‘Here.’ Blake stopped in the middle of the field. ‘Yes, I thought so—with the sun on those slopes the colours are vivid. There are times when I wish I could paint.’
‘Blake?’
‘Hmm?’ He was shading his eyes and staring out towards the horizon. ‘I think that’s a buzzard…’
‘Blake. There’s a bull in that corner of the field.’
It was black, short-legged, massive in the shoulder, wide in the chest and had an unpleasant spread of horns. And it was beginning to paw at the turf.
‘No need to worry—they are fine by themselves, with nothing to protect.’ He did not look round.
‘But his heifers are in the opposite corner, down in that dip, and we are in the middle and he really does not look at all happy. Blake! Run!’
He looked round, swore, then reached for her.
‘Ough.’
Blake tossed her over his shoulder and began to sprint. Behind them was the pounding of cloven hooves and the snorting of an enraged beast getting up to speed. All she could see was the tussocky ground below and Blake’s booted legs running. If he tripped the bull would go right over them…
‘Hold tight.’ Blake tossed her upwards and she twisted, grabbing instinctively as her hands found a splintery wooden rail, and then she was over it and Blake had a foot on the stile behind her, almost safe.
‘Behind you!’ she screamed.
He didn’t spare the fraction of a second needed to look. He could probably feel the bull’s breath, it was so close. Blake vaulted the stile and landed virtually on top of her. They both fell, Ellie underneath.
Chapter Seven
He had lain like this before, over this woman, and surprise at how feminine she felt against his body hit him again. Only this time he was not half-stunned, shocked and disorientated—this time he knew exactly who and where he was. His blood was pumping, and they had just escaped a dangerous beast. He had reacted on instinct—had slung Eleanor over his shoulder like a Viking marauder with a captive, and run with every ounce of strength in his body.
And, hell, it had felt good.
She stared up at him, her undistinguished, sensible face white under its drift of freckles, her bonnet gone, her appalling hair escaping from its rigorous constraints, her hazel eyes wide. Her lips were parted, and under the softness of the pretty walking dress he had given her her breasts were heaving with her panting breaths.
Instinct made him roll onto his back, taking her with him so that she lay along his body, his hands light on her shoulders. From there she could knee him in the groin—right in the iron-hard erection that surely she must be aware of. Or she could roll free and leave him lying there, abandoned. Or…
Eleanor blinked, then touched the very tip of her tongue to her lower lip. She was studying him as though she had never seen anything quite like him before and was interested in examining this strange life form more closely. His legs bracketed her hips, positioning her just at the point of greatest torment for him, and he forced himself to lie still—so still that he could feel his own heartbeat and hers too, because small, delectable breasts were squashed to his chest.
Frankly, Blake thought hazily, the Spanish Inquisition might have made good use of her, because just at that moment he was willing to confess to anything—every embarrassing peccadillo, every deep, dark secret—if only she would stay where she was, directing her warm breath into his face. He could smell the wild mint leaf she had plucked as they walked.
Eleanor sighed softly and her long, light lashes drooped. And Blake curled one palm around the back of her head, pulled down her head and kissed her.
She tasted of the mint, faintly of tea, and very much of woman—of Eleanor. She gasped as their lips met and he took advantage, sliding his tongue between her lips, urging her to open to him. He could feel her surprise at the intrusion shivering through her, could almost read her thoughts. Bite? Flee? And then she relaxed, let him in, let him explore, and began to kiss him back.
She was unsure, unskilled, had almost certainly never been kissed before, and Blake thought it was the most erotic kiss he had ever had—innocent, generous, curious.
When he was certain that she was willing he rolled again, without breaking the kiss, and came over her, taking some of the weight on his elbows so he could control the kiss. He felt her arms come around his shoulders as she angled her mouth under his, the better to explore.
This had to stop, and soon—he knew that. He was aroused to the point of pain, and he did not dare touch her in any other way but this. If he got his hands on her body he knew what would happen, and she was an innocent—not some bawdy country lass to be tumbled by her swain in the long grass.
Blake pushed up and off her, onto the turf, to sit with his knees up and his forehead on them while he waited for his body to calm down.
Eleanor made a small sound and he jerked his head up, terrified that it had been a sob. But she was lying on her back still, looking up at the sky, her mouth a little swollen and red from his kisses and—thanks be to whoever the patron saint of careless males was—smiling just a little.
‘Do you think we have our hats?’ she asked. ‘Or perhaps the bull has eaten them.’
‘Yours is there. Goodness knows where mine is,’ Blake said, after a quick survey of the flattened grass around them. The bull was staring at them through the rungs of the stile, presumably thinking that he managed matters better with his heifers.
‘I thought you were truly wonderful,’ Eleanor said seriously as she sat up.