Dillon caught the flick of Rus’s eyes Pris’s way; lips curving, he grasped Rus’s hand. “Don’t worry-when we get to the end of this, the shoe might well be on the other foot.”
A nicely ambiguous statement; from the look in Rus’s eyes, he caught both meanings. With Rus handed into Jacobs’s care, Dillon ushered Pris away; he felt Rus’s gaze on his back as he steered Pris down the corridor, heading for the stables and the long ride across the moonlit fields to the Carisbrook house.
Even before they left the stable yard, Pris’s relief, until then deflected by their talk, was welling, threatening to spill over. Dillon saw her mounted, then turned away. Swinging up to Solomon’s back, he looked across-and saw her cavorting giddily, letting the mare prance and dance as her emotion communicated itself to her flighty mount. “Pris!”
She flashed him a glorious smile-a wild, reckless and dangerous smile. “Come on-let’s ride!”
A light tap to the mare’s flanks was all it took to send her racing; jaw setting, Dillon sent Solomon surging after her. He caught up before she’d left the manor drive; she laughed and matched him, stride for stride. The pounding of flying hooves on the packed gravel, an insistent tattoo, was a drumbeat they both responded to.
They shot out of the drive and the fields lay before them. Dark, deserted, all theirs. With a whoop, Pris whirled her quirt and raced on.
Dangerous, reckless, and wild.
Mentally gritting his teeth, Dillon herded her. He was too wise-understood too well the reckless passion that had her in its grip-to try to head her, to hold her back. To restrain her. Instead, using Solomon’s bulk and strength, and his own knowledge of every foot, every yard of the surrounding land, he guided the mare in her headlong dash, through the physical outpouring of Pris’s joy.
Finding her brother, knowing he was safe-touching him, seeing him-had released a dam of pent-up emotions, of stresses and strains, worries and cares. Pris wasn’t just free, she was soaring-carefree, lighthearted.
Light-headed; he was certain of that. She seemed breathless, her laughter spilling out, the silvery notes falling like fairy dust all around them. They thundered through the night; every faculty stretched, he picked their route, keeping to well-beaten tracks that in the darkness only showed in his mind.
Over fields, through paddocks, flying over low fences, they streaked through the night. Anyone seeing them would have sworn they were mad; he knew they were both sane, just out of control.
Or at least, she was; he was doing his best to remain levelheaded, not to let her infect him with her wild and reckless passion. Having to concentrate helped; knowing that any error of judgment on his part could see her thrown and injured helped more.
Then the Carisbrook house loomed ahead, a dark monolith rising up out of the shadowy landscape. The mare was tiring, but far from blown; she was as game as her rider. He was about to correct course for the yard behind the house when Pris called a challenge; dropping her reins, she caught the mare’s flying mane, crouched low, and put on a turn of speed that in less than a minute left Solomon two lengths behind.
And on a wrong heading. Dillon cursed, checked, and went after her. Pushing Solomon on, he closed the gap, but then they burst through the bushes lining the drive, crossed it in a lunge, and swept into the scattered trees beyond.
They had to tack this way and that around the trees, slowing them both, for which he was grateful. But then the mare reached a path and leapt forward again. And he knew where she was going-where she was leading him.
His sane self cursed; this was not a good idea.
Most of him, that side of him she never failed to speak to, was already with her.
With her, close on her heels as she pulled the mare to a halt beside the summer house, tumbled out of her saddle, looping the reins about the stair rail before, laughing giddily, she raced up the steps.
With her, mere steps behind her as she flew across the summerhouse straight for the central pole. With her as she reached it, wrapped both hands around it and, leaping high, exuberantly swung herself around. Dropping back to the floor, she faced him, her smile brighter, more glorious, than the sun.
“We found him!”
She flung herself at him.
Caught his face between her hands and fused her lips to his.
He caught her, staggered back, steadied, then pressed her back until her spine hit the pole.
And devoured.
Took all she not just offered but pressed on him, that she lavished and tempted and defied him to take.
He didn’t take control of the kiss-it took control of him. And her. They fed from each other, hungered and burned until all either knew was a desperate want. An urgent need to conquer and surrender, to seize, to possess, to simply have.
Her mouth was his, his tongue was hers, their breaths beyond ragged and urgent. Fire flashed and raced through them; desire swelled and crashed through them. Passion rose in a tidal wave and swept them both away.
Madness. It gripped them. Wild, reckless, dangerous.
It whipped them, consumed them, drove them. Harried every breath, every gasp, every too-desperate touch.
He wrenched open the shirt she’d worn under her jacket, found the ties of her chemise and yanked it down, wrapped his palm about her breast and nearly groaned. He flexed his fingers and she did; he kneaded possessively and she gave voice to their hunger, even as her hands worked desperately at his waist, hauling up his shirt, then sliding beneath to spread hungrily over his chest.
Clothes flew. Her boots skidded across the floor, dispensed with so he could tug her breeches down and off her legs. His jacket and shirt disappeared, eaten, for all he knew, by her greedy hands.
Hot, grasping, urgent.
Needy, greedy, and wanting.
Heat throbbed beneath every inch of his skin. When she pushed aside the flap of his breeches and, reaching within, wrapped her hand around him, for one instant he thought he might die.
The desperation was that great.
His need was even greater.
As was hers.
Her tongue was in his mouth, taunting and pleading even while her fingers played.
His hand was on her naked bottom, gripping, possessing. His other hand toyed with one swollen breast, almost idly stroking the tightly furled nipple.
She tightened her grip, then with her nails lightly scored.
He couldn’t breathe. Releasing her breast, he slid both hands down, gripped her thighs, and hoisted her.
With a surprised gasp, she released her hold, but even before he pinned her to the pole, she was winding her long bare legs about his hips. Before he pressed closer, she pulled him to her.
He thrust deep inside her.
Drew back and thrust again, harder, farther.
She broke from the kiss gasping; head back, she wriggled, adjusted about him, then she tightened her legs, holding him close, urging him into a deep, steady, forceful rhythm. One that rocked them both. One designed to fuse them beyond recall.
He caught the pole above her head and pushed her higher, pushed deeper and still deeper into her.
She caught her breath on a sob, found his head with her hands, tipped his face to hers, bent her head, and kissed him.
And they were lost.
Lost to the tempest, to the roiling turbulent need that rose up and swamped them. To the fire and hunger that roared through their veins, igniting flames beneath every inch of skin, spreading and searing, consuming the last shreds of sanity, the last vestiges of reservation, the last shadows of inhibition.
Until they knew only this.
This need, this want, this desperation.
The wild, the reckless, the dangerous-the all-consuming. The elemental power that poured through them both.
That gripped them, ripped them apart, and offered their souls to some higher power as ecstasy swept through them.