Page 122 of A Shore Thing

“Penny.” He brushed his fingers over her unbound hair. “Of course it’s personal.”

“Personal with many persons.” She was slurring her words. She wanted to say that she wasn’t hurt, that she understood the goodness of his rakery, that every farm girl and bluestocking and suffragist and widow should share this magical feeling, and so she could share him. Not that he was hers to share. And if he was, maybe she would insist that certain things—just a few—were personal to the two of them only.

“Many Muriels,” she slurred. “Curtains, knees, pugs, seaweed.”

“I’ve never been one for lasting attachments.” His voice was low. “You know that.”

“Why?” She wasn’t asleep. She was drifting between sleep and wake, which was far more dangerous. Just alert enough to ask questions her slumbering inhibitions should have silenced. “Because you wanted someone you couldn’t have?”

Lucy appeared at the bedside, beautiful in her bridal gown. The room grew tall and vaulted. It was a church, and Lucy waved goodbye to Kit and glided toward the man who waited by the altar. He wore a jeweled crown. He was a prince. No, he was a duke. He was Charles Heywood, chasing her through the lecture hall, out into the busy New York street, which teemed with staring strangers.

Sometime later, she opened her eyes. Kit was behind her, his arm around her waist, their legs tangled, his chin in her hair. He’d washed too, and smelled of lemon verbena. She breathed deeply, settling herself in his arms, relaxing something so deep inside that she felt like the sigh she released. Sometime after that, the storm woke her. Her pulse jumped with every crack and thud.

“Are you frightened?” Kit’s breath sifted through her hair.

She gasped at the next thud.

“So am I.” His smiling lips brushed her ear. “This storm is bloodcurdlingly gothic. Let’s hope it’s over by morning.”

Morning. When they’d ride, rain or shine, to the rugged north coast and west to St. Ives. This was their final night on the road. Thank God she’d fallen asleep before she’d spouted any more foolishness. Eternity. Lucy. Her eyes were wide open now. The fire had burned low, and the air on her face felt clammy and cold.

“I’m not frightened.” She wriggled around, facing him.

“Nor do you seem tired,” he drawled. “And we need our rest for tomorrow.”

“I can’t rest in this weather.”

“Hmm.” His eternity eyes glimmered. “Let me help with that.” His lips covered hers, all silken heat and greed, and she let him consume her, surrendering to sensation. Her fingers twisted in the thick silk of his hair, the slide of tongues between their joined mouths sending licks of fire down to her belly, her legs, her curling toes. She jumped as the wind shook the walls, and he laughed a dark laugh, lifting away.

“So tense.” He pushed her onto her back and kicked off the blanket, cold air dropping into the void, making her shiver. “Pull up your shift.”

She blushed and lifted her hips, tugging the cotton up to her waist. The bed’s white dimity hangings took on an ethereal quality. Shadows from the fire’s flickering coals wheeled above. Her shiver became a full-body shudder of gothic excitement.

“Higher, please.”

The crisp demand made warmth rush between her legs. She rolled the fabric up, exposing her breasts. She had gooseflesh from the chill, and he chased it with his hand, stroking up her belly, rolling her breast beneath his rough palm.

“Will you take off your shirt?” Her voice hitched. He hadn’t ever, except for that first night, in the tub. He always kept himself partially clothed, and she’d learned not to let her hands roam. “I want to see you too.” She swallowed, momentarily shy. “And touch you.”

He lay still beside her, her heart thumping into his motionless hand.

“That’s not something I often do.” He spoke slowly. “I have difficulty trusting that I will be seen how I need to be seen. And touched how I need to be touched.”

“Can you show me? Show me how?”

“It’s late.” His hand began to move again, fingertip dragging between her breasts, then over her nipples, which responded with exquisite agony. “Someday perhaps you could touch me like this. Or like this.” His teeth replaced the fingertip, and she arched her spine, helplessly encouraging the torment. He drew back with a rasping breath. “And we could lie like this, skin against skin.” He eased onto her, shirt rubbing on her sensitized breasts. His mouth was on her neck and her jaw, suckling her lower lip, until she sighed, and their tongues met. He broke the kiss.

“And you could see and touch me everywhere. There are parts of my body I might wish otherwise, but I can still enjoy them.” He hesitated, looking down at her. “With someone able to understand that neither man nor woman comes down to parts. Either could have any.”

“I understand,” she said, but perhaps there was a shade of uncertainty in her tone. At any rate, he didn’t tear off his nightshirt and fall upon her naked. He rested his forehead on hers, and she felt the gossamer movement of his lashes. Her mind was turning and turning. A man could have had a boyhood or a girlhood. A man could have a smooth jaw and calloused palms, or a beard and smooth palms. He could have a muscled chest, or a soft one. She tried to think how best to express her thoughts. It was all so complicated. Or stunningly simple.

I love you.

She was far too awake to say that.

“Speaking of parts,” he murmured. “Would you like to see my cock?”

Her mind lurched, and her reply was a stutter. A stuttered cock, no less, which made her cheeks glow like coals in the dark.