A splash of foam landed on her knee.
Nick panted, eyes widening with panic. He’d come to his senses.
Cynthia blinked. “I do believe the tide is coming in,” she blurted out, as inane conversation seemed all that her brain was capable of.
“Cynthia,” he squeaked. And then, strangely, “I mean, Miss Merrithorpe.”
“Er…Yes?”
“I think…I do apologize.”
She uncurled her naked leg from around his thigh, the action clearly belying the need for any apology. “It’s quite all right.” When she lowered her foot to the ground, her body rubbed against his hardness.
Nick’s head dropped. He rested his forehead against hers for a long, quiet moment. His fingers flexed, trembling against the bones of her wrists. And then he pushed up and let her go. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…do that.”
He made to tug down her skirts, but one side was still tucked up and didn’t budge despite his desperate smoothing.
“Nick, it’s fine.”
“Of course,” he answered, scrambling to his feet. She only had to endure a brief moment of being sprawled awkwardly on the ground before he reached down to pull her up after him. She wished he would’ve given her a moment more. Her feet felt heavy and graceless as bricks, and her legs as unsteady as stalks of grass.
After occupying himself with brushing the sand from his knees, Nick offered a bright smile that didn’t match his troubled eyes. “Well then. It seems that neither of us are children, and we shouldn’t play at those sorts of games, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes?” she answered, unable to keep the confusion from her voice. Well and good that he didn’t see her as a young girl anymore, but what was she to him?
“I hope I did not scare you. Men are…unreliable in their propriety.”
Unreliable? Cynthia shook her head as she let her skirt down to cover the leg that had wrapped so shamelessly around him.
His smile grew wider and even less natural. “Shall we hurry on, then?”
Trying, and failing, to find a steady thought, Cynthia could do nothing but nod and turn to lead the way up the narrow beach.
What had he done?
My God, what had he done?
The feel of her arms pushing against his hold, her body arching beneath him…Something had clicked into place inside him. Or out of place. That broke
n part of his soul had shifted into stark distortion. He knew the feeling well enough, but he hadn’t ever figured out if it was peace or pain that overtook him in those moments.
Thank God he’d managed to stop himself. Thank God he hadn’t abused her further.
He rubbed a shaking hand over the back of his head and stared at Cyn’s back as she reached a new trail and began a gradual ascent. Each step set loose tiny rivulets of sand from the pleats of her skirt, a faint reminder of his transgression revealed with her every movement.
Nick could hardly breathe, even before she glanced back, her cheeks reddened by shame or cold or anger.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” she said simply, and his heart twisted into a sick knot. Cynthia walked on, calm and steady.
“I know,” he answered. A lady could not be treated in that way. He knew that. There were other women…women who did not mind a little roughness if the pay was right. He—
“You’re in love with someone else,” she scolded over her shoulder.
“Who?” Nick blurted out before remembering that he was engaged. His brain began scrambling for an excuse at the same moment that Cynthia jerked to a halt.
Spinning toward him, she threw her hands in the air. “Your betrothed!”
“Ah, yes. Of course. Her.”