Wanted.
He kissed her again, deeper this time, and she rose against him instinctively, her legs brushing his beneath the surface. The shift brought her closer, close enough to feel the full force of his restraint, the need he was trying, not entirely successfully, to master.
Lily’s breath caught.
Hugo stilled for a heartbeat, his forehead resting against hers. “Careful,” he murmured, his voice rougher now.
She might have laughed if she had any breath left. “You are the one touching me.”
“And you are the one making it very difficult to remember my patience.”
The confession sent a reckless thrill through her. She slid her hands from his shoulders to the back of his neck, drawing him down again, and his control frayed beneath her mouth. His kiss turned hungry, then tender, then hungry again, as if he could not decide whether to savor her or surrender entirely.
His hand skimmed along her side beneath the water, tracing the curve of her waist, then the delicate line of her ribs. Each touch was slow and deliberate, and Lily felt herself mapped by his fingers, each new point of contact sending a ripple of heat through her body that had nothing to do with the temperature of the lake.
She tipped her head back, and he took the invitation, his lips traveling down the column of her throat to the hollow at its base. The water lapped softly around them, covering and revealing in shimmering fragments. Lily had never felt so exposed, nor so adored.
When his fingers drifted higher, her breath left her in a broken sigh.
Hugo lifted his head, his gaze dark and intent. “Lily.”
There was a question in the way he said her name. A warning, perhaps. A plea for sense.
She answered by pressing her mouth to his shoulder, tasting lake water and sun-warmed skin. He drew in a sharp breath when she kissed him there, then again when she let her teeth graze him with more daring than she knew she possessed.
“Sweet heaven,” he muttered, and the words, rough and helpless, made heat bloom through her.
His hands found her waist again, but this time he did not pull her closer. He held her still, as if anchoring them both. As if the slightest movement might ruin him.
Lily smiled against his skin. “Not so patient after all?”
His laugh was low and strained. “Do not test me.”
“Or what?”
His answer was not words. He kissed her until the teasing vanished from her mind, until she was clinging to him again, breathless and trembling. At that moment, the entire world wasreduced to his mouth and his hands and the ache of wanting more.
Then he eased her back, just enough to look at her.
The water rippled between them, silvered by the last light of day. Hugo’s gaze moved over her face, her damp hair, the flush she could feel warming her cheeks.
There was nothing hurried in the way he looked at her now. Nothing careless. The hunger was there, unmistakable, but so was something deeper, something that made her chest tighten.
“You are so, so beautiful,” he said under his breath.
The softness of it undid her more than his kisses had.
Lily reached for him, but he caught her hand and pressed his lips to her palm. Then his mouth brushed the inside of her wrist, slow and intimate, while his other hand slipped beneath the water again.
Her breath faltered.
His touch traveled down her side, over her hip, then lower with devastating patience. Lily’s fingers curled against his shoulder as he drew her closer, his mouth returning to hers in a kiss that swallowed the small sound she could not hold back.
The lake moved around them in dark, gentle waves as his hand slid between her thighs. His fingers slid inside of her, and his thumb found the center of her pleasure that pulsed at his touch.
Lily bit her lip and looked up at him from under her damp lashes. Without thought as to whether or not it was wise, she reached down and grabbed the length of him. She bit back a grin when his eyes widened, then darkened with desire. Slowly, she slid her hand down around the thick girth before moving ever so teasingly upward.
“You are a minx,” Hugo said, his voice husky and broken.
