Nora couldn’t stop the laughter that burst free at Thomas’s seriousness. “Rakes? Are those the most dangerous of that group?”
“By far.”
“Is that so?” Nora leaned in as well until they were close enough to feel the heat of one another’s body, enjoying the way his pupils dilated and nearly swallowed the ice-blue irises. “And what have I to fear from a rake?”
“A great deal,” Thomas said, his voice even lower and graver than it had been. “For one…” He suddenly wrapped his hands around Nora’s waist and, even before she could release a yelp of surprise, he had her seated atop the stone wall where he’d once been propped. Where his feet had been on the ground, hers dangled just low enough to graze the tops of the grass at the base of the wall. “He’d be far stronger than you and able to get you exactly where he wants you.” Her hands gripped the rough edge of the stones on either side of her hips, but it was more to keep her grounded in reality than out of safety. She trusted Thomas to never allow her to fall.
“I could resist,” she teased, but the effect was lost in her breathless voice. Thomas’s lips tilted in a wicked smile and the tip of his nose grazed hers.
“Would you want to, though?” He covered her hands in his, bracing himself and pressing his narrow hips in between her legs. The position was scandalous…and exciting. It left her nothing short of breathless.
“N—No…” she sighed, wishing with everything inside her that he would kiss her. Instead, his lips skated over her cheek, barely grazed her lips, and then drifted lower as he inhaled the scent of her throat. Nora’s head fell back with a shiver and she would have clutched him to her had he not been pinning her hands.
“So you would allow the rake a kiss?” Thomas’s tongue darted out to taste the dip of her collarbone and she could only whimper in reply to his query. “I wonder…what other liberties you might offer the rake.” He pressed his lower body flush between her thighs as if he somehow knew a wicked, wet achehad begun to throb there. There were too many layers of clothing between them for her to feel much more than the foreign, yet delicious, pressure. She opened her thighs wider to urge him closer, barely registering what an utter wanton it made her. Thomas would not judge her.
In fact, he seemed to enjoy it.
He nipped her throat in response before finally covering her lips with his and kissing her deeply. Their tongues stroked and dueled in a tantalizing rhythm that Nora didn’t understand, but she knew she liked a great deal.
All too soon, Thomas broke their kiss, sealing it with a small peck on the tip of her nose. “Come with me,” he murmured and then surprised her by vaulting over the wall in one graceful movement.
“Where are we going?” Nora asked as he helped her swing her legs over the wall and descend to the tall grass. She was still a bit unsteady from their kiss, but she felt much better when he wove their fingers together and tugged her along.
“Just up ahead,” he gestured with his chin toward the even line of trees ahead of them. Together, they laughed and dashed through the field, their bodies parting waving stalks of verdant grass like ships in the ocean’s swells.
At first, Nora was confused by the evenly spaced trees—nature did not work this way—but then she realized where they were. He’d brought her to the far side of the orchard. She and Beth had never ventured this far, nor had they viewed the lands from this vantage point.
“I was walking the orchard with the caretakers,” Thomas explained when they slowed their pace to weave in and out of the apple trees, still hand-in-hand. The air was heavy with the sweet, crisp pollen of the trees’ blossoms. It was the height of their season and, soon, the flowers would fall away in great showers of petals to reveal dainty apple buds. She and Beth would filcha few choice apples before the great harvest took place as the seasons melted from Summer to Fall. “We finished and I caught sight of your blue dress down the road.”
“And you were so certain it was I?”
Thomas spun her and pressed her against the trunk of the nearest tree—not hard enough that the bark hurt her back, but firmly enough that she couldn’t easily slip away. “I would know you anywhere.” The deepness of his timbre made her nipples furl into tight buds against the confining fabric of her pleated bodice.
Emboldened, Nora fisted the loose fabric of his shirt and tugged him flush against her so she could stand on her toes and place a kiss upon his lips. Any surprise Thomas experienced at her boldness quickly morphed into appreciation. Their kisses and caresses evolved into something more and more passionate as the minutes passed. There, in the far corner of the estate, far from prying eyes and interruptions, they were free to explore.
Nora’s searching hands crept up the untucked hem of Thomas’s shirt, thrilled by the lean muscle and smooth, feverish skin she discovered. He was so hard where she was soft, yet his flat male nipples still pebbled against her touch, as responsive as her own body.
Meanwhile, Thomas learned the delicate curve of her waist, the sweetness of the cleft between her high, pert breasts, and how well she fit into his palms.
Both reveled in the way their bodies fit so well together—how her pelvis created a natural cradle for his. How they’d been made for one another.
It wasn’t long before their petting and panting reached an inevitable point and Thomas, ever the voice of reason, lifted his head.
“We should stop,” he breathed tremulously. Nora’s fingers remained tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck, preventing him from retreating completely.
“Why?”
Thomas released a shaky sigh. “Because if we continue thusly for much longer, then I do not believe I will have the power to stop myself from taking this further. And you deserve so much better than…this, Princess.” He looked around them to indicate the warm, sun-dappled grass seeping through the canopy above them, the tidy rows of trees with their dainty fragrant blossoms. A lazy bee hummed past them with its golden treasure on its way back to its hive. In truth, Nora could think of few places prettier than this one crafted by both man and nature working in harmony.
His eyes met Nora’s once more and she abruptly forgot the rest of the world. He was so close she could see the navy streaks fanning from the dark pools of his pupils.
“Thomas,” Nora breathed. “Thomas, I love you.” There was something so freeing about speaking the words aloud. This was no longer a girlish infatuation. Sharing the last several months with him, sneaking away whenever they could, jumping at the chance to practice dancing so they could unabashedly remain in one another’s embrace, sharing late-night whispered conversation and smothered laughter in the library long after the rest of the household had retired, had served only to fan the flames of desire lit by that very first kiss in the garden.
Thomas had hinted several times at an invisible line they might cross—one she could not quite fathom except in the most abstract of senses, yet one she wasn’t in the least bit nervous about approaching, so long as she was with Thomas.
Watching his eyes widen in disbelieving pleasure and his lips part wordlessly was unexpectedly rewarding. Nora forgedon, “Do you wish to marry me someday, or am I merely a diversion until you return to Town?”
“Certainly not,” Thoms vowed, pulling their bodies more tightly together and meeting her gaze with open frankness. “There is no one else; there never has been and there never will be. I—I have fallen in love with you as well, Nora.”
