“It’s just that I’m not sure what to do,” she said, her voice catching. Tears pushed at her eyes again.
“Dear heart,” he said, “what’s the matter?” He reached out and put his arms around her.
“Nothing,” she muttered, feeling ten times a fool. “Kiss me?”
“Good idea.” He kissed her slowly and sweetly, eyes closed—she checked before she relaxed into the feeling of being near Quin.
Then, when she was kissed into a hazy state, he moved so that she found herself on her back, her hair flowing around her. It was almost too much: trying to take in the sensation of his body heavy against her side, naked, his arousal urgent against her. And the moon was pitiless, casting its cool silver light everywhere.
It was pretty; she had to admit that. The inside of the little house glimmered with light that looked magical. If only it weren’t so revealing. A little less magic, that was all she asked.
“There’s something wrong,” Quin said, raising himself on all fours and looking down at her.
Her lip quivered and then, no longer able to choke them back, a tear spilled—even as she told herself, Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
Quin reached out with a thumb, gently rubbed it away. “Help me, sweetheart. Emotions are not my strong point. I need you to tell me what’s the matter.”
She shook her head. “Nothing! I’m simply being foolish.”
His eyes searched hers and Olivia looked away, fast. He saw too much with those damnably intelligent eyes of his.
The next thing she knew her hands were caught and held above her head. “If you won’t tell, I’ll have to resort to logic. You’re not afraid of being with me. And you told me that you’re not a virgin, so you can’t be afraid of pain.”
Did she actually say that? He had inferred that she and Rupert had made love. And she couldn’t tell him otherwise without breaking her promise.
“Unless”—he hesitated—“am I considerably larger than Rupert?”
Her gaze lingered on him with pleasure, and he seemed to throb and grow under that gaze. “Yes,” she murmured, her voice throaty.
He laughed. “That is not fear that I hear in your voice.”
“Does it bother you that I’ve—I’ve seen Rupert before you?”
He frowned. “Why should it? You didn’t choose to lose your virginity to Rupert, any more than he chose the reverse. I feel a measure of contempt for Rupert’s father, but none for you.”
It was very like Quin: both logical and fair. She managed a wobbly smile. “All the same,” she began.
But he cut her off. “That’s not it, Olivia. Please don’t lie to me.”
Her eyes fell.
“When I am in doubt, I make a list of questions,” he said, leaning down and biting her earlobe so that she squealed.
“First question. Is darling Olivia afraid of my cock?”
He picked up her hand, curled it around his erection. Olivia gasped, delighted at its silky heat, smoothness, the way it jumped in her hand. She slid up . . . down. Took a quick glimpse and realized that Quin’s eyes were shut, head thrown back. Just the way she liked him. She tightened her grip, wondered what he might taste like.
He moved her hand away, satisfied with her silent answer to his question. “Not afraid of it,” he murmured, his voice a shade deeper, darker, than it had been.
“Second question. Is my Olivia afraid there might be pain?” He looked at her intently.
She shook her head.
“I didn’t think so,” he said with satisfaction. “Besides, I mean to make you so limp with pleasure that you’ll be begging me for more of the same.” This time his smile was pure unadulterated male.
Olivia’s heart skipped a beat.
“Third question,” he said, and he shifted onto his knees. “Could it be that foolish, foolish Olivia fears I won’t like her body?” And then, quick as a cat, while she was still considering her reply—for even though he was right, she certainly didn’t want to admit it—he reached out and ripped her chemise straight down the middle.
It was a good thing the staff had been sent away from the stables, because Olivia’s scream of outrage could likely have been heard well into the gardens.
But Quin was already ripping away the last shred of cloth. Olivia squeezed her eyes, not wanting to see his face. That damn moonlight was everywhere, illuminating every curve and wobble.
He didn’t touch her, and he didn’t say anything. Olivia felt as though time stood still, leaving her stranded in the most humiliating moment of her life.
When at last he spoke, his voice was greedy and rough. “You don’t really wish that you were a scrawny thing like your sister, do you?”
“Georgiana is not scrawny!” Olivia said, her eyes popping open.
“Like a stick of celery,” Quin said. “Legs like a grasshopper’s. A man wants this, Olivia.” His hands came gently, shaping her breasts.
“I do know that,” Olivia said, shivering as his touch sent flames licking over her body. “I like my breasts.”
His hands slid lower, over the tummy that wasn’t washboard tight, like his, or slender as a dancer’s, like Georgiana’s.
“A man wants this.” His voice was still darker, rusty with passion as his fingers bit into her curves, sank into her warmth.
They slid lower, onto her hips. “You do remember that I never lie?” he asked, his eyes fixed on his hands.
Olivia looked down too, curious, seeing honey-dark hands gripping her hips. She looked like cream in the moonlight, as if her skin were glowing with some sort of inner luminescence.
“Yes, I remember,” she managed.
“I think I love your hips and your arse most of all.” The emotion in his voice was unmistakable. “But then I remember your breasts and how much I love them. I love every bitable, lush, delicious curve, Olivia, including those you haven’t let me touch or kiss yet.”
Until this moment, Olivia had been holding her body rigid, her thighs tight, her stomach pulled in. Now, slowly, she relaxed, watching him. Quin couldn’t lie. She knew that; she had told Georgie that. She believed it.
The lust on his face, the way he was touching her, almost reverently, bending his head, now, kissing her greedily . . . That was the truth.
“Succulent,” he murmured.
“You make me sound like a roast chicken.”
“Ripe and plump and delicious. Soft.”
She shook her head. “Those are not the words a woman wants to hear from a man looking at her thighs.” But she was feeling better, and they both knew it.
“Georgie does not have grasshopper legs,” she said, poking him to make sure that he’d heard her. What he was doing now was going to make her collapse in a boneless heap, but she had to make sure he understood that one thing. “She has elegant, slender legs that any woman would love to have.”
He looked down at her, eyes predatory, those big hands holding her. “Not my woman. Not you.”
Olivia was about to defend her sister again, but he pulled her legs open and put his mouth on her, on that part of her.
She went rigid again for a second, long enough for a rough lap and a sweet lick, a finger stroking where a tongue had just been, a . . .