He grinned. "And I shall remain immune." His immunity was the consequence of a decade of pouting females.

"You're unkind," she declared with a credible sullenness.

"No," he gently replied, "I'm about to show you a new degree of kindness. Now let me go." He nudged her thighs still holding him tightly. "And I promise you," he said with a facetious lift of his brows, "your forbearance will be rewarded."

Her thighs relaxed, although her pout was more genuine now and less theatrical.

"Look at it this way, darling," Johnnie said, withdrawing from her and resting back on his heels, still booted and fully dressed except for his unb.u.t.toned breeches. He grinned. "It's one small lesson in obedience."

She lunged upward, her fingers already closed in a fist.

And he rolled away so swiftly, she grudgingly decided he'd had frequent practice.

"I could have you skinned alive," she said, sitting in the center of his plaid, fists clenched, a spark of fire in her green eyes.

Lounging at his ease a safe distance away in the sweet-smelling gra.s.s, he looked entertained. "But then I wouldn't be much good to you."

"I hate masculine control." A long history of uncharitable men prompted her outburst.

His blue eyes held hers for a grave moment, and his voice when he spoke was utterly without badinage. "I was only teasing."

She looked at him suspiciously. "I won't be obedient to you or any man."

"It's the last thing I'd expect from you." Johnnie Carre preferred women of spirit; obedience for him was no more than a playful dare.

And while she was debating whether to believe him or not and whether her hot-blooded desire could stand on principle at all, Johnnie spoke very quietly with deference and courtesy. "You set the rules."

"Perhaps ... I overreacted," she said in a small whisper, his good-natured indulgence reminding her of the vast differences in men.

"I understand overreaction too," he commented, a slow smile drifting across his mouth. "I had Munro out of bed this morning extremely early."

"You're very kind."

His eyes gleamed with mischief. "It was a long ride down here."

She smiled. "Am I taking this too seriously?"

He shrugged, a well-bred ambiguity. "War is serious; national honor is serious. Famine, people dying ..." He inclined his head in a mild disclaimer. "This doesn't have to be serious."

A small silence fell between them, only the sound of birdsong conspicuous in the stillness, miles of towering pine a barricade between them and the contentious world. A man and a maid and tremulous pa.s.sion ...

He didn't importune, nor had he ever in his commerce with women. But he wanted her, that was plain. And after a very short moment of reflection, she held out her hand, smiled, and said, "Come, make me happy."

He rolled back onto the plaid as deftly as he'd escaped her. The fragrance of his cologne surrounded her, his smile brought with it his own special sunshine, and his voice when he spoke was familiar in its irony. "Now that we've disposed of the profundities-"

"And very easily too," Elizabeth interjected, feeling lighthearted again.

"My specialty, madam," he said with a small dip of his head. "Ask anyone."

"I know what your specialty is, Ravensby," she replied with a sidelong glance.

"Ah ... well then," he murmured, shameless. "Would you mind, Lady Graham," he went on, all teasing deference and amus.e.m.e.nt, "if I undressed you now? I know we have all day, but then"-he paused in delicate emphasis-"we'll need all day...."

Sitting cross-legged, her yellow gown rumpled around her, her platinum hair tousled, her cheeks flushed, she gazed at him playfully. "I'd be foolish to say no, wouldn't I?"

He only smiled and nodded.

"Arrogant man."

"I'm the one who chased after you, darling. Hardly an act of arrogance."

"You have a charming honesty, at least."

"And several other cultivated charms eager to be put at your disposal ..."

"Cultivated in the boudoirs of other women, no doubt."

"Developed solely with your interests in mind," he smoothly replied.

"Liar."

"I prefer the word 'diplomatic.' "

Her gaze lazily drifted over his body, taking special notice of his partially unb.u.t.toned breeches. "And I prefer that gorgeous c.o.c.k of yours inside me."

He looked down briefly. "Well, then," he said with a rakish grin, "we'll have to see that you get what you want."

As it turned out, the undressing, a reciprocal process, took enormous time, each item of clothing unlaced or unb.u.t.toned or unpinned with artistic, riveting attention. She helped him, and he helped her; they laughed and giggled and kissed, licked and stroked, and before they both climaxed again, Elizabeth Graham had discovered the very advantageous merit in delay.

