Her heat fractured, imploded, then erupted. Hot glory and pleasure spilled down every vein. Fierce delight, tangible in its sharpness, ran across her skin, through her body, scattered her wits and left her senses sighing.
Clinging tightly, she gave herself up-to him, to the splendor of desire.
Lucifer watched her face as the pleasure rolled through her, his awareness centered within her, savoring the rippling caresses as she eased. Every demon he possessed was slavering, expecting its customary reward; he didn't know how he was going to hold them back, only that he would.
Somewhere, a line had been crossed, some Rubicon beyond which there was no turning back. He didn't know where or when, but there was no longer any point pretending he hadn't, at least partly deliberately, taken the fatal step. Whether it had been fifteen minutes ago, when the realization that he'd already nearly lost her had hit, whether Horatio's garden was to blame, or the inheritance as a whole-or if he'd decided in that instant when first he'd laid eyes on her face-didn't matter. She was his. So the only matter he had to concentrate on right now was not giving in to his demons.
Not easing her breeches farther down, lifting her, and taking her here, now, against the hedge.
Studying her face, eyes closed, her expression beatifically serene, helped-so did easing his fingers from her, gently drawing them from between her thighs.
Her musky scent rose, teasing, taunting his demons. He slammed a mental door on them, shut his ears to the howls.
He'd have her-he'd decided that days ago, even if he hadn't let himself think of it-but not here, not tonight. For all that she'd insisted, she deserved better than a shrubbery hedge. And he seriously doubted, when the time came, that once would be enough-not now. He'd known from the first that abstinence was not a good idea.
A whole night. If he exercised appropriate caution and skill…
Leaning into the hedge beside her shoulder, he was still watching her, her breeches done up, his hand resting on her hip on top of her loose shirt, when she drew in a deeper breath and opened her eyes.
She blinked. Her gaze flew to his face.
Even in the dimness, he saw awareness bloom; through his hand on her hip he felt tension reinvest her spine. She stared into his eyes, then swiftly scanned his face before once more meeting his gaze.
His lips curved, not so much a smile as a gesture of intent. He leaned into her. "That was just the appetizer."
He brushed a kiss across her swollen lips, then captured her wide-eyed gaze. "Next time, I'll have you naked, on a bed, and I won't let you go until I've had you. Multiple times."
At eleven the next morning, Phyllida closed the side door of the church and started down the path. The vases were done for the services tomorrow-one item she could cross off her list.
Jem, the Grange's youngest groom, was lounging in the lych-gate; he straightened as she neared. She'd requested his presence on her errand to protect her from the murderer or to protect her from Lucifer-she wasn't sure which. If the latter, then she'd failed. A pair of blacks pranced before the lych-gate; she had not the slightest doubt who would be holding their reins.
Jem opened the gate and she stepped into the lane. Lucifer was listening to Thompson, standing beside the curricle, but his blue gaze was all for her.
Thompson saw her and broke off to nod.
Lucifer seized the opportunity. "Good morning, Miss Tallent. Would you prefer to drive back to the Grange?"
No one would believe her if she said she wouldn't; in truth, she was perfectly amenable to meeting him again. In public. "Thank you." She sent Jem home, then strolled to the curricle's side. Although still engaged with Thompson, Lucifer held out a hand as she neared. She considered it, then calmly put her hand in it and allowed him to help her up. In public, she'd be safe.
Settling beside him, she shamelessly eavesdropped.
"So you want new locks on all the doors and windows, the kind that can't easily be slipped."
Lucifer nodded. "I haven't any idea how many will be needed, but I want every window secured."
"Aye, well-no point otherwise." Thompson straightened. "I'll be along this afternoon to count up. I knows just the sort you want, but it'll take a week or more to get 'em in. Come from Bristol, they do."
Lucifer nodded. "Get the job done as fast as you can."
"I'll do that." With respectful nods to them both, Thompson stepped back.
Lucifer clicked the reins and the blacks stepped out. He glanced at her, but had to look back to his horses. They passed Jem, swinging down the lane. "You have no idea," Lucifer said, "how pleasantly surprised I am to see you with Jem in your train."
"Why? I didn't say I wouldn't."
"You didn't say you would, either, and you are the most contrary female I've ever met."
She couldn't decide whether to be pleased or insulted. "Why are you ordering locks? Because of last night?"
His gaze touched her face. "Because of the intruder."
A frisson of awareness raced through her; she carefully kept it from her face. She wasn't going to let what had happened last night inhibit her from continuing with their joint investigations. She had a shrewd notion he'd be quite happy to see her retreat from the field, a victim of consciousness. But last night had come about by her insistence; just because he'd given her precisely what she'd wanted-even though, as he'd observed, she hadn't known for what she was asking-she wasn't about to convert into some mindless ninny.
She wasn't about to let his warning about the next time worry her, either. It would be up to her if ever there was a next time, and she hadn't yet made up her mind.
Shocking, of course, but there it was. She should be swooning, not sitting beside him, calmly if warily. She might not have appreciated last night's possibilities, not until she'd been in the middle of them, but she was twenty-four. She knew what he'd meant by his final words.
They'd been uttered like an oath. One that had carried a great deal of conviction. After a tense moment, face hard, all angular planes, he'd stepped back and let her slip past him, out onto the lawn. She'd looked back just once and seen him standing, a dark, forbidding shadow at the entrance to the shrubbery. Lucifer, indeed. All hot desire.
Temptation was his middle name.
And she'd felt safe, utterly and completely safe-safe not just physically, but at some much deeper level-while in his arms.
Why that should be so was a mystery, but it was pointless to cavil. Just how far that sense of safety might tempt her she didn't know, but in all her twenty-four years, he was the first to make her feel that being a woman desiring and desired was an experience available to her.
Deep in her mind lay a very strong feeling that just as he was the first, he might also be the last.
"The intruder"-she grabbed the curricle's rail as he took the comer into the main lane-"how did he get in?"
"There was a window with a loose latch-the one in the dining room facing the side lawn."
"So that's how he got out so fast." After a moment, she asked, "Do you think he'll return?"
"Not immediately, but sometime. Whatever he was after, he hasn't found it. If it was enough to commit murder for, then he'll be back."
"Are you sure the intruder is the murderer?"
He grimaced. "No. But unless there were four people visiting Horatio on Sunday morning-the murderer, you, me, and the intruder-and we've found absolutely no trace of the murderer, then the intruder is the murderer."
The gates of the Manor appeared around the bend; he didn't slow. "Bear with me." He flicked her a glance. "Bar your father and brother, you're the only sane and definitely innocent person I can talk to about this, and for obvious reasons, I can't yet talk to your father or brother."