Rogue snorted, but as he studied her, he visibly seemed to calm down. She put out her hand, and he stood his ground for a moment before he took slow, easy steps to her. She snuggled his nose with both her hands, saying in a cooing fashion, “There, there you silly brute … all is well.”
She turned and found his lordship staring at her. She smiled tentatively and said, “Will you give me a leg up?”
“Indeed, but not here in the woods. If something goes wrong you could be flung into a tree … come …”
She smiled, and he took her horse’s reins from her as they weaved their way back to his animal quietly standing and munching on woodland grass and leaves within his reach.
Serena could feel something—a tension in the air. Everything about the atmosphere seemed to sparkle and ignite around them.
She didn’t know how she knew. She just knew. He was going to kiss her. She saw it in his eyes. He was fighting it. He didn’t want to kiss her.
Suddenly, he lost control and she was in his arms as his head bent. He seemed to find the strength to steady himself and whispered against her lips, “Are you hurting …?”
“No. If you are going to kiss me, kiss me now,” she said breathlessly.
His tongue skimmed her bottom lip, and it was a touch that sparked her need into a rush of hungry desire.
He nibbled at her ear and whispered, “Ah, beauty … you beauty, you. Serena … make me stop …”
“Why? Do you want to stop?”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he answered simply.
“You won’t. I don’t expect more than this moment, and I have come to see that it is what I want.”
He lifted his head and took a step back, and she found she couldn’t say any more. She had already said too much.
She watched him silently as he tethered her horse and turned to take her hand. “Let’s leave them here for a moment and walk for a bit, shall we?”
“Yes,” was all she could manage. Something was happening to her, something mad, something beautiful, something … outrageously wicked. This was wicked, but she didn’t care.
He took her hand and said, “There is so much about you I don’t know. Serena, just who are you? What do you want?”
She eyed him. “I don’t know how to answer that. Each person experiences life in a different way and ends up as the sum total of those experiences.”
“And what is your sum total? I repeat, what do you want?”
“What everyone really wants—to be happy,” she answered simply.
He crushed her into his embrace.
* * *
When he saw her fly off the horse, he thought his heart would stop. Pain shot through his brain and his body at the notion that she might be hurt. It was his fault. He should have allowed her to run the horse down until he stopped on his own.
Her golden hair was windblown around her beautiful face. She wore britches that hugged her body and displayed her hips, her ass, her lovely long legs to perfection. His shaft was hard and ready and becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Her nipples were pert, defined as they pressed up against the thin material of her shirt, begging him for attention, and he wanted to give those nipples some serious attention.
He couldn’t think. Everything about her whipped up the need in him to kiss her, touch her, make her his own, and it had nothing to do with Freddy.
She had rested her face against his back during the short ride to find her horse, and her touch, her sweet trusting body against his back, had sent tremors of pleasure through him.
He had seen her take a hard landing, but she had not complained. She was the most unusual female he had ever known, and he wanted to know more about her. He wanted her, plain and simple. He damn well had to have her. He couldn’t think of anything but her, her lips, and her luscious body beneath his own.
He crushed her into his arms, and his tongue met hers with a fever he had never before experienced. She tasted like more. He had to have more. She was delicious, and the way her body fit his was perfect, so perfect.
She responded to him in a way he had not imagined she would. He found the neckline of her shirt and discovered she wore no underclothes beneath it. He opened it wide and took a moment to stare. Her breasts were full, high, and tempting him into madness.