His fingers slid from her body, leaving her feeling hollow inside. “God. That’s . . .”

“Disappointing? Intimidating? Too much, too soon?”

He shook his head, moving in for a kiss. “I was going to say, it’s even better.” His tongue traced her bottom lip. “So much better.”

Her heart ballooned in her chest. She’d never dreamed it could hold so much joy.

As they kissed, he grasped her hips, lifting her in the water.

“It’s time, love.” His breath was labored. “Wrap your legs around my waist.”

She did as he asked, locking her ankles at the small of his back. As he supported her weight, she reached between them to guide his erection. They came together in a slow, sensuous joining.

She gasped as he filled her, stretching her wide. It didn’t hurt anymore, but just like the first time, she doubted she could take him all. He was patient, however, working into her by delicious degrees until they were one.

As isolated and alone as they were in this cove, they could have been loud, loosing wild cries and urgent groans into the dark of night. Instead, they moved in swift, rhythmic silence. The only sounds were the soft splashes of the water and their increasingly ragged breath.

She clung to his neck. The rest of her went boneless in the buoyant water. For the moment, she was only too happy to give him complete control. With strong, purposeful motions, he lifted her hips again and again, sliding her up and down his hard length. With every stroke, pushing her closer and closer to bliss. The tendons of his neck and shoulders stood out like ropes, and his jaw was tensed with effort.

She’d never felt so powerful, so desirable. So safe to release all her inhibitions and cares. To surrender to the strong, guiding force of his thrusts as he prodded her higher. And higher still. So close to that teasing, elusive peak.

“Here,” he panted, taking one of her hands and wedging it between them, right where their bodies joined. “Touch yourself here.”

His hands took her hips again, and he thrust even deeper. As he moved within her, her trapped fingertips rubbed back and forth over the swollen nub at the crest of her sex, giving her just the friction she needed. Her climax built in the distance, gathering strength. In her mind’s eye, she saw it coming, as if she were viewing a wave from the shore. An imminent, devastating swell of pleasure. It awed her—frightened her, even—as it loomed near, inescapable and intense. Then the wave broke, crashing over and through her body as he kept up his steady, powerful rhythm.

She cried his name. She might have cried a few joyous tears, as well.

He cursed.

With an urgent gasp, he pulled free of her body. She reached for him, tangling her grip with his as he stroked himself the remaining distance to release. His seed jetted against her belly, a burst of welcome heat in the cooling cove.

His temple pressed against hers as he brought her close. His labored breath crashed hot against her ear. “Hold me.”

Oh, Bram.

She lashed her bare arms and legs around his body, clutching him as close as she could. Kissing his shoulders, his throat, his jaw, his ear. Running her fingers through his damp, clipped hair. Rocking him, just a little. Back and forth, in time with the waves.

A flood of tenderness rushed from her heart and spread through her entire body, suffusing even her fingers and toes with warmth. She brought him closer still, wanting him to feel it. As if she could wrap him in a blanket of affection and hold him there forever. He had so much pride, and so much family honor, wrapped up in returning to war. How could she possibly entice him to stay? She was going to try her damnedest, but the day might come quite soon when she would have to let him go.

But for tonight, he’d asked her to hold him, and Susanna was going to do just that. Hold on to this passionate connection they shared. Hold on to this transcendent, if all too fleeting, joy.

Hold on to him. Just as long as she possibly could.

Twenty-two

Really. The man was impossible. When Susanna managed to get her hands on him, she was going to fling him off the bluffs herself.

It was late afternoon, almost evening. After a long day overseeing progress in the village, she ought to be heading home, making sure her father had eaten something today. Instead, she huffed all the way up to the castle ruins. On the way, she passed Corporal Thorne drilling the majority of the militiamen on the flat. Straight lines, straighter posture, a respectable unity of rhythm. Not perfect yet, but they’d made formidable progress in the past week. At marksmanship, she had all but a few of them loading and shooting in under twenty seconds now.

A few minutes’ more walking, and she reached the castle.

“Where is your lord?” she asked a lone volunteer standing sentry at the ancient, crumbling gatehouse. She recognized him as one of Bram’s farm recruits.

“Beg pardon, miss. I . . . I don’t believe he’s available.”

“What do you mean, he’s not available? He’s found time to devil me with these ridiculous orders all day.” In her fist, she clutched his latest handwritten missive. “This is the third one he’s sent this afternoon alone. I know he’s here.”

“He’s here,” the man hedged, “but . . .”

“Lord Rycliff!” she called, striding past the soldier.

Dinner greeted her as she crossed the bailey, with a friendly bleat and a questing nudge at her pocket.

“Someone’s been spoiling you.” Pausing to spare the lamb a brief pat, she passed into the grassy, open center of the castle grounds, drew to a halt, and lifted her voice. “Lord Rycliff, I need a word.”

“Up here, Miss Finch.”

She tilted her head to view the keep.

“On the parapet,” he called.

Shading her eyes, she let her gaze climb higher still. From atop the southwest turret, between the crenellated notches of the battlement, he lifted a hand in salutation. The sinking, amber sun lit him from the back, bathing him in a glowing corona of light. Like a halo of fire—perfectly befitting the handsome, tormenting devil.

