She felt so awkward discussing this with him, mostly because the only man she had ever come close to experiencing such things with was him. “I suppose I am. Slightly.”
“Slightly?” A ghost of a smile danced on his lips as his eyes darkened. “I recall a girl who was more than slightly curious.”
She sucked in a breath. “How dare you throw that in my face?” She blanched, wishing she had drowned herself in the pond. “I should go.” She started collecting Danielli’s dolls.
“Wait.” His hand closed on her arm. “Don’t be angry. We never had a chance to discuss it, but I think it’s time we did, don’t you?”
“There is nothing to discuss.” She couldn’t look at him; she felt so mortified.
“I disagree. You were very sweet that night, and I was—”
“There’s no point in rehashing the past.” She tried to jerk free of his grip, but he wouldn’t allow it. Damn the man. Tears stung her eyes. If he apologized for spurning her, she would turn into a watering pot. “I came as a friend,” she retorted, “and I’d very much like to leave as one.”
“A friend.”
“Yes, a friend. For years you were a part of our family, then you stopped coming. When Will died, and you still didn’t come to call, I…worried about you. You imprison yourself in this grand house, alone. You never go out in Society. You tell me your life is over—”
“Then you decided to rescue me.” He stared at her as though he considered throttling her. “Listen here, Miss Charity,” he clipped tersely. “I’m not one of your poor unfortunates. Nor am I your responsibility. I don’t need your help—or your frigging pity! I never lamented not having a sister, and now I know why. So I strongly suggest you whisk your lovely bottom out of here and stay the hell away from me!”
As he pushed to his feet, panic possessed her. She fisted his shirtsleeve, staying him on the ground. “I didn’t come here out of pity! I came because…” Lord, this was so difficult.
“Because you needed my help with your charity.”
“There’s that, but…” Her voice shook. “You also remind me of Will, whom I miss dearly.”
“We mustn’t forget that.” He began to rise again.
She tightened her grasp on his sleeve. “Everything I said to you is true, but the reason I—” She was that wide-eyed little girl again—the one he’d scorned years ago. Her heart thundered in her ears. In a small voice, she said, “I came because…I missed you, Ashby. I missed you every day for the past seven years. I had to see you. I…” Tears streamed down her cheeks; the pain in her heart was unbearable. If he banished her forever, she didn’t know what she would do.
His eyes glittered as brilliant and hard as emeralds. “You shouldn’t have come to me at all.” There was fury in his voice, yet something else that sounded like desperation. He wrapped a hand around her nape. “Damn you,” he whispered, drawing her closer. “You make me remember things I vowed to forget.” He angled his head and covered her mouth with his.
Lightning seared her spine. His lips were faintly familiar, achingly soft. They molded hers, savoring the initial contact of their mouths. Knowing what was to come next, she parted her lips against his and sighed with pleasure as he tasted her with a gentle stroke of his tongue.
Sweet heaven. This was as far as they had gotten seven years ago, before he had torn his mouth away. This time, however, she refused to let him retreat. She locked her arms around his muscled waist and returned his kiss with years-old longing.
“Ashby…” She sighed, tipping her head back and rising to his kiss as if her life depended on it. Her lips clung to his, seeking, needing, beckoning, helpless to resist the mystifying craving he liberally exuded. She licked his tongue and shuddered at the delicious frissions that raked her. His kiss was heavenly, better than heavenly—it was utterly sublime. And dazedly, she wondered how she could be so fortunate as to have found her way into his arms—as a woman.
“This was well overdue,” he murmured, not allowing more than a sigh between their slow, sultry mouths.
“What was?” she asked, blissfully lightheaded, her eyelashes as heavy as bricks.
“This. Us.” He made love to her mouth with the patience and skill of a master seducer, flooding her with a wealth of feelings and sensations. “The night we kissed,” he went on in his low, mesmeric voice, feeding on her mouth as if it were a cup of Lydian elixir, “you unleashed the devil in me. Who’d have thought that a wispy innocent should kiss like Aphrodite herself? You made me ache to kiss you like this, not as one kisses a child, but as a man kisses a woman.” He deepened their kiss, tangling their tongues in a hot, sensual, nerve-thrumming duel.
Never in all her girlish dreams of him did she imagine his kiss would be like this—all the passions and yearnings in the world distilled into the soft motion of his lips, into the thorough explorations of his tongue. “You pushed me away then,” she admonished softly.
That night, she hadn’t been thinking; she hadn’t known the first thing about kissing a man. He was the one who had surprised her with her first brief lesson in what kissing should be like between a man and a woman when his tongue swept along the seam of her lips and licked inside her mouth. His assault had been shocking, electrifying, and all too fleeting. An instant later he had repelled her, as though he himself had felt repelled. If his sole concern had been her young age, he should have made that clear, instead of leaving her feeling awkward and…unappealing.
“What was I supposed to do? Ruin my best friend’s little sister? God knows I wanted to.” He put his lips to her ear and whispered, “You’ve no idea what a confounded mess you made of my life when your sweet mouth opened to mine…”
His warm breath in her ear had a narcotic effect on her. “Really?”
“Really.” He dipped his tongue in her ear, turning her brain to mush. Shivers swept over the back of her neck and snaked to her belly. “You were so young, Isabel,” he murmured, as he dragged his mouth along the side of her neck, inhaling her with scalding kisses. “My reaction to you was…reprehensible. I felt nothing but disgust for myself afterward. If I upset or offended you, I apologize. I botched the whole thing like a cloddish schoolboy.”
Her smile was unquenchable. “Thank goodness age is not a permanent condition.”
He held her head and scrutinized her face closely, his eyes smoldering. “Thank goodness.”
He recaptured her mouth and gently lowered her to the grass. Caught in a trance of passion, she felt his brawny torso coming down atop her, crushing her soft breasts. Her hands roamed his broad back in wide circles, embracing him close to her heart. It was an exhilarating sensation—lying beneath him, kissing him, embracing him, inhaling him—and felt as natural as breathing.
Their kiss went on and on, growing rougher and more demanding. He kissed her insatiably, soaking up her very essence and infusing her with molten heat in return. She wanted to absorb half of him into her and leave half of herself with him, so that he would feel linked to her as she felt toward him. No wonder she refused every man who showed an interest in her. Not one of them was Ashby. He had ensorcelled her girlish heart with a spell so powerful no other man could ever break. Everything became crystal clear to her at that moment: She wanted Ashby. She adored him, craved him, loved him, had
