Page 47 of My Hellion, My Heart
Running to her bedchamber, anticipation building like a tide in the pit of her stomach, Irina changed quickly into her favorite breeches, ones that laced at the front, and shrugged into the matching riding coat. She was almost breathless by the time she raced back downstairs.
“Where are you going?” Max asked curiously from where he stood near the kitchens, finishing off a fruit tart that he must have gotten off one of the kitchen girls he’d managed to charm.
“Nowhere in particular,” she said as casually as she could manage. The last thing she wanted was Max on her heels, asking questions that she wasn’t prepared to answer, least of all why she felt so compelled to run Lord Langlevit’s course. It was a poor substitute for what she really wanted: to see him.
Bother!
“I’m of half a mind to accompany you,” Max said, licking the crumbs off his fingers.
“There’ll be lots of mud,” she teased with a grin. “Don’t worry, I won’t be long. In the meantime, try not to deflower anyone.”
“I shall make no such promises.”
Hoping that Max wouldn’t take it into his head to follow her out of pure perversity, Irina hurried to the stables and chose the first available horse on hand, a sleek brown mare, and waited impatiently while the stableboy saddled her. She spurred the horse into a gallop, her pent-up frustration only leaving her body when she saw the turrets of Hartstone come into view. She did not go up the winding driveway but galloped past, into the woods instead. The clearing with the barn was easy to find, but Irina decided to tie her horse in a thicket a little farther along in case any employees from Hartstonehadnoticed her arrival.
All of her worries seemed to melt away the minute she walked back to the makeshift stable, the sounds of the nearby waterfall muffling her footsteps. Taking her time, she explored the unlocked barn, noticing that it wasn’t a stable at all, but a self-sufficient cottage of sorts. There was a well-made bed in one corner and a table with a stove on top of it. An armchair sat in one corner with a stack of books arranged on a nearby shelf. There was no food in sight, but she didn’t expect there to be with Henry being in Town. Feeling as if she were intruding, Irina slipped from the barn and decided to wander down to the pool before attempting the course.
Whereupon she froze in shocked wonder.
A man stood beneath the waterfall. Not just any man.Henry.
Irina’s breath deserted her body in a wild exit. What was he doing here? He was supposed to be in London. She blinked, wondering if she’d somehow managed to conjure him with her thoughts, but when she opened her eyes, he was still there. Like some kind of mythological river god, he stood with his back toward her, which was mostly obscured by the bubbling flow of water cascading onto his wide shoulders and streaming toward his narrow, muscular hips. The paleness of his lean and scandalously bare posterior in contrast to the rest of him drew her attention, and she flushed deeply. It was suddenly difficult to draw in air. The water blocked enough of him from view, but exposed tantalizing glimpses of bronzed limbs that made her knees feel like rubber.
Sweet Lord, he was naked as the day he was born, and she couldn’t stop staring.
If he turned around, he would see her standing there. And that was something she could not risk. With reluctance, Irina forced her feet to twist and move back in the direction she’d come, but halted once more as a voice filtered through the trees near the path leading to the barn.
“Irina?”
She recognized that voice.Max.
She didn’t dare turn around to see if Henry had heard, but remained frozen like a trapped fox in the hunt as Max called out again. That conniving, sneaky rogue had followed her after all. Irina swallowed her irritation as real fear rose in its wake. If Max caught her with Henry—a naked Henry at that—especially after his earlier misgivings, all hell would break loose.
She would have to deter him and somehow explain her presence here on someone else’s private property, along with the nature of the secret course belonging to the Earl of Langlevit, no less. Gritting her teeth, Irina made to move toward him when a large wet hand reached around to cover her mouth. It startled a surprised, though muffled, squeak from her.
“Shhh,” Henry whispered into her ear, drawing her out of sight behind a large oak tree just as Max appeared on his horse at the top of the path. “Be still.”
Sandwiched between the large tree and the equally large man at her back, Irina obeyed, her heart thumping in her chest as Max frowned, his eyes canvassing the area. He took in the start of Henry’s course before his curious gaze moved back to the waterfall. Irritation surged once more at the fact that he had followed her. Trembling with suppressed fury, her fingers gripped the rough bark of the oak. Max stood there for some time and called her name again. To her horror, he dismounted and started walking down the path. It wouldn’t take much for them to be discovered.
Irina stiffened, and Henry’s thumb stroked across her chin in a quiet attempt to calm her rattled nerves. Her breathing eased somewhat as Max halted a stone’s throw away, his eyes studying the waterfall and then the pool. Irina noted sourly that he didn’t seem to mind the mud too much. What a little liar! With a shake of his head, Max headed back toward his horse, and within moments, was gone. Neither she nor Henry moved for a long minute, in case Max decided to circle back.
A slight cramp in her leg made her wriggle, and she heard Henry’s sharp inhalation as her hips rocked into his. She was getting quite adept at freezing mid-motion, but this time, everythinginsideher body went feral even as she went completely still. Her blood simmered like a wild thing, her heartbeat trebled its pace, and her breath rattled in her lungs.
She was alone.
Pressed against a tree.
With a naked man glued to her back.
Henry’s hand released her chin and dropped to rest across her collarbone, his fingers stroking lazily across her throat. Without a word, he drew her against him. Irina sucked in a soft gasp, realizing the dampness from his nude body had seeped into her own clothing. He was so warm she’d noticed none of it. Her breath came in shallow agonizing pants as his hand wandered down the front of her, skimming over her breasts to her stomach and back up. He still hadn’t said a word, even though she was quite sure that Max had gone.
Mesmerized by the sensual stroking of his fingers along each of her ribs that left rivers of warmth in their wake, Irina remained silent. After a moment, she felt his warm breath on her neck and then his lips, planting sweet touches along the crest of her nape. Climbing up the sensitive column of her neck, he sucked her earlobe into his mouth. She nearly collapsed. Heat shivered through her in molten waves while his mouth continued to explore her skin and his hand drifted upward.
Cupping her jaw, Henry tilted her chin up and took her lips in so gentle a kiss that it made her want to swoon with the tenderness of it. He teased the seam of her lips with his tongue before delving inside to stroke against hers. The kiss turned carnal, and he groaned low in his throat. Arching her neck, Irina attempted to twist her body around, but he kept her firmly still, with her back to him.
Henry was hard everywhere. She squirmed against his uncompromising frame, and he laughed quietly, one of his hands falling to her hip. “Stop moving, sweet,” he whispered, his tongue shifting to trace the outline of her ear, making her daft. “Or you’ll unman me.”
Freezing once more, she felt heat rush into her body at the insistent prod of him against the seat of her breeches. She’d forgotten he was naked. And that was his…oh God. Irina sucked in a shuddering breath. She was innocent, but she was not naive. Max had never been scandalous enough to deluge her with details of what happened between lovers, but she’d heard enough salacious talk to discern what the bulge pressing into the base of her spine meant. The hot, hard length of him made her blood thicken to molasses in her veins and her toes curl in her riding boots.
