him.'
Quickly, before she did something silly like drown herself in the name of modesty, he maneuvered the muddy path to block the landlord's descent.
'Ho, there. You've caught my missus and I in a rather embarrassing situation. Abigail'
'How do I know that be Miss Abigail?' Small, birdlike eyes stared suspiciously past Robert's shoulder. 'Ye could ha' done her a danger, ye and yer doxy down there.'
Anger blazed a trail down Robert's spine at hearing Abigail referred to as a doxy.
He forgot about the rain pelting his body.
He forgot that he was standing naked in front of a man old enough to be his grandfather.
He forgot everything but the insult this man had issued.
'I have said it is Miss Abigail,' Robert snapped icily, 'and it will be the worse for you if you do not level your eyes elsewhere.'
The aged caretaker guiltily hunched his head between his shoulders. Water streamed down his slicker. 'Miss Abigail didnt' mention no man.'
'I am on leave from the Army; my… wife did not expect me. You are interrupting our reunion, so make sharp, man!'
'She didnt' say nothin' 'bout no husband, neither.' Thomas glanced at the stormy sky over Robert's left shoulder, then over his right, anywhere but at his naked body. 'Said it be just her'
'I have explained the circumstances. We will reimburse you for your efforts, if that is what troubles you.'
'M' wife only agreed to cook an' clean fer one.' The small eyes glinted in greed at the mention of payment. 'I put a basket of victuals in the cabin. She didnt' make no food fer two'
'Give my regards to your wife. I am sure whatever she prepared is enough for the two of us. Now I bid you good day, sir!'
The old man took the hint. Robert breathed a sigh of relief when Mr. Thomas jumped into his trap and set off. Turning around, Robert caught sight of Abigail.
And felt as if he had been kicked in the gut.
Her hair adhered to her back like the skin of an otter. Below it he could make out the white globes of her buttocks.
The storm still lastednothing was going to deprive him of the coming night.
Purposefully he stalked her. When he cupped her buttocks in his hands, she yelped and jumped around. When he cupped her face and lifted it up to his, she sighed and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Slowly, softly, he savored the cool slickness of her rain-washed lips and the eagerness with which they parted. Her mouth on the inside was as hot as the rain beating down on them was cold.
'Cold?' he murmured, nuzzling her cheek, smelling the fresh rain on her skin mixed with the salt of the ocean and the lingering traces of sweat and sex.
'Hmm,' she returned.
He pressed the hardening length of his manhood into her stomach and murmured, 'Ride me.'
She jerked her head back, brown eyes wide with shock. 'What?'
Robert silently cursed Mr. Thomas again. There would have been no shock at his suggestion had the old man not appeared.
'To the cabin.' Turning, he bent his legs and offered her his back. 'Hop on.'
He waited with bated breaththis was the deciding moment. Reality had intrudedwould she choose it over the fantasy world they had created together?
A tentative hand rested on his shoulderfollowed by the hitch of a soft, warm leg.
His heart skipped a beatswelled with exultation. Before she had time to think about just how awkward and vulnerable the position rendered her, he grasped her underneath her knee and hoisted her higher onto his back.
Surprisingly strong arms clasped him about the neck while her left leg tried to gain purchase. Reaching back with his left hand, he grabbed it, spread her wide so that both knees were locked against his hips.
The soft flesh between her thighs pressed into his buttocks. She was hot and slick against his rain-drenched skin, from her, from him.
For a second, he thought he would orgasm right there on the spot. Then he thought about dropping her and taking her on the beach in the mud and the rain.
A smart smack on his hip brought him round. She was shivering with coldnot desire. 'My ride, sir.'
Digging her heels into the tops of his thighs, she hitched herself higher
Then the gray sky rang with her laughter, and Abigail was once again the little girl who had given back to him his childhood.
He didn't remember the climb to the cabin, only the feel of her rubbing and grinding into his back, his buttocks, the sudden thrust of a heel against his 'lance' when she brought both legs around him and tried to lock her feet over his groin.
When she wriggled down his back, he groaned in pure agony and collapsed against the safety that the cabin door represented, eyes squeezed shut, his manhood so hard, it thrust straight out from his body.
A soft, cool hand touched the bunched muscles in his forearm. 'Robert? Are you all right? Did you hurt your leg?'
Robert didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the concern in her voice. He needed her passion now, not her kindness that had taken away the agony of his first kill.
'Abigail, look down and tell me what you see.'
'A basket of food,' was the too innocent reply. 'Are you hungry?'
He opened his eyes in pained amusement. 'Did the stroll on the beach meet up to your expectations?'
'I will never forget it, Robert.'
His lips twitched. 'Neither will Mr. Thomas.'
The brown eyes staring up at him were solemntoo solemn. Her eyelashes were spiked from the rain. 'What did you tell him?'
'I told him we were man and wife.'
'But I specifically stated in the lease'
'And that you were not anticipating my arrival because my leave of absence from the Army came unexpectedly.'
'You did not have to say that we were married, Robert.'
'But we are. Joined at the hip.'
Laughter glimmered in her brown eyes, a spark of amber where before there had been none. 'It was not my hip that was joined to you, Colonel Coally.'
'I know very well what was joined to me, Miss Abigail.'
Her spiked lashes lowered. 'Your feet are muddy. You need a bath.'
'Only if you wash me.'
'But I am hungry, Robert.' She raised her eyelashes; behind the amber laughter was warm desire. 'If I wash you we will not eat. And I have a particular fantasy that I want to act out.'
The water in the small tub was as cold as the rain outside. Robert experienced a strange contentment, watching Abigail's small, plump breasts elongate when she leaned over to clean the floor. When she turned around and scrubbed her way backward toward the tub, Robert thought his heart would stop.
'You have a round bottom, Miss Abigail. And between your legs you have dainty pink lips surrounded by wet brown curls.'
That got her attention.
Straightening, she turned and stepped around the tub. Her face, before she swirled around, was as pink as the lips he had mentioned. 'You have a concave bottom, Colonel Coally. And hairybullocks.'
'Shall we compare tit for tat, Miss Abigail?'
Turning, she offered him a towel. 'Not at all, Colonel Coally. You have a tit and I have a twat.'
Eyes glinting with laughter, he took the towel that she offered, stepped one foot at a time out of the tub as he dried off. Then he blotted dry her hair, her shoulders, her breasts, her hips, worked his way down to a pair of
