“And what sort is it?” Oliver asked, his voice still a bit gruff. He nipped at that playful finger.
“A smile of contentment.”
Contentment had surely settled into his bones. Laziness, too. Though for how long those feelings would remain, he couldn’t say. If he were lucky, the whole night. If not... he’d best enjoy every stolen second of them in this moment, since there was no other moment like it. “As much as I want to, we can’t stay here for much longer.”
“I know.” A small sigh. “The world awaits, does it not? What a shame that the line between dreams and life is as thin as a whisper.” She lifted herself away from him, and the loss was palpable, its emptiness reaching the depth of his soul.
“Oh, dear,” she muttered, glancing down at the disarray they’d created. “We’ve made quite a mess of things.”
Oliver removed a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it over. He liked the mess. He liked everything they made.
“What about you?” she asked, her gaze lighting up on a certain member of his body, which had since calmed down.
A flush spread from his neck up to his ears. “I’ll be fine.” In times of need, one had to work with what one could. They quickly cleaned themselves and rearranged their clothing. Well, as much as they could. His mind shifted briefly to the looming complications of their situation. “Your brother is rather astute, so we must be careful.”
She laughed. “That little brat does have the eyes of a hawk, does he not?”
Oliver hooked the last button into place, his gaze never wandering away from Louisa for long. Her cheeks were still flushed, and her hair a bit disheveled, but they could blame the Brighton breeze for that. He filed her angelic, tousled appeared in his memory, deep where it could never be shaken. Where time couldn’t touch it.
“Come to think about it,” she continued, “he won’t allow you to sleep anywhere else but his bed, you know that don’t you?”
Oliver nodded. Knowing Leo, that was likely true.
“A pity,” she said on a sigh. “I had wished for certain limbs to wrap around me all night.”
“Louisa.”
How was she supposed to keep a straight face if she continued to bewitch him with that bewitching tongue?
She laughed. “Very well, I shall stop lamenting my loss.”
Oliver shook his head at her teasing. The once drowsy contentment was already starting to wear away as their appearance returned to their original state. Louisa had been right. A mere whisper separated dreams from real life. It was foolish to think he could grasp onto this dreamlike moment and hold on forever. Dreams and reality, the one couldn’t exist without the other, but they also couldn’t exist at the same time.
“How are you feeling?” Oliver asked, watching as she tilted her head to the side and combed her fingers through her hair.
She smiled at him. “That long hair and sea breezes don’t work well together.” The curve of her lips itched upward. “And that I’m still rather breathless, and I feel marvelous.”
“I mean your body.”
She let out a soft chuckle. “It feels a bit sensitive, that is all. Do not fret. I shall not expire because I seduced you. And you are also not allowed to feel remorse of any kind. I shall seduce you again if you do.”
This woman... she always managed to surprise him. Undo him. “Very well, but allow me to offer one thing to you.”
“Oh? Pray tell?”
He almost cursed at that intrigued tone. “A key to my door.”
She pursed her lips in humor. “What door? The door to your house? Oliver Cavanagh, just what exactly are you suggesting?”
Ah, hell. He grimaced at his own words. “I mean, it’s a proverbial key. An offer that you may always come to me and demand whatever you wish, and not only... this.”
She cocked her head, studying him. “Why would you make such an offer to me?”
“It’s hard to predict the consequences of this momentary dream, but more difficult to anticipate the results of everything we’ve done up to this moment.”
“Do you mean the possibility of my father discovering that Leo and I traveled with you and that Leo was kidnapped for a few hours and so forth?”
Oliver nodded. “Precisely.”
