“Among other things.” He shoved himself away from the wall. “Sleep well, Marlowe.”
He left the room as quietly as he’d entered. She almost slipped out of bed, rushed after him, and demanded he tell her of the other things. But she certainly didn’t want to beg. She wanted him to confide in her of his own accord. However, she couldn’t help but wonder if the challenge to which he’d referred had anything to do with the discarded papers she’d found in the room that was forbidden to her.
Reaching out, she extinguished the flame in the lamp on the table beside the bed. With the storm’s passing, the sky was clearer and moonlight filtered in through the windows. The flames from the fire caused shadows to dance over the walls and ceiling.
She snuggled down beneath the blankets and drifted off to sleep.
The lightning flashed and the thunder bellowed. The stinging rain pelted her. She was up too high, in the midst of it, the core of the storm. The wicker gondola rocked wildly. She clung to the ropes but even as she did so, she knew they wouldn’t save her—
The fire had gone out. No hot air was filling the balloon. The cold air surrounding her was causing it to deflate rapidly and she was falling... falling... falling—
Jerking free of the nightmare, Marlowe was flailing about, her hands constantly hitting something hard, but warm. Nothing at all like the frigid air in which she’d been. She was vaguely aware of being wrapped up in something. Had the ropesthat attached the gondola to the balloon wound themselves about her? Had she gotten tangled up in them?
“Shh, shh. You’re safe,” a deep voice rumbled near her ear. “You’re safe now.”
She was taking in great gasps of air, shivering—but she wasn’t cold, because a massive amount of warmth was pressed against her, holding her close. Large hands were stroking her back.
And that voice that had once made her feel unwanted was doing the opposite now.
“Nothing is going to hurt you.”
He wouldn’t let it. Somehow she knew he would protect her.
“I was back in the storm. Terrified. I thought I was going to die. No, I didn’t think it. I knew it. The craft has no steering mechanism. I go where the wind takes me. By the time I realized I needed to land, it was too late. It had swept me out over the sea. Then I was hurtling to the earth—” She was clutching his shirt with both hands, just as she’d clutched the basket of her balloon. But he was sturdier, not tossing her about. One of her hands was up against his chest, and through the linen of his shirt, she could feel the hard, steady pounding of his heart.
“You made it to shore,” he said briskly, as if she needed reminding. “You never have to go up in the air again.”
Oh, but she did because if she didn’t, the storm would have won.
“I don’t want to think about it, the storm thrashing me, the sea dragging me under. But I don’tknow how to stop the images from bombarding me. I don’t know why tonight I feel like I’m back in the tempest.”
Maybe having found her balloon and seeing the wreckage of it had brought home how she’d barely escaped death’s clutches. It forced to the forefront the memories she’d been able to ignore as she’d focused more on surviving her time with Langdon. But something had shifted between them, and he was no longer the threat she’d originally perceived.
He was holding her close, stretched out beside her, his body partially covering hers, his face mere inches away.
“I just want to forget the terror.” And she knew just how to make that happen, at least temporarily, at least for now. She closed the distance between their mouths.
He immediately deepened the kiss with an urgency, a hunger, his tongue delving—
She released the tiniest of whimpers, and he quickly pulled away, resting his cheek against hers. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
Had he wanted her as badly as she’d wanted him?
“It’s all right. It wasn’t unbearable. And I... I started it.”
He shifted slightly, and with his tongue, outlined the shell of her ear. Warmth spiraled through her. “I could kiss another pair of lips.” His voice was low, throaty.
Then he was holding her gaze, and within the moonbeams filtering through the windows, she could see the heat of desire burning in his eyes.Lowering his head, he kissed her cheek, her chin, her throat. “Say yes,” he growled.
She knew what he wanted. And she knew she absolutely should say no because it could lead to other things, more intimate things. “Yes” came out on a breath.
He rolled over until he was covering her completely. Another kiss pressed to her throat. One to the skin at the Vwhere the first button of the shirt she wore was secured. He closed his mouth over her breast, and she felt the heated dew seeping through the linen, her nipple going taut in response. A kiss midway down.
Then his torso was nestled between her legs. He slowly, so slowly and provocatively, eased the shirt up past her hips to reveal the haven he sought. He lifted his smoldering gaze and captured hers, as her breaths, not quite steady, sawed in and out.
She considered ordering him to remove the shirt he still wore but there was something intoxicating about a man in shirtsleeves looking at her as he did, from such an intimate spot. It made what was about to occur seem even more forbidden while at the same time more sensual, more necessary.
His eyes never left hers as he took a slow, deliciously wicked lick. Her whimper this time was filled with pleasure, not pain. His lips closed around the tiny bud. He stroked and suckled. She scraped her fingers along his scalp, entangled them in his hair, could have sworn satisfaction touched his eyes before he went to his task in earnest, with all the ungentleness he’d promised her earlier.
