It was quite some time before Deverill gave a sigh that was part surrender, part celebration. “Finally you acknowledge what I have been telling you all along. I would relish making love to you, sweetheart, but you deserve a more romantic setting than a gritty beach. Let us return to the cottage first.”
“Yes,” she said, her heart swelling.
She pulled up the bodice of her shift while he donned his breeches.
As they gathered up their belongings, he delayed long enough to drop a soft kiss on her lips. Another surge of breathless excitement and anticipation hit Kate.
She cherished the intimacy of their joined hands as they followed the sandy path. When he helped her over a grassy dune, she gazed up at him, admiring how moonlight played over the planes of his face.
Deverill looked down at just that moment and captured her gaze. Attraction sizzled between them, igniting the rise of heat inside her, along with a renewed sense of hope: He seemed confident that he would win this battle of wills, but she had a plan, too. He could teach her about passion, but she would teach him to love. She knew in her heart that lovemaking could be intimate and wonderful, not merely a physical expression of desire. To her mind, the very essence of romance was learning to love.
She badly wanted to help him overcome his resistance to loving, to draw him out of his self-imposed prison. Accordingly, she needed to stir in Deverill the soul-deep longing that she was beginning to feel. And she had to let it occur naturally rather than force him to have feelings for her.
He kept her close until they reached the kitchen. There, he lit a lamp before leading her to the bedchamber.
They parted in order to undress, but Kate was burningly aware of him a short distance away as she drew off her shift.
Feigning nonchalance, she went to her valise and drew out the pouch of sponges. “Are you familiar with these? I have never used them before. You will have to show me what to do.”
“Gladly.”
When she turned and found him watching her, the promise in his smile made her heart pound. Suddenly the memory of heat and desire and naked need hit her with breathtaking force.
Kate felt her knees go weak as Deverill crossed to her. His bare arm encircling her waist, he pulled her close, his thighs brushing hers, his chest pressing against her breasts. He reached up and slid his fingers behind her nape, then bent his head.
The pure power of his kiss bolted through her body. He was a marvelous kisser, sure and possessive and incredibly sensual. A telltale shiver racked her.
As if he knew the cause, he lifted his head, and his gaze locked with hers, smoldering and intent.
“You want me. That is why you’re flushed and hot.”
He was right. She felt hot enough to make her thighs quiver.
His hands moved to cover her breasts, his palms cradling their weight, his thumbs pressing against her nipples. His smile was intimate, and so were his eyes.
At the ache of her breasts inside his gentle grip, Kate felt heat shimmer through her. “Deverill…tell me what I should do.”
“Leave it to me, love. My masculine pride is at stake.”
Bending again, he kissed the hollow of her throat, then let his lips trail lightly over her skin as he murmured in a husky voice, “I mean to satisfy you, to pleasure you, to make your body sing….”
He was issuing his own challenge, Kate knew. Just thinking about what was in store made her breathing go wild.
Stopping his caressing mouth from exploring her body further, she pulled his face back to hers and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Enough talk,” she replied, urgently raising her lips for his kiss. “If you expect to prove your skills as my dream lover, I demand action.”
They woke the next morning, tangled in each other’s arms. Sleepily Kate gazed back at Deverill, luxuriating in a rich sense of repletion and satisfaction. She’d spent the night learning him, savoring the strength of him, the sheer maleness of him. He hadn’t just made love to her; he had claimed her.
And now, when he slowly eased over her and took her mouth, it wasn’t a mere kiss, it was a possession.
That sensual encounter was the beginning of a magical time for Kate in the week that followed. She felt as if they were living in another world inhabited by only the two of them—feverish, romantic, enchanted—with both finding the spell impossible to break.
During long walks and late nights, they came to know each other better, their spirited sparring interspersed with laughter and quiet moments, and of course, pleasure. Boundless pleasure.
If she was bent on seducing him, he was doing the same to her. Indeed, the entire sennight became a tantalizing battle for supremacy between them, with Deverill daring her to become more adventurous, often alternating between provoking her and calling her bewitching and captivating.
She was the one who was captivated, though. His dark gaze left her feeling seduced and desirable. She who never got lost in a man’s eyes regularly felt breathless and dizzy at his nearness.