shaft of desire that shot straight to his groin as the silk beneath his fingers turned to lace and then, an inch later, to warm bare skin.
Nick sucked air, then tried to steady his breathing, to be matter-of-fact. This wasn’t a seduction—unless he was the one being seduced.
Now he hooked his fingers inside the top of one stocking and drew it down, then slipped it off her foot. Then he skimmed his fingers back up the other leg. But knowing what he would encounter didn’t make it any easier to feign indifference.
He wasn’t indifferent. And when he stood up—provided he could manage to stand up—she would know it.
So he took his time, sliding her feet into the flip-flops, then picking up the stockings and folding them.
“I’ll do that.” Edie nearly snatched them out of his fumbling hands. Hers seemed to be full of thumbs as well. But at least her focus on them allowed Nick to wince his way to his feet and adjust his trousers so that his reaction was not immediately obvious.
He cleared his throat. “Right. We can go up this way.” He picked up the flashlight on the worktable and headed toward a door at the far end of the room. “Be careful.”
If she were being careful, Edie thought, she wouldn’t be here now. She’d be back in her room listening to the faint sounds of the orchestra through the open window while she read a book.
But she wasn’t. She was climbing a steep, winding, extremely narrow stone staircase behind a man who had just slid his hands up her legs. Her body was still tingling from the touch of his fingers. Her brain was still jangled from a hormone overload after over two years of complete disinterest. And her emotions were as unreliable as a teenager’s. She should be in bed with a book—preferably one that would bore her to sleep!
Instead here she was trying to keep her eye on the beam of the flashlight that Nick was aiming at the steps as he climbed. He had angled it so that she could see it playing against the stairs and the wall without having to watch it through his legs.
But she preferred to study his legs.
She tried not to—and that was when she stumbled.
“Oh!” She gasped as her foot slipped. She reached out to grab at the side of the wall as she felt her footing fail. But before she could grab anything, Nick had spun around and grabbed her.
He hauled her up against him so that she was sure he could hear the pounding of her heart. She could certainly hear it. Or maybe that was his.
“Are you all right?” he demanded. Then, without waiting for an answer, because surely he could feel that she was fine—after all that was her body pressed against his—he said, “This is insane. I never should have brought you up here.”
It might be insane, but climbing the stairs wasn’t what made it so.
“I’m all right,” Edie said. “Truly.”
He made a sound that implied he wasn’t convinced. If she lifted her face just a little, Edie thought her lips could probably brush his jawline. She couldn’t see, of course. Other than the flashlight, which was now behind her in the arm he had wrapped around her, there was no light at all. And yes, his heart was hammering, too.
“You’re sure?” He asked after a moment.
Edie nodded. She was right. The top of her head collided with his chin. “Sorry. Yes, I’m okay. I just slipped. Please, let’s go on.”
He didn’t immediately agree, but finally he said, “Okay. But you’re going ahead of me.” And he eased her up the narrow stairway so that she was in front of him. Then, keeping one arm around her, playing the flashlight on the steps just ahead of her, he climbed the steps directly behind her.
He was so close his knees brushed her calves, so close she could feel the warmth of his breath against her back. And his other hand, big and warm and callus-roughened, wrapped her fingers. She’d wondered about the calluses when they were dancing. She understood how he got them now.
She remembered the feel of them sliding up her legs and touching the bare skin of her thighs. She wondered how those hands would feel against more sensitive skin on her body.
Once more she stumbled. Nick tightened his grip. “Careful.”
“Yes,” Edie said, breathless and mortified, taking another step and then another. “I’m trying to be.”
Was she? Or was she actually being more reckless than she’d ever been in her life? She didn’t know the answer to that yet.
“One step at a time,” her grandma Tremayne always used to say. “You’ll get there that way.”
Edie supposed it was true. But it would have helped if she’d known where she was going.
“Here we are.” They had reached a heavy wooden door. Nick reached around her and pushed open, then drew her up and out onto the narrow walkway.
“Oh!” Edie stopped stock-still and simply stared at the sparkling kingdom spread at her feet.
If the evening had felt like something out of a Cinderella fairy tale before, now, with the tiny lights of Mont Chamion’s formal gardens spread out below her, Edie felt herself swept ever more fully into a sense of enchantment.
“Not exactly what it would have looked like in the thirteenth century,” Nick said wryly.
“But beautiful,” Edie murmured, putting her hands on the rough stone wall and leaning out to look down. “It’s amazing. We have gardens back at home in Santa Barbara. But nothing like these.”
“There aren’t any like these. They’re one of a kind.” Nick’s voice was quiet, almost reverent, as he came to stand beside her and together they stared out at the wonderland below. Neither of them spoke.
There were a few wedding guests outside in the gardens, and Edie could hear an occasional murmur of a voice or crack of laughter. From an open window came the lilting sounds of the orchestra playing a waltz. But as magical as it was, it was less enthralling than the man next to her.
He stood very close, but not touching her as he leaned forward, his elbows on the wall, the pristine white of his shirt cuffs peeking out from beneath his dark suit coat. His fingers were loosely knotted together. In the light of a three-quarter moon, she could, glancing sideways, see the light and shadow on the hard angles and planes of his face.
Her sister Rhiannon had casually and flirtatiously stroked his cheek. Edie’s fingers curled into a fist so she wasn’t tempted to do likewise. She turned her gaze away, too, tried to focus on the tableau below.
What Nick was actually thinking she didn’t know. While moments ago in the stairwell she would have said he was as aware of her as she was of him, now he seemed so remote she doubted he was thinking about her at all. So she turned her head to risk another look.
He turned at the same time. Their gazes locked. The heat flared. And Edie’s breath caught in her throat.
Nick cleared his. Then, deliberately he straightened. “It’s getting cool up here. Shall we go down?” His voice was perfectly polite, but Edie thought she detected a hint of raggedness in his tone. The raggedness of desire?