“I’d appreciate if you’d come down, my lord,” she called. “We need to talk.”

“It’s my turn on watch.”

“You’re the commander. Can’t you make it someone else’s turn?”

“I don’t shirk my duty that way, Miss Finch.”

Susanna marched through the keep’s open door, crossed the roofless, ancient hall, and went straight for the spiral staircase of the southwest tower. If he refused to come down and talk to her, she would simply climb up to confront him.

As she ascended the stone risers, she called out, “What’s the meaning of all these missives? The seamstresses are tying their fingers in knots, trying to appease your absurd demands with the uniforms. First, you send a note demanding the coat lining should be bronze silk. We’re twelve pieces into the cutting, and now another note: Not bronze anymore, but blue. Not just any blue, mind. Iris blue. Well, no sooner do we have the blue laid out, than the next missive arrives. ‘I want pink,’ it says. Pink, of all colors! Are you serious?”

Lord, there were a great many stairs. Her brain whirled with the constant circling. She paused a moment, leaning a hand on the stone wall and gathering breath for the remainder of the climb. As well as for the remainder of her complaints.

“It’s my militia, Miss Finch,” he called down to her. “I want what I want.”

“It’s not as though we have nothing else to do, you realize,” she went on. “It’s not only the uniforms. We’ve only a matter of days before the field review. I have the ladies rolling cartridges. Miss Taylor is struggling valiantly to repair Finn and Rufus’s sense of rhythm. With marksmanship practice scheduled to last all tomorrow morning, we simply don’t have time for your capricious whims regarding coat lining and—”

No sooner had she gained the top of the stairs than he had her wrapped in his arms. He swept her straight off her feet.

In a swift motion, he carried her to the opposite side of the tower and pressed her against the parapet of cool, hard stone. At her back, the top edge of the wall caught her just beneath the shoulder blades. From the front, his solid heat and brute strength trapped her. Excited her. She’d already been short of breath, but this . . . ? This was dizzying.

“I told you,” he said in a low, possessive growl, “I want what I want. And what I want right now, so fiercely I can scarcely see straight, is you.” His kiss bruised her mouth. “I can’t believe it took three of those ridiculous notes to get you up here. Stubborn girl.”

“That was your purpose? Bram, you might have just said so.”

“I did say so.” His lips traced the curves of her neck. “Those notes were all about you. This shimmering bronze hair. Your iris-blue eyes.” He licked the underside of her jaw. “All your many, many, luscious shades of pink.”

A sigh of pleasure eased past her lips. “Bram.”

She should have been angry, but his embrace felt so good. So necessary. In the week since their tryst in the cove, they’d managed to steal a few hours together nearly every evening, making love beneath the night sky and then conversing on every topic under the stars. Still, she couldn’t be parted from him for a minute without missing him. These big, grasping hands and these hot, hungry kisses.

“What about the uniforms?” she asked.

“To the devil with the uniforms. Make the coat linings any color you wish. I don’t give a damn about any of it.”

He slid his hands to her bottom and pulled her flush against him, bringing her belly in contact with his prominent arousal. The evident, intense hunger in his eyes sent desire racing through her.

“I want you,” he said. Rather redundantly.

She wet her lips. “Perhaps tonight I can slip away from Summerfield.”

“No. Not tonight.” He kneaded her backside with both hands, lifting and molding her body to his. “Here. Now.”

The idea made her heart race, and made her intimate places go soft with longing. She glanced to either side. “We couldn’t possibly.”

“No one can see us,” he said, guessing her question. “Not on this side of the tower. There’s only rocks and sea below us here.”

The other three parapets were unoccupied. All the men were down the slope, at drill. He was right, there was no one to see. A mild breeze whipped around and between them. The purpling sky hung so close overhead, she felt as though she could brush it with her fingertips. They stood on top of the world, alone.

His teeth caught lightly on her earlobe. “I swam alone last night, you know. Worked my way back and forth across that cove until my muscles were jelly. You owe me more kisses than I can count.”

She had a vision of the two of them, tangled in a warm, pillow-heaped bed. He was outstretched on the mattress, utterly naked, and her hair was unbound, dragging over them both as she repaid those kisses she owed. Ran her lips and tongue over his every last hot, needy inch.

“I . . .” She gasped as his palm slid to cup her breast. “I thought you were meant to be on watch.”

“So I am.” He kneaded the taut globe thoughtfully, rolling her hardened nipple beneath his thumb. “Very well. Keep watch with me.”

Stepping back, he grasped her by the waist and spun her about, so that she faced the stone parapet. He moved her sideways, positioning her before one of the crenels—a gap in the battlement designed for an archer to shoot through.

“Can you see?” he asked roughly, bending her forward so that her elbows rested in the crenel notch and pulling up her skirts. “See the cove clear, and the Channel beyond?”

“Yes.” Below them, she could clearly survey the rocky inlet and expansive waters. In the distance, a few white sails puffed. To the west, the orange-yellow sun was slinking toward the horizon.