“Yes?”
“Right next to the steps is the worst place to be.” She pointed to a copse of trees to their left. “Binney’s Bog lurks behind those pines. Stay far away. You’ll sink and never be found if you accidentally land in it. And that’s not a barmy Scots legend—it’s the truth. Mr. Binney was the first on record to have lost his life there, some four hundred years ago.”
“Thanks for the cautionary tale. I’ll heed it well.”
She kissed him beneath his chin again, lingering as he walked with her.
They’d arrived at the perfect spot.
“Here,” he said, and lowered her to the grass.
He took the pins out of her hair one by one, until the tight bun was released and her long golden locks lay across her shoulders and down her back.
When he fell down beside her, she immediately turned to kiss him. Her eagerness made him so heady, he pulled back. “Miss Montgomery—”
“Can’t you call me Daisy?”
“Daisy.” He bent and kissed her, luxuriating in the feel of her satiny-soft lips against his own. Their tongues collided and played, and she sighed when he caressed her waist and moved to her breast.
By sheer strength of will, he stopped and pulled her close, so close her face was buried in his chest.
“I want you desperately,” he said to a small boulder and a stalk of wintergreen behind her. “But I respect your honor. You’re my charge, too, so I can’t—I mean to say, in a moment, after a few more of these lovely kisses, we’re going to stand. And then we’re going to head up the road to the castle. After we fix your hair, of course. I couldn’t resist letting it down.” He reveled in the silkiness of her hair against his palm and the feel of her lithe body against his own. “Oh, and you must call me Charlie.”
“Charlie!” Her muffled voice tickled his chest. “I can’t breathe.”
He immediately pulled back. When she looked up at him, she had the faint impression of one of his jacket buttons on her cheek and that vaguely smashed look people get when they’ve been sleeping on a pillow in one position too long.
“Goodness,” she said with a chuckle, and pulled a piece of her own hair out of her mouth.
“I’m sorry.” He was sorely embarrassed.
“It’s all right. I liked being so close. Your skin is …”
“What?”
“I don’t know. But I like it. Very much.” She ran a hand over his chest.
He closed his eyes against the sensation. “I’m trying to do the right thing. But you’re impossible to resist.”
“I hope so.” She kissed his mouth.
A moment later, he lowered his own mouth to the line of pale flesh above her bodice. Cupping one of her breasts in his hand, he pushed it up and kissed the exposed mound. Then he moved to the small cleft between her breasts and nuzzled it with his mouth. Her skin smelled sweet, like clover and honeysuckle.
She gave another little whimper of pleasure deep in her throat. “You’ve made me feel very beautiful, indeed.”
He lifted his head. “I can make you feel even more beautiful.”
“Can you?” The bees-and-honey voice had never been more alluring.
He heaved a great sigh, wishing he could show her and also dreading what he must say next. “I can, but it’s time to go.” He stood up and offered her his hand.
“Not again,” she said.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Oh, my.” She didn’t move. Her gaze was focused on his breeches.
He looked down, where proof of his arousal was plain as day. “My apologies,” he said.
“Please don’t apologize,” she murmured, and allowed him to pull her up. Her face took on an obstinate expression. “I’m not ready to leave. You said you could make me feel even more beautiful.”
He forced himself to laugh. “I was boasting. You shouldn’t listen when a man says outrageous things—”
“You’re
beautiful,” she said out of the blue.
He inhaled a breath. “
Daisy
. It’s time to leave.”
“Viscount.” She pulled his head down by wrapping both hands around his neck. “You’re at my beck and call, remember?” She paused. “I know you won’t dishonor me. And you promised me anything.
Anything
.”
He’d never seen her so solemn.
Or entrancing.
He put his hands on her rounded bottom and pulled her firmly against his hips. “You’re right. I would never dishonor you, or allow anyone else to. And I did make that promise.”
She gripped his neck. “Show me how beautiful I am,” she whispered. “Please. Before I have to go back tonight and pack the trunks of three harridans.”
And that was all it took.
He picked her up again, lifting her high in his arms and wrapping her legs around his waist. She clung to him, enjoying the sensation of her most intimate place pressed firmly against his hard belly as he strode a few feet up the slope, onto the Stone Steps themselves. She could hardly bear to part her lips from his when he set her down, as gently as he could, on the third step from the bottom.
The sun had baked the steps a warm temperature. Daisy basked in its rays as Charlie sat beside her and kissed her again, one hand around her waist, the other cupping her breast.
When his thumb caressed her nipple, she relished the new sensation.
He made her feel so alive, Charlie did! Alive and wanting more pleasure. More closeness.
“I want to untie your laces,” he whispered in her ear.
She murmured a sound of acquiescence, shrugging out of her bodice and letting him fumble with her stays.
Free. That’s how she felt when he released her stays, especially with the sun and wind on her bare flesh. Charlie’s obvious appreciation made her lose all concern that she didn’t compare favorably to women he’d seen before.
“God, you’re gorgeous,” he said, and bent low to kiss her.
She sucked in a breath at the wonder of his tongue laving her nipple, and when he took it in his mouth and suckled, a sharp dart of pleasure between her legs made her lift her lower belly toward the sky. He grabbed her bottom with his free hand and rubbed a slow circle around it, his mouth still dancing across both her breasts, causing them to pucker and tingle with such sweet pleasure, she moaned out loud.
