And it took her breath away.
It was too much. Why was thishappening?
She was just a country girl, not a heroine inA Venetian Romance. Everything was too beautiful and too overwhelming and too confusing and too excruciating.
She was embarrassed when tears finally flooded her eyes and spilled.
“Sweetheart,” he said hoarsely. He reached for her as if he was snatching her back from the edge of a crumbling cliff and pulled her almost roughly against his body.
When his arms folded about her, she settled in; he was warm, hard, solid, and yes,yes; this was where she wanted to be. She curled her fingers into his waistcoat.
For a moment they merely clung to each other as though they were each other’s only refuge in the world.
And when she tipped her head back it was to discover his head was lowering.
When their lips brushed, sparks all but flew from their bodies.
Lust, unleashed, proved an anarchic force: white-hot and impatient and needful. Isolde’s limbs trembled with the effort to contain it. Their kiss deepened, became more searching, more expert, more arousing as they crushed their bodies ever closer. His mouth was hot and his tongue velvety and clever as it danced with hers. A bolt of pleasure cleaved her when she felt the jut of his arousal against the crook of her legs, and when she sighed and shifted her hips deliberately against it, Isaiah groaned and slid a hand down to her arse to press her closer still.
This was both too much and not nearly enough, oh, not nearly, and this terrified her.
It was wrong, because he wasn’t Jacob, and right, because he wasn’t Jacob.
And it was wrong because nothing had ever felt righter.
With an extraordinary effort of will, she abruptly turned her head and ended the kiss.
He loosened his arms at once. But she remained in the circle of them. With wonder, she pressed her cheek against the thud of his heart and savored the sway of his breathing.
God help them both.
She had not awakened today expecting cataclysm. There had been no omens or portents.
But she understood too clearly that a girl could forget everything in the arms of a man.
Could know surcease and pleasure.
Right now, shewantedto forget everything. It seemed a bloody pity she could not kiss him until the end of time. Could not lie naked with him, right here in the rose garden.
“Oh God. Dear God.” His voice was hoarse. “Isolde, forgive me. I’m so sorry. I felt—it just—it seemed the only thing to do. I didn’t know what else to do. I could not seem to help it.”
“Please don’t be sorry,” she whispered. “It was wonderful.”
She looked up at him and his eyes were fierce. He touched her face gently.
How odd to be cleaved precisely into two parts:
One part terrible, terrible grief.
One part radiant, nearly intolerable joy.
Surely Isaiah Redmond of all people was not the kind of man who would ravish a girl if he hadn’t intentions to marry her?
“Isssaaaiiiahh!”
Isolde staggered when Isiah all but leaped back from her as if burned.
It was his sister Diana’s voice, calling from a distance yet again.