As her father’s daughter, she knew the theory, but had only limited understanding of the practical aspects. In those, she had no experience on which to call.
Yet even as his lips demanded and she wantonly encouraged him to show her more and the exchange escalated to a level one step removed from outright conflagration, she acknowledged that, more than anything else, the interlude had eradicated her previous indecision.
Courtesy of this kiss, she knew what she wanted. What she needed.
She needed to know so much more of this, of the possibilities of this connection.
She needed to define the breadth and depth of what they could share and what, together, they could be.
Passion welled, and her determination hardened, and she clenched her fingers in his hair and, with lips and tongue, did her very best to convey her conclusion.
Toby couldn’t mistake the message in her ravenous, hungry, flagrantly inciting kiss. Her demands had set his head spinning, something that hadn’t happened to him in a very long time. More, his instincts were urging him to respond in kind, to pick up the gauntlet she’d flung at his feet and answer her call.
But in some tiny corner of his mind, he was aware that this was only their second kiss.Second.Surely it was too soon, too precipitate, to fall into bed at this time.
His more-experienced self drew back enough to consider—to assess the timing and not simply on the sensual plane. The children, the mission—all would be affected by him and her becoming intimate. For better or worse wasn’t the question; the real question was whether she’d seen all he had and had thought it through.
While his decision to draw back, to step apart and give her—and him, too—a chance to think and decide was clear-cut and firm, actually pulling back from her and their passionate exchange was a great deal more difficult.
In the end, it required a degree of expertise he hadn’t had to deploy for many years. Inch by inch, or so it felt, he eased them free of the powerful whirlpool the kiss had become.
Finally, oh-so-reluctantly, their lips parted, and with eyes closed and his breathing nearly as ragged as hers, he rested his forehead on hers. “Not yet.”
That much was clear in his mind.
After a moment, she hauled in a breath, leant back, and stared into his face. Then she sighed. “You’re right.”
The “Damn it” he heard her mutter went some way toward easing his pain.
He forced his arms to release her. “It’s late.”
She nodded, turned, and led the way to the stairs.
They climbed side by side, and at the top, he paused and watched her walk down the corridor to her room at the end.
With the door open, she glanced back and, through the dimness, met his gaze, then she went inside and quietly closed the door.
He stood in the shadows and, unseeing, stared down the corridor.
One point, their recent activity had made clear. Both he and she had more to think about than he, at least, had realized.
CHAPTER11
The following morning, with one eye on the drizzle threatening to envelop the island, Toby took the boys to further their fishing education at one of the small local piers.
Their party of three was happily settled, with the boys sitting on the pier and Toby standing on a rock nearby, when three local boys, also armed with fishing rods, came down the alley and halted at the beginning of the pier.
Toby placed one boy as belonging to an island family and hailed him.
The boy, Pietro, recognized Toby and grinned and explained that he and his cousins, who were visiting for the holidays, had hoped to fish from the pier, which was across the main path from their home.
Toby smiled and pointed out that there was easily room for all. He laid aside his rod and introduced Roland and Bryce to the other boys, and Pietro responded with his cousins’ names, Franco and Enrico.
All five boys were of much the same age, and with Toby’s assistance as translator, the five found acceptable places on the stone jetty, and the Italian boys strung their rods and compared bait and hooks.
Roland and Bryce were as curious about the Italian three as the newcomers were about them. Soon, using a combination of languages—Italian, English, and Austrian—as well as hand signals, which Toby noted with amusement were quite effective, the five exchanged basic information, then sorted themselves out and, finally, settled in companionable silence to fish.
Toby retreated to his rock and picked up his rod. He cast much farther out, beyond the boys’ lines, and in between fishing, kept a watchful eye on his little band.