“Don’t stop,” she said.
“Never fear,” he replied, and gently plucked a nipple with his teeth. “I’m not going to stop until you’ve had enough.”
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered, her hands clinging to his hair. “But I don’t know when that will be.”
He looked up then, his pupils dark. “Is that a kind way to say I’m at your beck and call again?”
She nodded. Then giggled.
“That’s a special sound,” he whispered.
“It is?”
“Yes. The first giggle I’ve heard from you.”
She felt bashful of a sudden.
He tilted her chin up. “Don’t be shy to do it again,” he whispered. “It was a gift. Thank you.”
She bit her lip. “You’re welcome. I—I didn’t—”
“I’ll relive that sound,” he interrupted her, his tone serious. “I’ll play it over and over again in my head.”
She blinked, touched at his words and yet a bit confused. “You’re sweet,” she said.
“There’s nothing sweet about me,” he said, and came up to plunder her mouth with his own.
But he
was
sweet. Generous with his body and his words. Carefree like a boy—but strong like a man.
“Shall I stop?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “If you stop now”—he kissed her right below her ear—“I’ll never forgive you.”
“All right.” He dipped down to lay kisses along her jaw. “But I don’t want to rush you. Perhaps it’s too soon.”
“
No
. It’s not. Show me, Charlie. Please.”
He showed her, all right, caressing her intimately with the palm of his hand, making her arch and ache for more.
She clutched his circling hand with her own. “More,” she said against his mouth, and was delighted when his fingers worked into her drawers to tease the nub of her softest flesh.
The feeling was so tantalizing, she threw her hands out on either side to grasp the edge of the step, her mouth connected to Charlie’s in a ribald, frantic kiss.
And when his fingers slid inside her—oh, glorious feeling!—she felt herself clench hard around him, pulses of pleasure urging her hips to thrust upward.
“Charlie,” she said in wonder.
He kissed her while moving his fingers in and out, mingling with her hot, damp curls. She arched, waves of pleasure taking her over the edge of bliss as she cried his name into his mouth, and then as she sank back down.
“Charlie,” she whispered, her head fallen back, her gaze filled with the bowl of Highland sky and nothing else.
She wilted onto him, his hand buffering her spine against the hard edge of the stair behind them.
When she blinked again, she opened her eyes to a whole new world. And Charlie’s satisfied smile.
“Oh,” she said.
He gave a short laugh. “Really?”
She let out a long breath. “That was more than I ever imagined.”
He stared at her seriously then. “I’m glad.”
A bee went buzzing by, and they both watched it go.
“But what about you?” she asked, caressing Charlie’s shoulder. He sat next to her on the steps and pulled her onto his lap. “I want you to achieve such a blissful state, too. It hardly seems fair that only I do.”
They were nose to nose. His legs were hard, his belly was hard, and he gripped her hard, but in his arms she felt like a fragile china teacup, the most exquisite one in a person’s possession … or a petal-soft flower much adored.
“Believe me, I can,” he said with a grin. “On my own. Although it’s not nearly as much fun alone.”
“Let me,” she said, and pressed herself into him so she could feel the hard length of him through his breeches.
He pressed back, like a lion preening. “I want you to. More than anything. But today’s about you.”
“Why?”
He squeezed her close. “Because everyone needs to have a day about them, other than their birthday. Didn’t you know that?”
“No. When’s
your
special day?”
“I think it falls in April sometime.”
“I think you’re making this up.” He had the most beautiful eyes, brown with golden glints, especially when he was being playful.
“I’m not.” He touched her nose with a finger. “Your day is today. In fact, some people get more than one day. Some people get
every
day.”
“Every day?”
“Every day. And since you have me here, you’re one of those lucky people. Every day we can do … whatever you like.”
“No.” She was utterly shocked and delighted at his fancy. “I realize you’re still making this up, but wouldn’t it be nice if it could be true?”
“It can be.” He said it as if he felt sorry for her for not believing him.
She grew serious. “I think you’re amusing. And this … this has been incredible. But in real life, people can’t do whatever they want when they want.”
Charlie bit his lip. “You’re right, I suppose. But who gets to make the rules?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
He gave her a slow, languorous kiss. “When it comes to you and me,
we
make the rules. Let’s establish that right now.”
Daisy nodded. “I like that.”
“You’ll like what I’m about to do, too,” he whispered in her ear.
“Charlie—”
“And don’t stop me,” he said. “Remember, today’s your day.”
She felt a great thrill of anticipation and nerves, but his kisses, even as they aroused her, calmed her in a way nothing ever had. Feeling spoiled, she barely noticed that somehow he’d managed to deftly maneuver himself around her so that she was sitting back on the steps. He knelt two steps below, his broad chest between her legs. In fact, she was forced to spread them to accommodate his hard, lean body.
Next thing she knew, he was raising her gown: first, above her ankles. Then her shins, knees, thighs, and gracious goodness, above her waist! And he was removing her drawers, shimmying them off her—one moment they were there, and then they were gone—and gently pushing her knees even farther outward.
She had no time to be shy about basking in the sun with her legs spread wide on the Stone Steps. How could she when she was forced to endure the exquisite pleasure of his warm mouth upon her inner thighs, while she admired the curve of his back, the top of his curly head, and the large muscles bunched at his shoulders?