He kissed her deeply, exploring her sweetness with his tongue and pressing her body against the riverbank. Springy green grasses crushed under her back, making a bed against the cool damp of the earth. Her skirts tangled around his boots and held him in a tight embrace. And her body … Her curves yielded beneath him, welcoming all his hard edges and giving them a place to rest.
Her fingers teased through his hair, sending a shiver of joy down his spine.
She threw her arms around his neck and clung tight. “Gabriel.”
Sweet heaven.
No, no. More like bloody hell.
He knew what this little dalliance on the riverbank could cost him, not only in shillings, but in pride. He knew what it could cost her, too. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to stop.
She tasted too good, felt too soft beneath him.
He shouldn’t be here. Didn’t belong in her arms. He was a street urchin trespassing in a fine house, forbidden to touch. But that was precisely why he ached to touch her—all over. To take what he’d always been denied.
But once again, she upended all his thinking. Even the lowest born of men couldn’t steal what was freely given.
As they kissed, she arched her body against his in a silent, instinctive plea. He slid a hand up her rib cage until his thumb grazed the underside of her breast. She tensed beneath him, and her fingernails bit into his neck.
He broke their kiss, staring down at her and drawing ragged breaths, until her body relaxed and her blue eyes gave him permission to continue.
“Yes?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
When he cupped her breast in his palm, he was the one to sigh with pleasure. He’d been wanting this, dreaming about it both asleep and awake. Her flesh was cool, and the frigid stream had drawn her nipple to a firm knot. For a moment, he simply held the chilled softness in his hand, making it his purpose to warm her, banish the cold.
But he couldn’t be satisfied with simple contact for long. He massaged the soft weight of her, then found her nipple with his thumb and gently strummed. Her breath caught. The small sound was a spark, igniting desire that raged into a blaze, kindling his every nerve.
He began to murmur foolish words against her skin—words like “want,” and “need,” and “Penny,” and “God,” and he buried his face in the sweet curve of her neck to keep them secret. Even from himself.
With fumbling fingers, he peeled the damp muslin from her skin, working the sleeve over her shoulder until he had just enough slack to slide his fingers beneath and lift her breast, drawing it free from her chemise and stays.
Her bared skin was like silk, and her ruched nipple was the same tender pink as her lips. A touch of sunlight drifted through the leafy branches above, dappling her skin with a warm glow. Bending his head, he caught her nipple in his mouth, drawing on it with his tongue and—when that wasn’t enough—gently scraping with his teeth. She tasted like flowing water in spring. Fresh, pure, sweet. He lapped at her, greedy for more.
More.
When he’d entered the water, his ballocks had gone so deep into hiding, Gabe hadn’t expected them to emerge for days. He’d underestimated the power of this woman. His cock hardened against his trousers placket, straining the buttons and insistently pressing against her hip. Her pelvis tilted, bringing him in exquisite contact with her cleft. The keen spear of pleasure damned near ran him through.
He sent his hand on a downward journey, exploring the rolling landscape of her waist, hips, thighs. Her soaked skirt clung to her legs, revealing the contours of her body. When he reached the hem of her frock, he worried the edge between fingers and thumb. He thought of her stockings, lying discarded on the grass.
He shouldn’t.
He did.
Parting the clinging fabric from her skin, he reached beneath to encircle her bare ankle with his hand.
As he swept his touch up her calf, she jerked in surprise. Her hand caught his, trapping it just below her knee. He paused at once.
“Ticklish?” He could scarcely scrape the word from his throat.
She shook her head.
“What is it?”
“I …” Her kiss-flushed lips curved in a coy little smile. “I think it’s the urges.”
He couldn’t help but grin in response.
These teasing hints of her naughty side were driving him mad with curiosity. He wanted to pry her open at the delicate pink seams and explore the sensual woman within.
But at the center of this woman was a heart. A soft, vulnerable one, made to be broken. He damned well didn’t trust himself with that organ, and if she possessed any caution, she wouldn’t let him anywhere near it.
“Mr. Duke!” The call came from the direction of the road. “Mr. Duke, are you there?”
“Oh, no.” Pushing against his chest, Lady Penelope scrambled out from beneath him. “He’s returned.”
“One moment,” Gabe called out. He offered a hand and helped her to her feet. “Stay here. I’ll go ahead and make some excuse for you.”
“What excuse?”
“I don’t know. I’ll tell him you’ve gone to relieve yourself.”
“Really?” She wrinkled her nose. “Can’t you at least say I’m gathering flowers or something?” She picked at her wet, muddy frock. “And slipped into the stream in the process, I suppose, with a good roll in the mud on the way down.”
He shrugged. “If you prefer.”
“It’s just so embarrassing. As if I don’t generate heaps of humiliations on my own. Now I have to go borrowing them.”
“You, er …” He hesitated. “Not that I mind, but you may want to fix your frock.”
She glanced downward. Seeing her exposed breast, she quickly tucked it back in her stays. “See what I mean? Heaps of humiliations. Heaps.”
Gabe wondered if the past quarter hour went into her heaps of humiliations, or whether she regarded it as something else.
He wondered, but he wasn’t going to ask.
On his part, he wouldn’t be filing this memory under the heading of “Humiliations.” Oh, no. It was going straight into the stash of “Fantasies” that every man kept under his mattress, figuratively if not literally.
He was never going to forget the taste of her, pure and sweet. The way her skin moved like satin under his hands, warming to his touch.
And the way she’d responded to him? That was already etched on his brain.
I think it’s the urges, she’d said.
The worrisome part of it was, their urges had gone unsatisfied.
They would remain so, he told himself. This afternoon had been a mistake. An enjoyable mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. Time to revive his judgment. Gabe could survive deprivation of all sorts, including this one.
He would not put his hands on Lady Penelope Campion again.
Absolutely not.
Definitely not.
Probably not.
Damn.
To make her story plausible, Penny decided she might as well pick some