Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(33)

“That is not funny,” said Georgina, immediately imagining such a wolf.

“Sorry. You’re right. There’re no beasts like that in this part of the country. Foxes and badgers, perhaps. And I can certainly hold off a fox. Not so sure about a badger.”

This time, she laughed.

“They’re fierce creatures,” Sebastian assured her. “My brother James tried to make friends with a badger kit once, and he was chased off by its mother and nearly mauled.”

“This is not what I want to hear while sitting at the bottom of a crevice in the dark,” Georgina informed him.

“Sorry. Of course it’s not.” He looked contrite. “Most animals are as reluctant to encounter you as you are them.”

“What about the others?”

“What others?”

“You said ‘most animals.’ So the others…?”

“Oh, you mean the snakes and such?”

Georgina nearly jumped to her feet despite her injured leg. “Sebastian!”

“Only joking. It’s too cold for snakes to be active.”

Georgina crossed her arms over her chest. She’d never been able to overcome her strong dislike of snakes and spiders. “You might have said there weren’t actually any snakes,” she said with a shiver.

Sebastian pulled off his coat and held it out. “Here. You mustn’t get chilled.”

“I can’t take your coat.”

“Of course you can.” He slid closer to put it around her.

Georgina leaned back into the circle of his arm as he settled the coat about her shoulders. His amazing competence and complete lack of fear were so comforting. She didn’t want him to move back. She was filled with gratitude, as well as a spreading warmth, when he stayed. “I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here,” she said.

“You’d manage. You’re up to anything.”

She could feel his voice rumbling in his chest where it rested against hers. She was touched by his confidence in her, no matter how misplaced. “No, if I’d been alone or with someone else…anyone else, I’d be so afraid now. With you, I’m not afraid at all.”

Sebastian’s heart swelled at the idea. He almost wished something would attack them, so that he could save her. Something not too dangerous and easily staved off, he amended quickly.

“You’re like an ancient knight errant,” said Georgina.

“A…what?” Sebastian looked down at her. It felt so natural to have her head resting on his shoulder. And at the same time so new and exciting. “Are you taking up your father’s line now?”

“Maybe you were Lancelot in a past life,” Georgina teased. “Or, no, not Lancelot. You’re nothing like him. Gawain, perhaps. Brave and strong and noble and wise.” Although a bit less nobility would be welcome, considering the way she felt right now. Anyway, these were fictional characters.

Sebastian frowned. “Wise? Me?”

“Terribly wise.”

“You must be thinking of someone else. I’m a bit thick, really. It’s you who…”

His self-deprecating puzzlement was so endearing that she kissed him.

For a startled instant, he was still. And then he was kissing her back in his thorough, intoxicating way. The one that seemed to melt her bones and set her on fire at the same time. Her body came alive, eagerly demanding more.

Georgina’s hands slid up his shirtfront to twine around his neck and pull him closer. His free arm came round to hold her. Their kisses meandered from tender to blazing and back again until she ached with longing. His hand slipped along the line of her body, annoyingly blocked by the heavy cloth of her riding habit.

Georgina sank back onto the pile of bracken, pulling him down at her side. His leg slid between hers as if it had always belonged there. Twinges of pain from her injury were distant annoyances, overwhelmed by rising desire. She slipped her hands under his loosened shirttail and ran her fingers over the muscles shifting in his back.

Sebastian rose on one elbow, panting. He made as if to draw away. “Georgina. I can’t hold back if we keep on like this.”

She tugged him close again. “I don’t want you to hold back.”

The mixture of hope and caution on his face was almost funny. “Are you sure? Because…”

“Completely sure.” As a mark of her certainty, she began to unbutton the bodice of her riding habit. Clumsy with haste and the enticement of his smoldering gaze, she needed several agonizing moments to get free of it.

Sebastian simply pulled his shirt over his head, revealing his broad chest and arms sculpted by years of hard exercise.

Georgina unfastened the waist of her skirt and slithered out of it, kicking off her remaining boot in the process. Sebastian spread his discarded coat over the pile of bracken and pulled off his boots and breeches, pausing now and then to look at her as if checking for permission.

Georgina reached for him, reveling in the feel of skin to skin, pressing herself close. And then underthings were untangled and flung aside, leaving them totally exposed to each other in the flickering firelight. “How beautiful you are,” she said.

“Me? You’re the beautiful one,” he replied. And then he moved with the grace of a tiger and the care of a man handling something infinitely precious, pulling her down onto the coat, skimming her sides with his fingertips. They lingered on her breast and teased as he kissed her even more urgently. Desire flashed along her nerves, utterly compelling.