“Is someone watching?” She studied the shoreline with panicked eyes. “Did someone see?” She lifted a hand and began to wipe her mouth with the back of it, but he stopped her, holding her wrist.
“Do not wipe my kiss away.”
In the sun-yellow shadows, ire blazed to life in her eyes.
He used his other hand, still around her neck, to tug her closer. His knees, spread wide, made a little nest for her knees. He placed her hand, safe from wiping his kiss away, around his neck.
“There.” He sounded gruff. He kept his voice quiet. “This is how it should have been.” He did not think he’d done wrong with Martin and Selena. Except, perhaps, in that it had lost him this—her hand at his nape, her chest rising and falling with fast little breaths. He nudged his nose against the side of hers.
He must release her now. The idea tightened like a chain around his heart until it strangled, until it squeezed the damn organ into two jagged halves. When she left this little boat, this floating world for two, would she run to the arms of some other man? A lover. Peterson.
He did not want to know. But in the end, the words slipped out. “Have you kissed other men, Beatrice?”
Her hand on his neck squeezed, her body going rigid. “What does it matter?”
“It does not.”
“You think to own me? Or to shame me for my past? I’ll not allow it.” She tried to pull away from him.
But he held her nape tight, squeezed her thighs between his knees. “No, darling. No one can own a wild heart. And I’d never shame an independent mind.” He settled his forefinger and thumb at her chin, lifted it. “I want to be their champion. Your champion. And I want my kisses to be the only ones that matter. We do not always get what we wish for most, but maybe…” His voice softened. Her breath hitched. “Maybe if all I want is a kiss, I can have that.”
Six
Another kiss? She wanted to melt into her answer—yes—and into him. The last few minutes had blown every minute before stepping into the boat with Richard quite out of existence. Had there been other men? Other kisses? Anything outside this tiny, gently rocking world?
Not when his hand at her nape felt so warm.
His breath on her skin so intoxicating.
And her legs between his thick, muscled thighs so very exciting.
Another splash beyond the branches, out in the sunshine where an entire world existed. A world in which she loathed him.
Selena there too. And her broken heart.
Another crack on the shore, like a boot stepping on a stick, the rustle of branches. So many eyes about. Another kiss would change her. It would change everything. On the shore, nothing, no one. Except—there, a flash of clothing, a body appearing from behind a tree, a hat tipped back above a wide grin. The man waved. The man sheknewwaved.
Daniel Bartlett, scoundrel, seducer, bigamist. The lost Bartlett brother of Slopevale. Here. When he should most certainly not be.
Beatrice moved without thought, her brain a flailing, shrieking mess of quivery pudding. She shoved hard against Richard’s chest, her gaze still locked on the shore as her body rocked backward. The boat rocked, too, oars slipping out of their notches, splashing into the water.
Richard cursed and wrenched his torso over the side of the boat, grabbing at the oar. The world tilted. Beatrice tilted. She lunged toward the opposite side of the boat to balance it out.
Too late. The boat reared up. Beatrice tumbled down. And the water greeted her with chilly arms, pulling her under.
Skirts trapping legs, she kicked, reaching for the surface. She’d not had time to draw in enough air before plunging under. Already her lungs screamed. She opened her eyes. Nothing but murky water, dim sunrays piercing the brown fog. Her lungs screamed when she could not. Her eyes burned. Her brain a spinning top of panic as she reached for the light.
Then manacles wrapped around her waist and yanked her upward. She gasped as her head popped above the water.
“Hold on to the boat,” Richard barked near her ear. His arm like a chain at her waist, holding her up, saving her. He’d not abandoned her to a watery grave. She clung to his neck, sucked in air on gasps. He held her more tightly, his legs working hard under the surface to keep them both afloat. “Shh. I’ve got you, Bea. I’ve got you. Hold on to the boat, love. Shh. Right here.” He unclenched one of her arms from around his neck and placed it on the bottom of the boat now turned up to the sky. “See how you can grasp right here?”
She nodded, shivering.
“Good. Now hold tight. I’m going to let you go.”
“No!” Water was so very vast, so final. A person could be lost there, never found. The water had always wanted to hide her body, to make her as unseen as she felt. “No. Please, no.”
“Yes.” His voice so very calm. “But only to pull the boat—and you—toward the shore. Hold tight, and you’ll be fine. And if you accidentally let go, just yelp for me. I’ll come.”
