kerchief she wore, crossed in front, was tucked into her bodice. She eased one end free, touching the curve of her breast as she did so. Teasing. She had done this many times—
“Stop it,” he snapped. “Just undress. And stop goddamned thinking about everything.”
“You are very bad tempered. I do not stop thinking because you order it.”
“Then think about me.” He unbuttoned his cuff and shook his arm so the sleeve loosened. He was scowling. “I’m going to risk getting kicked out of the Service, taking you to bed. You bloody well be here, body and soul, when I do it.”
Body and soul. He wanted to touch both her body and her soul. No. That would not happen. That was not what she had planned.
He pulled his shirt over his head in ripples of white linen, and came out, still frowning. He crumpled the shirt in his fist and tossed it behind him and stood up, making it one continual motion. He reached both hands down, wordlessly, to take her hands and pull her up to stand beside him.
He skimmed his breeches down and kicked them away and he was naked. His cock was upright and large, which he continued to ignore. She had made many compliments to men in this regard. Now, when she might have spoken sincerely, she said nothing and resolutely looked elsewhere.
He was the same brown everywhere. That was from being in Italy. She had seen the boys and young men, naked as fishes, swimming in the heat of the day, in the harbor between the boats or beside the bridge of a river, and envied them that freedom.
He was so thin. The British gave him no peace and no rest. They used him as a courier when he was not set to more serious work. His ribs showed, each one separate and defined. The muscles of his belly, his shoulders, his arms, were stark as rocks jutting from a hill, smooth as peeled wood. He was a fierce and violent simplicity, like a force of nature. There was not the least softness upon him anywhere.
She would be able to put her hands upon him. She could do this. She could do it now.
She watched her own fingers draw the line of his collarbone. Warm skin overlaid the unyielding hardness of bone. The line of muscle in his throat was just as hard. His pulse beat very fast. She could see that in the valley at the base of his throat. She could feel that under her palm.
His cock . . . She should stroke his cock. She thought of touching him and no horror descended.
She felt empty inside. The fear was not there. She did not know what to feel instead.
“I’m proud of that. We’ll admire it together, later on.” He nudged her in closer to him. Set his mouth against her hair and breathed in. “You smell of the fire. You smell . . . domestic-like.”
“I made you tea. I am very domestic.”
He talked more, rambling on about the cottage. He had stayed here for a month last winter, healing up from a fall. The year before that he’d learned to ride the damn horses in the stable at the great house. Doyle was teaching him to sneak through the woods like a bloody great rabbit.
His voice poured warmth over the cold inside her. He knew what she was. Knew what she had done. There was no condemnation in him. He had done terrible things, himself.
He kissed her eyelids, closing her into the darkness with him. He was there with her. In the heat and solidity of his body. In his breath on her face. In kisses on the corners of her eyes, that did not hurry. He went deep into her mouth. When men kissed her in that way, she must—
“Stay with me, Owl.” His fingers closed tight around her face. “Me. Not the damned ghosts.”
He tangled his fingers into her hair and held her while his mouth took hers. This time, he was not careful and gentle. He came to her, dark and overwhelming. He was the Mohawk of the alleyways when he kissed her. The street rat, not the gentleman. All the brutality of his nature, all that he controlled and denied and tried to tame, revealed itself.
He said, “What do I taste like? Tell me.”
“You are very stupid.”
“Oh, I am. This is the stupidest thing I’ve done in a long time. Tell me what I taste like.”
“You taste like darkness.” Cautiously, she stretched upward and explored that flavor in his mouth. That possibility. “And tea. And . . . oranges.”
“You taste like ghosts.” Even while he kissed her, he was suddenly taking her clothes off, clever and fast as a man playing music on strings. “Stop negotiating with them. Leave ’em be. There’s just me. I want everybody else out of your head.”
There was no more time for calculation or uncertainty. She had not felt the buttons fall undone, but he was pulling her sleeves down her arms, so it must have happened. She heard the slither of her stays unlaced. Felt them open and fall free. When he kissed her shoulder, he pushed the sleeve of her shift away with his lips. The undercurve of her neck, the top of her breast, the hollow behind her collarbone . . . everywhere he kissed was bare and sensitive.
She had thought he would seduce her slowly. She had imagined a long, slow journey, dogged by nightmares. Instead she was whirled from one moment to the next. She stood, barefoot, with one of her breasts quite exposed and all of her filled with perplexity.
“Right.” He pinched up a fold of the linen of her shift. “Next, I get you out of this.”
She was shaking. Not fear. Not distaste. The trembling of a racehorse at the start of the course. “You are not so great a lover as your reputation.” She had not meant to say that. One did not say such things to men. “You hurry.”
“No point giving you time to think. Do you please yourself? With your own hands?”
“What do you mean?” But she knew what he meant.
“In bed, alone at night, do you give yourself pleasure with your hands? Do you stroke yourself here?” He touched, lightly, to her shift where it covered her lower belly.
He was without shame. She had not thought it was possible to make her blush.
He said, “Good, then. We couldn’t do this if that nubbin between your legs didn’t make you happy.”
One does not speak of such things. “You lack subtlety.”
“I’ll get to it, one of these days. Subtlety. I got a whole list of things I plan to learn.”
He was pulling her shift down her body, and his eyes were deep wells, mysterious and contained. He did no more than brush her skin when he took her last clothes away. So fast. So matter-of-fact. She might have been alone, removing her own clothing, except that she felt his fingers through the cloth.
She was naked. He was naked and aroused.
Hawker lifted her from her feet, into his arms. She held on. There was only his skin beneath her hands and pressed to her side and holding her. The world swept by in a rush of confusion. He was the most real of all realities. Alive, solid, unyielding, sure of himself. He was perfectly, absolutely made of strength.
Fear struck through her. Memory of—
He did not carry her to the bed. He kicked the door of the cottage open. They were outside in the light, in the rain, in the sound of wind.
Rain fell into her face, across her breasts and belly, shockingly cold. His body shielded her from the worst of it. Ten paces and they were under the loose cover of tree branches. Under the beech tree that stood in front of his cottage.
“Don’t you dare change your damn mind. Understand me?” He set her to stand and pushed her bare back to the tree. The bark poked long rough lines and ridges against her. Her feet slipped on the cold, soft cushion of moss. She was warm only where their bodies met. Where Hawker was hot and dense against her belly and thighs.
“Close your eyes,” he said. “Do it!”
She closed her eyes.
“Listen.” His voice fell like a stone through the buzz of rain. “What do you hear?”
She heard sharp taps, thousands of them, becoming one muffled note that rose and fell with the wind. The rain rode that wind in sideways to where they sheltered, sneaking under the leaves, pelting Hawker’s bare back that protected her. Little drops worked their way through the leaves above and fell onto her shoulders.
He said again, “What do you hear?”
“I hear a madman who has brought me out to freeze in the rain.”
“You hear rain. It’s making a wall around us. Nobody can get close. We’re alone.” His mouth closed over her mouth. He was heat and flavor and demand. His body was the only warmth in the world. “What do you smell? Tell