"You're very good," she said in luxurious contentment much later as they sat together, she straddling his legs so they faced each other, joined, replete with a glorious satiation.

He rocked her gently, his arms holding her close, his body hot against her. "We're good together," he corrected, an expert on mutual pleasure. His skin was shades darker than hers, bronzed by the sun; her flesh was very white, and the contrast stark, stunning. The muscled power of his body was striking counterpoint to her slender, voluptuous grace. Lazily plucking a daisy from the meadow gra.s.s beyond the border of their makeshift bed, he tucked it behind her ear.

"Happy twenty-ninth July, Elizabeth Graham," he whispered, thinking he could stay content in this isolated clearing till the ice cap melted.

Leaning away from him so he had to hold her tightly to balance her, Elizabeth picked a daisy, too, and sliding it behind Johnnie's ear into the dark tangle of his unruly curls, she said hushed, low, "You bring me joy, Johnnie Carre." Contentment was too tame a word for the wonder of her feelings, for she'd discovered the existence of unalloyed pleasure, and she was drunk with the delight of it. Her smile shone suddenly warm as the tropics. "You should wear daisies more often." So did satyrs look, she thought, all flourishing powerful virility, adorned with wildflowers.

"For you I will," he said. And at that moment he meant it.

They were warm, hot from the leisurely foreplay and prolonged intercourse, from the tempestuous fever of o.r.g.a.s.m. A droplet of sweat slid down Johnnie's temple.

"You're on fire," she whispered, touching his forehead, catching the gleaming drop on her fingertip, tasting his saltiness with a glorious sense of ownership as if he belonged to her for these rare moments.

"This could be the dead of winter," he murmured into her hair, breathing the sweet scent of her, "and I wouldn't notice." He was rigid still inside her, as though he hadn't just climaxed, as though he always had a perpetual erection with Elizabeth Graham. As though his raging hunger for her were a kind of insanity.

She kissed him back, seated atop him with his pulsing erection buried deep inside, her knees grazing his ribs, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s soft against his chest, her body ripe with a combustible s.e.xual urgency that could burn down transiently only to flare again. And she said in a tiny vibration of longing that touched his lips and moved directly downward to his hardness, "Do you mind ... I feel greedy ... insatiable ... inflamed...."

"Do I mind what," he murmured, teasing.

"I need you again."

"Again?" His husky whisper drifted across her mouth.

"I'm sorry," she breathed, the tip of her tongue gliding over his bottom lip. "Do you think you could ... arrange-something?"

"It's possible...."

"I could reward you...."

"Really." His brows rose a minute fraction. "Or I you ..."

"Yes. Please."

He could give her what she needed. Dominant, in control but only marginally, for he was as compelled as she-as needful, as tantalized.

"Now," she dictated, sliding her fingers through his dark ruffled hair, leaning close again to nibble on his bottom lip.

Restless, disquieted, averse to women giving him orders, he said, "No."

And she bit him.

His shock was replaced a second later by hotspur instinct; hair-trigger impulse reacting to her barefaced challenge as if some subconscious curb was suddenly released. Or perhaps the taste of blood in his mouth impelled him-and he tumbled her onto her back so abruptly, she squealed. Following her in a graceful roll that didn't dislodge him, he heatedly whispered, his face only inches from hers, "You want it right now?"

Holding her hips firmly between his large hands, he thrust solidly into her, his muscled b.u.t.tocks flexing until he heard her gasp. "Will that do?" he prompted, on a suffocated breath. "Or that ... or that?" His words, high-strung, moody, matched his deliberate, driving invasion, a form of retaliation perhaps. Or perhaps no more than his own wild obsession.

Ablaze, audacious in her own need, wanting him possibly more than he her, on the trembling brink of an ecstasy so intense, she felt momentarily as if she would shatter, she flagrantly mated with the man she'd dreamed of for four long months.

His back arched, his eyes half-shut, he drove into her, mindless, out of control, unaware of the sheer power and violence of his penetration.

Forcing her upward with each powerful surge, he followed her as she slid away, impatiently dragging her back, his hands recapturing their harsh grip on her hips, the sound of her panting cries a distant echo in his ears. Clinging to him, her fingers tangled in his hair, she met him in her own feverish need, her body as much on fire as his, their frenzied course moving them off the plaid and across several feet of meadow, the scent of crushed flowers and gra.s.ses pungent in their nostrils.

