only inches from hers, studying the exposed flesh at the back of her neck and watching the dappled sunlight that filtered between the bare branches of a large beech tree bring out a multitude of glorious lights in her hair. Fashioned in intricate twists and curls, it was held in place by tiny, decorative tortoiseshell combs. He wanted to remove them so that her hair could fall free, so that he could run his fingers through the heavy mass. Placing his hands on both her arms, he pulled her against him.
To Amanda they were like tender manacles, drawing her back so that she could feel his body, his thighs, rock hard against her spine. His warm breath caressed the back of her neck, and then his lips trailed over her sensitive flesh to her ear, while she turned liquid inside.
‘Don’t,’ she breathed, shakily. ‘Kit, please don’t do this.’
Sliding his arms around her waist, he held her tighter, glad it was just her voice that resisted and not her body. ‘Are you certain you want me to stop?’ he murmured, blowing warm breath into her ear and flicking his tongue against her lobe.
Her body came alive with pleasure, unfolding like the petals of an exotic flower. Never in her imagination had she experienced anything so erotic as this. All her senses became heightened and focused on him and what he was doing until nothing else mattered. But she dare not turn round in his embrace—she dare not, otherwise, feeling as she did at that moment, she would submit to anything. She half-turned her face to his and he placed his lips on her cheek.
‘Yes, I want you to stop—please, you must not go on,’ she gasped, shaking her head lamely in a denial, wanting him to stop before she was consumed.
‘There will be many times in the future when I shall hold you this close—and for longer; each time you will welcome me, my sweet, I promise you.’ He smiled, content in his belief that he had measured the weakness of her character in the strength of her awakened passion.
With a soft chuckle he released her, and Amanda’s mind went spinning as he stepped back. Shaken to the core of her being, she could not turn round and meet his eyes. This sensual web he wove was insubstantial yet unbreakable. He moved to stand in front of her, his eyes roaming over her exquisite features and provocative figure, a mocking, knowing gleam in their dark depths. She could only stare at him, helplessly caught up in the web of her own desires. Nothing she could say could erase the look of wonder from her face, nor still the chaotic pounding of her heart.
Reaching out, he cupped her chin, tilting her head back to look deep into her eyes. ‘Be satisfied with your self-imposed chastity, Amanda, if you can. Or face the truth of what you really want. You will never be fulfilled, not until you become mine completely. You belong to me. From the first you have been mine. I shall try to restrain myself until you come to me of your own free will—and you will come. That I promise you also.’
Confused by her own emotions and feeling a terrible ache of vulnerability that was something quite new to her, Amanda, almost in a daze, watched him as he turned and strode towards the horses. She stared at his back, still feeling the tingle of his fingers on her chin. Slowly she followed him. After securing her hat, she placed her foot into his cupped hands and he raised her into the saddle. Arranging her skirts, she looked down at him. It was impossible not to respond to Kit as his masculine magnetism seemed to take precedence over the rugged landscape and dominate everything around him. The attraction between them was almost palpable. He stood watching her, his eyes alert, holding a challenging gleam, above the faintly smiling mouth.
‘You really are quite impossible, aren’t you, Kit? Conceited, too.’
‘Indeed I am, and you’ll see just how impossible I can be if you continue evading the issue that is important to us both.’
Uncomfortably aware of the man riding alongside her, Amanda kept her eyes directly in front of her, sitting stiff and erect. The memory of what had just happened between them made her plight more unbearable and she couldn’t wait to be rid of him. When she was with him she didn’t know herself. Dear Lord, what kind of sorcery did the man employ so that he could have this effect on her—on her of all people, who had always prided herself on being in control? She would like to believe she had not enjoyed what he had done to her, but that was not the case, and she feared that she was destined to remember his ardent embrace and would want for more.
Henry, in fine fettle as usual, beamed when the two of them rode into the stableyard together. ‘I see you’ve been taking care of my daughter, Kit.’
‘Merely looking after her welfare, Henry,’ Kit replied, swinging down from his horse and going to assist Amanda, who gracelessly shoved away his hand and slid off herself, which brought an exasperated frown to his handsome face. ‘She should not be riding about the moors alone. There are dangers aplenty, without going looking for it. Should she take a tumble, she could come to grief.’
Listening to the sense of what Kit was saying, Henry gave his daughter a reproachful glance. All her life she had been given free rein to do as she pleased, but there were times when she went too far and in this instance Kit was right. ‘I confess I haven’t given much thought to it, but I have to agree with Kit. See you take a groom with you next time—unless Kit’s exercising one of the mounts, then you can go with him.’
Amanda merely looked from one to the other, her eyes hurling daggers at Kit, the determined gleam in their olive-green depths telling him she would as soon ride with the devil as repeat today’s episode. Bidding him a haughty but polite good day, she turned on her heel.
A half smile quirked Kit’s mouth as he watched the tantalising twitch of her skirts as she stalked off. There was something so richly provocatively pagan about her—her vivid colouring, and the swift animal grace with which she tossed her head. ‘And a good day to you too, Mrs Claybourne.’ He chuckled softly. ‘You’ve bred a firebrand there, Henry. Lord, what a handful.’
Henry gave him a long-suffering look. ‘More than a handful. You’ll have to excuse my daughter, Kit. Volatile and high spirited, she has an aversion to being told what to do. Excuse me. I’ll walk with her back to the house. Maybe a few well-chosen words of tact will placate her.’
‘So, Amanda, it’s happy I am to see the two of you getting on,’ Henry said when he caught up with his daughter. ‘I knew you’d get to liking Kit when you became better acquainted.’
‘We met on the moor, Father, and he rode back with me, that’s all. It doesn’t mean to say I’ve changed my opinion of Mr Benedict in the slightest.’
‘Ah, but you will. Mark my words, you will. He’s an excellent man,’ he said, casting his daughter a twinkling look, ‘good looking, too—and don’t be telling me you haven’t noticed.’
‘It’s only because he has a knack with horses that you are biased in his favour,’ she retorted sourly.
Henry glanced at her sharply. ‘You’ve not been having a difference of opinion with him now, have you?’
‘No, of course not. What makes you say that?’
‘It was just a thought. I sense an unease whenever you are together—a constraint, as if you had quarrelled.’
‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘I do admire his skill with horses, but you are right. There is some constraint between us which I can only put down to our being too much alike. We grind together like a couple of rusty old cogs.’
‘Aye, well, there’s no denying that he’s a catch all right and any young woman would be proud to be seen walking out with Kit Benedict. Mark my words, Amanda, he’ll not be a widower ere the year
