“If only the distillers and tradesmen in Paris had been of the same opinion.” She tried to sound as if she was only jesting, but he saw the shadows in her eyes as he helped her onto the conveyance. Once he’d secured the baskets of food and climbed up next to her, he pulled her to him by the waist. He startled her enough that her bottom ended deliciously pressed to his groin.
“You are exceedingly tempting,” he told her, and in response, she wiggled her rump so that it brushed deliciously against his now very hard cock. He gritted his teeth in aroused agony but kept her pressed to him. “If my current state doesn’t make that clear, let me say it. You are more than charming. In fact, you are supremely enticing, and my main concern now is that half of the staff here is enamored with you.Ican’t get enough of you, and I suspect neither can they, if all the besotted smiles are anything to go by. I don’t think I’d ever seen Clark’s teeth until you arrived here, for God’s sake.” She made a little sound of protest, but before she turned away he saw the happy twinkle in her eyes.
“Where are you taking me, Lord Darnick?” she asked, face turned up to the sun as he set them on the path to their destination.
“You’ll have to wait and see.” She huffed without any true heat and kept turning her head this way and that. It was a while before she spoke again.
“The mountains here are so different to Switzerland.” The wistfulness in her voice made Evan look away from the road toward the hills covered in heather that his bride was pointing to in the distance.
He made an inquiring sound, curious of what she meant by that. “They’re so rugged and blunt,” she explained. She squinted adorably, as though she were attempting to decipher the precise difference she saw but could not quite articulate. At length she turned to him. “There’s wildness to them,” she said finally. “Like they were built for giants to lounge on.” She relayed this discovery with such seriousness, he almost leaned in and kissed her.
“Furniture for giants,” he summed up. “Which would make the Alps what?”
“Giant fairy castles,” she said brightly. He did kiss her then, a quick and sultry thing, needing to taste the brine of the sea air on her skin.
“We house giants with clubs, and the Swiss are lodging fairies, then?” he teased, his gaze lingering on her for a moment too long.
“Eyes ahead, Lord Darnick,” she rebuked playfully. “And I didn’t know what else to call it,” she admitted, hands up, palms out. “They’re beautiful, but a little rough, like they were built to be traveled. The Alps are so pristine, like they’re meant to be admired but not touched.”
“How are the mountains in Santo Domingo?” he asked, curious to hear how the two places that made her compared to each other.
“Small,” she quipped, and he laughed again. “But we don’t need them when we have such overwhelming beauty in other ways. Mangrove forests, waterfalls and bays that will take your breath away. It really wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the world if we also had impressive mountain ranges.” He could hear the pride in her voice. She missed her island.
“Would you ever go back?”
She considered his question for a long moment, and when she answered she didn’t look at him.
“When I left I didn’t think I would. It was difficult being there without my mother and father. Without the distillery. Now with the cordials and the Dama Juana, I have a reason to return, something to build that’s my own, a new kind of bridge between my two homes.” He thought about his father and the destruction he’d left behind.
And here was this woman, dauntlessly creating new roads for herself.
“Here we are,” he said a bit hoarsely as he maneuvered the horses into the clearing where he’d leave the curricle.
“The beach is just down there.” He pointed at the path between a thick swath of tall beach grass leading to the water. “It will take us a few minutes to walk down there, but it’s completely private.”
“This is lovely,” she said. “Everything is so expansive.” She spread her arms wide and lifted her face up to the sky. She made his heart leap.
“The estate had belonged to the Earl of Kinsell for generations,” he told her. “The ninth earl’s gambling habits eventually bankrupted him, and my grandfather purchased the land which included miles of coast and golf links.” She made a noise of understanding, her focus still on the horizon. He expected to see judgment in her eyes when she turned to him but instead was confronted with a cheeky smile.
“We will see how your private beach compares to mine.”
“I didn’t know this was a competition,” he ribbed as he helped her down.
“Oh, it isn’t,” she assured him. “We may not win in the majestic-mountain category, but from what I’ve seen so far, our beaches soundly defeat yours in white sandiness and swimability,” she declared with a completely straight face.
“Swimability.” A bark of laughter escaped his lips as she grinned at him.
“Come here, m’eudial,” he whispered, and without hesitation she put her arms around his neck and pushed up to bring their mouths together. He licked into her with the endless hunger he always had for her. Their tongues slid together as he tasted her sweetness. He nipped and stroked until she was panting in his arms.
“We’d better stop.” He nodded, pulling back reluctantly, then perked up when he remembered what was waiting for them.
“Let’s go down, love. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“I don’t like surprises, Evan,” she warned as she bent to grab one of the baskets filled with food.
“You didn’t like me either and we both know the miracles my charm and virility have done on that front.” She flapped her hands around trying to whack him in the arm.
“You are insufferably vain,” she told him, the smile on her lips betraying her words, and a wellspring of tenderness lit him to the marrow of his bones.
