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He stopped looking up at her, his brow heavier than ever. There was a pause in which he was most assuredly deciding how stupid she actually was before he finally mumbled, “You said you were stuck.”
“I am,” she replied, heat flooding her cheeks. “But I’m usually able to save myself. If you’ll just step out from under the tree, I’m sure I can do it.” Unfortunately, she couldn’t untangle herself without lifting her skirts clear to her waist before climbing back down. And she certainly couldn’t disrobe with this man looking on.
He made that growly sound again, then finished scaling the tree. Positioned just below her, he reached up to the sharp twig on which her skirts had snagged. Within a second he had her dress unhooked from the branch it had tangled in and the tension in the fabric disappeared. She sighed with relief, ready to get down from the tree. “Thank you,” she said, grabbing onto a branch as she expected him to do the same thing.
He didn’t. Instead, he continued up. His head reached her knees and she pressed her back to the trunk of the tree, attempting to give him room but his body was so close, she could feel the heat of him radiating through her clothing.
She gasped in a breath, doing what she always did when she was nervous. She started talking. “Lord Craven, really, I can get down myself. I just wasn’t watching my skirts and then that cat tried to claw me, and I dropped all the fabric and—”
She gasped in a breath as his head reached her stomach, his hands now resting on the same branch as hers, their bare fingers just inches apart. Her pulse fluttered and her breath came out in short gasps as she assessed just how very large his hands were. So much bigger than hers. And his arms were so muscled and his skin dangerously dark along with his hair and—
“Really, Lord Craven. I am absolutely fine to get down. I know what I said about my family, but sincerely, I was joking. I can climb back to the ground without incident and—” She stopped again as he paused, his face level with her breasts. She looked at his hands, her cheeks aflame with heat. Was he clenching the branch even tighter so that his knuckles were turning white?
“I’ll see you back home in one piece,” he muttered before stepping up one more branch to bring his face level with hers.
Finally looking from his hand, she gazed into the warm chocolate brown of his irises and she gasped in surprise. “Your eyes are…stunning.”
His chin tucked back and mouth tightened as though she’d hit him rather than complimented him. Then he frowned. “I think it best that I carry you.” Apparently he was going to ignore her compliment.
She only had a moment to be irritated that he hadn’t even said thank you when the weight of his words hit her like a head wind. Carry her? Hold her close? Press her body to his? The heat that had filled her
cheeks flushed down her neck and chest. “Please. No, my lord.” She heard the tremble in her voice as she squeezed the branch so hard, she was sure she’d wear the bark right off.
He shuddered. “I can’t see any other way.”
“But I can climb myself. You stay just below me so that you can untangle my skirts again should they get caught.”
His frown deepened. “Or I could just carry you down.” And with that, he slid an arm about her waist and pulled her body to his.
Warm prickly tingles erupted all over her flesh every place her body pressed to his and she gasped, as she stubbornly held the branches even as he shifted her weight further out onto the branch. “My lord,” she cried, fear lacing her voice.
He made that low rumble deep in his throat. “For feck’s sake, I’m not going to hurt you, nor are you going to catch some disease from touching me the tiny amount of time it takes to get down this tree.”
A shot of awareness surged through her. She wasn’t worried about disease. She scrunched up her brow. What did that mean? But she was deathly afraid that in touching him, she might completely lose her senses. The man’s body was hard and strong and powerful pressed against hers.
* * *
Chris blew out a breath as she stared at him, her eyebrows knitted together.
“You curse a great deal,” she finally said, her eyes roving over his entire face.
He clenched his jaw. “I’m not usually in such delicate company.”
Delicate didn’t even begin to describe her company. As he’d climbed, he’d gotten to inspect every detail of her sultry curves. From the flare of her hips to her tiny waist to her ample… He stopped, growing aroused just thinking about all her feminine attributes. And then there was her scent, like fresh strawberries on a summer day, she was sweet and he’d guess delicious.
“You’re a titled gentleman. Whose company are you in?” Her head cocked to the side as she waited for his answer.
Bloody hell, he thought but didn’t say out loud, as his cursing clearly offended her. Instead he stared back at those lovely clear blue eyes. If she was a different sort of woman, he would kiss those lips silent. This was why he didn’t spend time with ladies. All the talking. “Other men.”
She nodded, her teeth worrying her lip. Her body was pressed to his, every enticing curve of her, as she’d begun to relax into him. “What did you mean you wouldn’t give me a disease?”
He closed his eyes for a split second, resisting the urge to pin her to the trunk just to make her cease talking. “Can we discuss this when we’re not in a tree?”
He watched that lovely shade of pink climb back into her cheeks. “Of course. I’m so sorry. Everyone says I talk too much. And about nothing too. I’m flighty and I trip and I—”
“Miss Moorish,” he cut her off. Briefly he considered letting her continue. He liked her body pressed to his, and honestly, he didn’t mind a woman who chattered. He’d had a mistress who’d always filled the silence with chatter and he found he quite liked it. The difference was, when a man paid a woman, he could choose not to respond and she’d learned not to ask him to reply. Then, he never risked stuttering. Though, stuttering rarely occurred since those times, save for today of course. He also never risked saying the wrong thing. That was more his struggle now. Everyone else had learned the art of conversation at a time when he’d applied himself to silence.
“Apologies,” she whispered. She stopped talking but she didn’t do anything else either, staring up at him with wide eyes.
