Page 52 of When the Scoundrel Sins

Then his touch changed. No more teasing, flitting caresses. Now his hand worked in a steady, relentless rhythm to push her toward the breathless edge. Her thighs quivered as he continued to plunge his fingers into her warmth, swirling inside her and growing the ball of unbearable heat at his fingertips.

“You deserve to be desired, Belle.” He licked at her nape. The erotic caress shivered through her, connecting the ache of her puckered nipples to the relentless throbbing between her legs. He delved his thumb into her folds, to tease against the aching nub buried there. “You deserve to have passion and pleasure. In your heart, you know that as well as I.”

His words cascaded through her in a waterfall of flames, and the mounting ache at his fingertips grew more ferocious until she could no longer remain still. With a whimper of need, she writhed her hips against his hand to demand release—

A gasp tore from her throat, and her hips bucked against his hand. All the tiny muscles inside her clenched down around his fingers, then released in a shuddering, electric jolt. With a soft cry, she shattered and went limp in his arms. Her body pulsed with waves of pure pleasure that radiated out from his hand at her core, and she sagged down into the water, to welcome its coldness against her heated flesh.

He wrapped both arms around her and held her against him, murmuring her name against her shoulder.

As she regained her breath, the lingering pulses of residual release gradually ebbed away. And in its place came self-recrimination. Good God, what had she done? With Quinton! The most impossible man for her.

She struggled free of his arms and shoved herself away, hot tears blurring her eyes as she turned toward him. Concern darkened his face. When he reached for her, she held up her hand.

“Don’t,” she warned.

He lowered his arms. The concern on his face vanished, and his jaw set hard at her rebuke.

Embarrassment squeezed her chest. Not that he’d touched her, but because she’d so shamelessly encouraged it. And because she now wanted nothing more than to do it again. Worse, she wanted even more. She wanted his hard body moving inside hers, giving her the greater pleasures she knew he was capable of bringing to her at the same time he soothed away all her pain and sorrow. Even now her body shook with longing for exactly that.

“It was only a touch, Annabelle,” he reminded her. “Nothing more.”

Oh, he was so very wrong about that! “You shouldn’t have done that,” she chastised, wrapping her arms protectively over her breasts, even though he couldn’t see anything through the water.

“We both wanted that,” he countered gently.

“That doesn’t—” She choked on the knot tightening in her throat. Then, letting the anger come, she sought refuge behind it from the swirling confusion he’d unleashed upon her. “Thank you for the object lesson about desire,” she bit out scathingly, jutting her chin into the air. “But I don’t need any more of your lessons, nor do I want them.”

He closed the distance between them with a single step before she could dart away, cupping her face between his large hands and tilting her head back. She saw his angry eyes blaze like blue flames for one heartbeat before he seized her mouth beneath his, daring to plunder her lips in one last blazing kiss.

Lord help her, she let him, even as tears stung at her eyes. Losing herself beneath his strength and fierce determination, she kissed him back. How could she not, when his kiss was so torturously delicious? Sweet yet passionate, and so full of promise.

He tore his mouth away from hers. “You need my lessons.” His breath panted hot against her cheek. “More than you realize.”

His burning gaze dropped to her lips as he slowly backed away from her, as if he were afraid of what might happen if he stayed, of what their anger might drive them to this time.

As he turned and waded through the water to the bank, she stared after him, averting her eyes only at the last moment when his hips emerged from the water.

A new ache thumped brutally inside her. Although she couldn’t put a name to it, this longing was completely different from the desire to have his hands on her and his body inside hers, to be physically exhausted and satiated in his arms.

It was a longing to havehim. All of him. Now and for the rest of her life.

And it terrified her.

Chapter Eight

With a groan of exertion, Quinn lifted the heavy stone from the ground and set it into place on the pasture wall, then straightened and ran his forearm across his brow to wipe away the stinging sweat dripping into his eyes.

“That one nearly did ye in, eh?” Angus Burns teased beside him as he set his own rock into place.

Quinn answered with a strained grimace, panting to catch his breath.

Burns slapped him good-naturedly on his back with a grin. “Only twenty more t’ go!”

He glanced at the break in the stone wall, the same gap he and Angus had already spent most of the day attempting to close, and cursed beneath his breath at the size of the breach left to fill.

Burns laughed and reached for a smaller stone to plug a tiny hole.

The cool morning had given way to a warm afternoon, with bright sunshine flooding across the pasturelands and the blue mountains on the horizon. It was a beautiful day, and Quinn had barely noticed any of it. His mind was on the same place it’d been since the evening he arrived and found that the Bluebell had grown into a capable woman, with a kind heart, full curves, and quiet dedication. One he couldn’t seem to stop worrying about. Or keep from kissing whenever they were alone.