her, narrowing the space. “Temptation itself.”
Her intake of breath thrilled him.
This wasn’t a dalliance. It was something more dangerous. With Nina Finch, he felt his mask slipping, and he forgot the horrors it concealed.
He skimmed his hand over her hair.
“Did your row with your brother do this?” He slid his finger down a stray lock. He hadn’t considered until now what it might mean, that her coiffure was slipping down around her shoulders.
Decent, she’d said of her brother. A decent man, rough-spoken.
Such tricks the mind played. Any fact could be reconciled with a ruling fiction. Warped into compatibility with the myth of a mother’s love. A brother’s decency.
“Did he lay a hand on you?” he asked.
“I lost a hairpin, that’s all,” she whispered.
He tipped up her chin.
“He’s never laid a hand on me.” Her moonlit eyes grew deeper the longer he looked. Her lips parted on a sigh.
“Let it be,” she said.
He did. He kissed her. Her mouth was soft, sweeter than fruit, sweet as a goblin orchard. The taste of magic itself. If he could learn the secret of this bewitchment, he wouldn’t feel so lost, but it was like a spell written in sugar, disappearing on his tongue. He pulled her into his arms, and then, God, he was overcome, drowning already, going down, gloriously, beneath the heaviness of her breasts and thighs, the heat of her breath, even as his cock strained up, and his heart tried to crash through his chest.
She licked his lip, as she’d done in the vestibule, the small, exploratory movement of her tongue eliciting his groan.
He rolled them over, pressing her into the grass, his hand sliding under her skirt to the top of her stocking, and just above, to the satiny skin. She gasped, and he felt her palm on his chest. His heart pounded against it with bruising force.
He lifted away his mouth, leaned his forehead on hers.
“Nina,” he said hoarsely.
“Alan,” she returned, and that thrilled him, too, as did the hitch in her voice.
“I invited you to swim.” He removed his body from hers, turning onto his side.
“I’d rather do this,” he said, and caressed her mouth with the pad of his thumb. “But I don’t want to make myself a liar.”
He felt her breath skip. He could see the shine of her eyes, but not their sentiment.
He rocked into a crouch. “Let’s swim, then.”
“I only splash.” She said it to the sky. “I’ll wade to my knees.”
“You don’t have to dip a toe.” He stood. “But I promise you, there’s nothing like swimming at night.”
With that, he shucked off his coat.
She sat up, staring with those wide, dark eyes.
He unbuttoned his waistcoat, one-handed. Her gaze on his fingers made their movement clumsier.
“You taught your nephew how to swim?” She stood and came to him and took his wrist. Her touch was cool, but it stoked a bloody inferno in his groin.
She lowered his arm to his side.