Like a battering ram, his lean, hard body drove into her, heedless of her panting whimpers, her impa.s.sioned response, like a man possessed, the pumping rhythm of his lower body, pitiless and turbulent, buffeted her, propelled her backward.

Until his o.r.g.a.s.m overcame him, her piercing cry of release was unheard.

Until his madness was temporarily a.s.suaged.

Until he lay quiet, his forehead resting in the gra.s.s near her shoulder, his chest heaving, his weight balanced on his elbows and knees, wondering if it were possible to exorcise this volatile, all-consuming l.u.s.t for Elizabeth Graham-or whether he'd f.u.c.k himself to death first.

"Come ... with me ... to ... Three Kings," she panted, into his damp hair.

Rolling off her as if her invitation were the lethal poison of personal attachment, he sprawled on the cool gra.s.s beside her, his arms thrown over his head, his eyes closed. A second pa.s.sed, then two, and ignoring the danger, he said, half-breathless, "Yes."

Later, when his mind was less dizzy with the delirium of release and his equanimity was restored, when his eyes were open again and he remembered where he was, he tranquilly said, "We could make love in a bed at Three Kings."

And when she smiled at him from her own sprawled position short feet away, he pointed out with a captivating grin, "My knees are turning raw."

"I can see you're not used to rustic ways."

"Rather I'm not used to obsession, darling Bitsy. It must be the Teviotdale air."

"Or my alluring charm," Elizabeth teasingly noted.

"Yes," he admitted, more philosophical in the aftermath of his o.r.g.a.s.m. "More likely that. I haven't had raw knees in a decade."

With the lure of a soft bed tempting him and caution recklessly jettisoned, he found some water in a small nearby creek to wash them both, threw on his clothes like a man familiar with speedy leave-taking, and helped Elizabeth dress. He tied the waist bows on her petticoats, laced her corset, b.u.t.toned the b.u.t.tons on her dimity gown; he helped repin her kerchief at her bosom. All with an expertise Elizabeth could have taken issue with if she weren't so bewitched. He even apologized for his lack of a comb.

"Although combs weren't high on my list of priorities when I invited you on this walk."

"Nor mine," Elizabeth agreed, sliding her fingers through her long, pale hair.

"I don't suppose anyone waiting for us expects we were actually walking all this time."

Her lacy brows rose minutely.

"Well, then," Johnnie affably said, "let me tie the bow on your cape, Lady Graham, and we'll do our best to outface that bodyguard of yours."

CHAPTER 14.

Walking hand in hand, they approached the carriage and the lounging men; some were playing dice, others resting on the gra.s.sy verge of the road. Munro, never without a book, was reading. They all came to attention, and the last hundred yards were a gauntlet of silent scrutiny. "We'll all be going on to Three Kings," Elizabeth said to Redmond when they reached the carriage. "Thank you for ... waiting," she added, unable to suppress the blush that colored her face.

Redmond diplomatically shifted his glance, but the penetrating look he turned on Johnnie held both warning and caution. A small pause ensued while each took measure of the other-two large, intimidating men capable of making their own rules.

"I was invited," Johnnie quietly said.

"No doubt o' that," Redmond said, guarded but behaving himself.

"It's my decision, Redmond," Elizabeth softly said, touching her captain gently on his arm.

Redmond's hesitation was minute, a notification to the man at her side that the Redesdale men had a certain lat.i.tude in their decision-making. "Very well, my Lady," he said. "Will ye be staying long?" he bluntly asked Johnnie, as a guardian might ask the intentions of a suitor.

"No, he won't, Redmond," Elizabeth quickly interjected. "Parliament is in session. And I don't want any complications," she added, the emphasis clearly for her captain, whose scowl continued to wrinkle his brow. "Ravensby is my guest, coming to Three Kings at my specific invitation. I don't wish to discuss any of this." Her voice was low, hurried, with an underlying authority unmistakable to either man.

"You see ..." Johnnie murmured with a lazy grin, understanding Redmond's concern but on his way to Three Kings with or without his consent, "it's out of my hands. Lady Graham's in charge."

"Just so long as she stays in charge," Redmond said.

"We don't have any problem there, do we?" The look Johnnie cast at Elizabeth was shamelessly impudent.

"Absolutely none." A playful mirth shone from her laughing eyes.