Page 51 of The Trick of It

“No,” she told him, exposing her throat to him, inviting more.

“You have to,” he insisted, accepting her offering, kneading and thumbing her breasts. “The locks on this place are too easy to pick. If you don’t stop me now, you’re going to find me in your bedroom night after night, over and over.”

“Oh, God,” she murmured, dropping her head fully back and onto his shoulder. “No.”

“‘No’?” he repeated, ragged and desperate, one of his clever hands sliding down to her waist, to her hip, to anchor her against him. “Are you certain?”

She nodded and he sighed, holding her tight for one suspended moment, like he was making sure he’d heard it right. Like he was allowing the air around them one final chance to take it back.

When it didn’t, he used his grip on her to turn her, slowly and carefully, without backing away and losing the feel of her against his body. He brought her around to face him and cupped her cheeks with his hands, searching her dazed, bleary eyes for some sign that he’d misunderstood, his breath shallow and quick in his lungs, his skin so hot, it could sear her.

She stared up at him, into the mischief and depth of those familiar green eyes, and she went on her toes, sinking her fingers into his curls as she pushed her mouth into his. She almost collapsed at the taste of him, at long last, the heady tang of his kiss that she had imagined a thousand thousand times.

He moaned into her mouth, gathering her up tightly against his body, one hand still cupping her face as he flicked his tongue between her lips, as he explored the taste of her too.

“You weren’t touching me,” she whispered against his mouth. “You weren’t tasting me. Not like now.”

“No,” he agreed. “Not like now.” He tilted his head to kiss her deeper, to collapse into a desire too long denied.

He pulled back with obvious effort, still anchoring himself against her body, still holding her face like it were keeping him from drowning. His lips were wet and swollen, his pupils wide, turning the green ring around them darker than emerald.

She stared back up at him, realizing her own hands were tangled in his shirt, filled with wrinkled fabric and buttons.

They stared at one another for a long time, until their hearts began to slow and their breathing began to ease, but they did not release each other. They did not let go.

And then, tentatively, she unfurled her fingers, a sheepish smile finding its way onto her mouth. Her very well-kissed mouth.

He watched it happen, mirroring her disentangling, letting his hands slide from her and taking a step back, a mirror-image grin tugging at his own lips in the process. From this new distance, a full breath away from her, he leaned forward and stole one final kiss, sweet and soft against her mouth.

“Lewes tomorrow?” he asked, gentle and careful.

“Lewes tomorrow,” she agreed. “You’ll come and retrieve me.”

He nodded, sighing, and reached out to give her palms a squeeze in either of his own hands. “I will,” he said. “But I had better go now before anything else insane happens. It has been a long day. I think … erm …”

“Clarity,” she suggested. “A good night’s sleep before we cross any more lines?”

He looked relieved. “Exactly. Yes, exactly.”

He pulled away from her with some reluctance, walking back to the table to take up his jacket and steal a final taste of the cobbler.

She watched him all the way to the door, and when his hand touched the knob, she said his name. “Rhys?”

He turned, exhaustion and hope and dread all colliding on that face of his, until he saw her, holding up a final nugget of fool’s gold, which glittered in the light.

“You missed one,” she told him. “I win.”

Chapter Sixteen

Rhys walked toward the shore instead of heading directly back to Starling’s Rest. He let the cool autumn air comb through his hair and down the back of his neck, toying with a tiny fleck of fool’s gold, rolling it between the pads of his fingers as he went.

Had that just happened?

Yes. Judging from the blood very slowly returning outward to the extremities of his body, it undoubtedly had. It actually had.

And the world hadn’t exploded in outrage, either.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to grin so wide his face split open or scream into the sea. Both, perhaps, because she had all but told him today that he could have been doing that for the last decade and she would have liked it.