Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(35)

“I don’t care,” she replied. “Not yet.” The last two words emerged as a plea more than an assurance. She held out her hand. He took it.

When she tugged him closer, green eyes warm with invitation, Sebastian released the scruples that had been plaguing him. He’d been afraid she might regret the step they’d taken. He didn’t. But he wasn’t a gently reared young lady who’d just spent her first night sleeping rough. That had been his second thought when he awoke—the first being to repeat the glorious lovemaking of the previous evening, with embellishments. Cursing second thoughts, he’d suppressed his arousal and seen to her comfort.

She pulled on his hand. “Come back to our…woodland bower.”

He thrilled to see her in this wild place, where he knew what to do and was well able to do it. In a drawing room, with words flying about like showers of pebbles, he often had to hide how much he felt at a loss. Here, he was confident.

Her golden hair curled about her face, tousled. There must be hairpins scattered through the bracken, he thought. Her bare arm and shoulders emerged from the wrinkled folds of her riding habit like pale porcelain. Her fingers pressed his. Her lips parted.

He wouldn’t have thought he could get riding boots off that quickly. He tore a button off his shirt. It followed the rest of his clothes into a heap as he joined her under the improvised cover once again.

“You hands are cold,” Georgina said.

“Sorry.” He started to draw them away.

She grasped his wrists and placed his hands between their bodies as she pressed close. “We’ll soon warm them,” she said, a laugh in her voice.

Indeed, the touch of her skin sent a flush of heat through him. He stared into her fathomless green eyes for the few seconds he could manage before he had to kiss her. Then their lips met, and rational thought departed.

She was right about his hands. The chill was gone in moments. He sent them wandering over her body, seeking the gasps and hums of pleasure that so gratified and enflamed him. He was sliding teasing fingertips along the soft skin of her inner thigh when she surprised him.

“Do you like to be touched there?” she murmured.

He groaned as she traced a delicious line up his member.

“Is that a yes?” She continued the caress. “Or a no?” She took her hand away.

“Yes!”

“Does it feel as good as when you touch me?”

“I expect so,” he gasped.

He reciprocated her attentions, and they roamed together in the place beyond words, where Sebastian felt utterly at home. He knew the world of sighs and murmurs, bold intimacies, subtle caresses, sensation that crackled through your body like a lightning strike. His veins pulsed with exultation as well as release when she clutched him close and called his name as they reached the summit together.

They spent that day mainly in each other’s arms, lazy and roused, passionate and sated, kept warm by the fire and their lovemaking. They drank water from the pool and felt no ill effects. They talked of childhood adventures in the country and thoughts for their future life. They closed their minds to demands from the outer world and the concerns of people there.

Sometime in the afternoon, it occurred to Sebastian that this was their honeymoon, much more than the journey planned for after the wedding. Here in this rustic nook, sharing their first solitude, they were more wholly together than they might ever be again. And how some of his brothers would laugh at him for thinking so. He could see Robert’s satirical expression, Alan’s amused disbelief. So he said nothing aloud, for fear Georgina might think the idea foolish, too.

At nightfall, they slept interlaced. But when light began to filter down from the ceiling of leaves on the second morning, Sebastian faced grim necessity. Their food supplies were gone; they had only the water from the spring. And Georgina’s family must be frantic by this time. “I have to try to get out today,” he said as they huddled close against the early chill.

“I know.”

They gazed at each other across a few inches, silently acknowledging sadness at the end of their idyll and a readiness to be back in civilization.

Both emotions turned out to be premature. Sebastian didn’t make it up the deadfall. When he attempted the climb, a log slipped under his weight, and the whole crisscrossed mass collapsed under him. If he hadn’t been able to catch a protruding tree root as he fell, he might well have been killed. As it was, he sustained a stunning blow to his upper arm and only just managed to keep his grip as the mass of branches tumbled to the bottom of the gully. He scrabbled about with his feet until he found a bit of support in the wall, and then hung for a while gasping in pain. He’d never had a closer shave off a battlefield. His heart was pounding so hard he felt dizzy.

Georgina’s anxious calls revived him. “I’m all right,” he shouted back, willing it to be true. When he could move, he slid carefully down the earthen wall, leaning there a little longer after his boots touched the ground. Making his way back to their refuge, he collapsed by the fire.

“Are you all right?” Georgina asked, throwing her arms around him as if to verify his presence. “What happened? There was such a noise. I was terrified.”

“The deadfall gave way,” he answered. “Fell. I have to rest.” He decided that lying down was a good idea.

“Where are you hurt?”