Page 32

She nodded, looking over at him, still standing in the creek.

His arms hung loosely at his sides, hands gentle, face open.

His green eyes were dark today, like moss in the rain, and they skated over her face, the weight of their gaze like the brush of fingertips.

She stepped toward him, the water moving against her ankles.

A stilt-legged plover dashed along the bank behind Silas’s shoulder, and for a second its movement distracted her from his hands coming to rest gently on her biceps.

The touch moved like a current over her damp skin.

Her lips parted, and his pupils flared darkly.

Almost without thinking, she pitched forward and his arms slid around her.

The tunic slipped from her hands into the water between them.

Her breasts, cool and pebbled, pressed against the broad expanse of his chest. He straightened, made to step back at the contact.

“Might I hold you? I should have asked,” he said quickly, moving to release her.

“You might,” she said, leaning back into the contact, letting the warm scent of him fill her senses.

The linen of his shirt was rough, and a button pressed into her cheekbone, but the thud of her heart in her chest drowned out everything else, and she let her arms rise to circle his broad back.

He made a contented hum in the back of his throat, pulling her closer, and Ophelia thought she had never felt so secure in all her life.

Closing her eyes, she breathed in the green, wet scent of the creek, the hint of nearby farms, and over it all, Silas.

The only other man she had ever been this close to was her father, and he always smelled of stale tobacco and too-strong cologne, but Silas smelt of sun and fresh air, of tea and fire, leather and new earth.

Freedom and future, she suddenly thought.

She pressed her nose into him, breathing deeply.

His large, warm hand came to the back of her head, stroking her hair and down her back.

The familiarity of it shocked her, the rightness of it, even more so.

“Fee,” he rumbled under her ear.

“Mmm?”

“Could what is between us be one of the things that we haven’t imagined yet?”

“Oh, I’ve already imagined it,” she blurted before her brain could stop her mouth. Heat flushed her body and she groaned with embarrassment into Silas’s shirt.

“So have I, if we’re being honest,” he said, huffing a laugh.

Raising her head gently between his hands, Silas stroked his thumbs across her cheekbones, his warm, rough fingers sending a cascade of heat through her.

She felt it pool, golden and warm, in her belly, and turned her face to press her lips to his palm.

Everything in her moved toward him. Leaving all the complications of the situation behind, she could only think of deepening his caress, that he might even kiss her again.

Her breath stuttered at the thought, seesawing in her chest, filling the space between them.

Seeming to read her thoughts, Silas lowered his head, whispering against her lips, “May I kiss you, Ophelia?” She felt the question as a rush of air against her mouth and nodded uncoordinatedly.

She realized in the seconds before his lips met hers that everything had been leading up to this.

All the pent-up feelings, the surprise that it hadn’t been so odd to see him again, that they did work well together, that really in this moment, she was just not kissing him.

She tilted ever so slightly toward him. He took a steadying breath, and she saw that his chest rose and fell almost as rapidly as her own.

How incredible, she thought, to be stumbling in a haze of desire, together.

Was it always like this when one was to be kissed?

She thought not. And then she didn’t think anything at all as the first brush of Silas’s lips against hers obliterated everything.

Tenderly, he pressed a soft kiss to her upper lip, so lightly she found herself chasing the touch as he drew back.

His hand rose to smooth down her cheek and along her neck as he leaned back in, taking her lips with his, exploring their plush warmth.

Ophelia’s blood sang through her, hot and heavy, coiling languorous and bright along her limbs.

Her hands fisted in Silas’s shirt, giving her pleasing leverage to draw him closer.

He grinned against her mouth, and she was overcome by the feel of his firm, soft lips.

He nipped gently at her bottom lip, then drew a fiery line with his tongue to the corner of her mouth.

She felt explosive, full to the brim, sensation pouring over her skin.

Opening her mouth as Silas ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, she obeyed an instinct she didn’t recognize and caught his tongue with her own.

