Page 104 of The Lover's Eye
The crisis quickly averted, Giles swept her into his arms, the force of her laughter still shuddering her ribcage and echoing in his ears.“I love you,” he breathed, squeezing her.
Her amusement waned, settling into shining eyes and a smile that she pressed against his lips.She kissed him with hungry fervor again and again, until he had given up trying to speak and equaled her energy.
He had always adored kissing her, relished the sweet, electrifying promise of attraction.But now, it was different.Devastatingly sweet and all consuming, bolstered by something that overpowered allure and compatibility and all the rest—
Love.The insatiable desire to have one and all of each other, grasping ceaselessly for more, already knowing there would never be enough.
Giles rested his forehead against hers and struggled in vain to regulate his breathing.“Can I take you home, now?”
“No,” Isobel said, running a finger over his lips, “but you can take me back outside.”
The temptation was unfathomable, the brush of her finger alone pushing hot blood out through his limbs.“Darling, are you sure?You’re not injured?”
He reached out to inspect her arms and legs, but she jumped up, coiling herself around him.Her breath was hot against his cheek, her tone laced with passion.“I have never been more sure in the whole of my life,” she whispered, ducking her chin to kiss him and slipping her hands beneath his shirt.
Disordered steps saw them back to the quilts, which had grown cold in their absence.Isobel pulled at the collar of Giles’s shirt so roughly, seams popped as it came over his head.He started to laugh, but the sound was drowned in her mouth, silenced by her hands, already deftly at the placket of his trousers.
“Isobel,” he breathed, hanging over her.
“Yes?”She smiled up at him, wicked and girlish, the now-clear sky washing her skin in cool light, painting the grey of her eyes with a little blue.Giles’s heart convulsed.He did not deserve her, and yet he would fight to his dying breath to keep her.Them, like this, always.
His delay gave Isobel time to finish stripping him of his trousers—a task made more difficult given that he was already fully aroused—and with a giggle and a righteous tug, she pulled him between her legs.Giles gripped the quilts in his fists, struggling to draw breath as their bodies joined.Her smile altered into open-mouthed satisfaction, and then eased to delight.
“Isobel,” he said between kisses, moving his hips slowly.Pleasure seeped in from all angles, flooding his veins.“Did you finish the book I gave you?Of”—her fingers were tracing his shoulder blades, scratching lightly—“of Plato’s Epigrams?”
She raised a brow, putting one of her knees against his chest to still him.“Giles, as you would put it, I do not give a tinker’s damn about Plato just now.We’ve a whole lifetime to discuss poetry.”
He chuckled, pressing his forehead to hers.“Yes, love, I know.But this is sort of a dream of mine.”He stared into her eyes, committing the patterns to memory, brushing his thumbs over her lashes and brows.“‘You are looking at the stars, my star.Would that I could become the sky, so that with many eyes I could look upon you.’”
Isobel searched his face, a smile slipping over her features.“That’s lovely.”
“I discovered it months ago, and I always wanted to share it with you.You were all I could think of, even then.”
“And now you have me.”
He slipped a hand to the nape of her neck.“And now you have me.”
35
The following evening, they arrived at Shoremoss Hall for dinner.Giles stepped from the carriage and offered Isobel his hand.She tried to still her body’s tremors as she descended the step.
“You wore your best coat?”she asked, smiling weakly at Giles’s excessively tight black dinner jacket.She loved it; it brought back delectable memories of the night he had bribed a footman to exchange notes with her—the first time she truly contemplated him as more than just a friend.
And the coat showed his back and shoulders to the best effect.There was always that.
“Of course I did,” he said, placing her hand on his forearm.“It’s a special occasion, after all.I get to watch you lay waste to Pemberton.”
Isobel playfully smacked his arm as they entered the hall.She did not let the footman take her reticule—it was heavy with the lover’s eye necklace.The proof.She was ambushing Pemberton, and he hadn’t the faintest idea.
They were escorted to the drawing room to wait, but Isobel didn’t bother to sit.She paced the carpets, snaking a careful path between the cluttering of little tables and trinkets.She knew she was making the right decision, but concerns for Marriane and her unborn child made her stomach swirl.If she could confront Pemberton alone first, perhaps they could agree on a softer way to share the news with her sister.
Pemberton entered the room by himself, and Isobel approached in rapid strides, not giving her courage a chance to falter.
“Good day, brother,” she said, looking him squarely in the eye.She lifted her hand, letting the lover’s eye necklace unfurl before his face.She took no pleasure in the shock that contorted his features.“Would you like to tell her, or shall I?”
“What the devil is the meaning of this?”Pemberton burst forth, immediately turning his gaze on Giles.
Giles raised his hands in surrender, not moving from his seat on the sofa.He and Isobel had agreed beforehand she wanted to handle the matter on her own.