He made a heavy noise in the back of his throat and deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with hers in the wet heat of their mouths.

Power and hunger surged through Ophelia.

She sighed and pressed herself to him, incandescent, voracious.

She could feel Silas’s desire, tightly leashed, emanating from him, and she revelled, head spinning, in their mutual abandon.

Releasing Silas to draw breath, Ophelia pressed her fingertips to her lips, exploring their stinging, tingling surface.

She felt reborn somehow, new to the world, new to herself.

Silas shook his head and laughed, resting his head lightly against her shoulder.

A low “Hmm” was all he managed before pressing a gentle kiss to the curve of her neck.

“I,” she began, “I ... wanted that so much.” She was as surprised as she was sure.

“God, so have I,” Silas muttered, the words slurred when his lips caught against the damp skin of her neck. “And you feel even better than the first time, Fee, which is impossible.”

She felt herself blush and pushed closer to him.

She hesitated then lifted her hands to run them through his sandy hair.

Had she always wanted to do this? To feel the cool silk of his hair in her fingers?

It suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea how she had lived before being able to touch Silas.

How had she never reached out to run her hand down his sharp cheekbone or press her fingertip to the perfect bow of his top lip as she did now?

He sucked that fingertip into his mouth and every nerve ending in her body exploded into life.

He drew the sensitive pad of her finger deeper into his mouth, and she felt her breasts grow heavy, nipples tightening against her shift.

His eyes had gone dark with desire, and she felt her mouth slacken as every flicker of his tongue coursed through her like molten honey.

Ophelia felt the drugging pull on her finger deep inside and, lost to sensation, only dimly registered the evidence of Silas’s erection pressing firmly against her belly.

This was not at all what she expected when the ladies’ manuals had warned against “loose behaviour.” Nothing about Silas’s hands and mouth on her felt loose; she was drawn tight as a bow, but more importantly, Ophelia realized, she was directing the action as much as he.

This did not feel like being taken advantage of—it felt like being set free.

No, that wasn’t right. It felt like setting herself free.

Releasing her finger, Silas pulled back, stroking a hand along her jaw.

Their chests moved like bellows, harsh breath mingling in the space between them, eyes glassy with lust and surprise.

Ophelia loosened her hold on Silas’s shirt front, smoothing the fabric over his chest, and laughed unsteadily.

She felt wobbly, like all her joints were filled with warm liquid.

“You’re getting cold,” Silas said sternly, taking in her pebbled skin.

“Here.” He guided her out of the water and reached for his discarded coat.

Wrapping it around her, he chafed her arms and back, heat blooming through the heavy linen.

It smelt of him, a now almost-familiar scent, and Ophelia sucked in a lungful, already greedy for more of him.

“I should get back. I’ve not done a thing yet today,” she said, apologetic, and felt her cheeks heat at the breathiness of her voice.

“Right . . . o’ course.”

He drew her, clumsy in the oversized coat, back into his arms. She sagged against him, wrung out from everything that happened in the last two days.

“I don’t want to let you go,” Silas said into her hair. “I wish we could stay here forever.”

She didn’t reply, only nodded against his chest.

“I know it’s uncomfortable, but please, let’s talk when things are hard,” she said. “We should have done that before, and I regret it.”

“Yes. I promise.”

She wanted to be able to talk about what was between them, as soon as she figured out how she felt about it.

But before she lost her nerve, she said what was weighing on her.

“Silas, do you think it possible to want a relationship with someone and also to want independence? Could a person have both?”

She pushed back from his embrace to look at him. Reluctantly, he let her slide from his arms.

“I don’t know,” he said carefully. “Could one not have independence within a couple? Surely there are marriages that are happy and equal?”

“I suppose I was more wondering whether marriage is a requisite for every relationship.”

“I don’t know how else people could truly have each other, Fee, out in the open,” he said. “For all its failings, marriage is the only way I know of for a man to provide for a woman he loves or a family.”