“Onto your back?” she whispered scandalized as if anyone else could hear them out here in the woods.
“Yes.”
Her soft weight fell against him, and her slim hands encircled his throat. Some faint scent clung to her, a teasing hint of lavender…cinnamon. Theodosia was lushly curved with a body made for carnal pleasures and Sebastian wanted to eat her up. He could feel the ache of wanting her deep in his bones. “Try not to strangle me,” he muttered.
She giggled against his nape, and he hefted her onto his back, scandalously hooking her legs at each of his hips over his arms. How perfectly she fit against him! Her dress rode up to her knees and her white stockings gleamed under the moonlight. His next breath was full of her fragrance, the softness of her hair, the sweetness on her breath, the soap she’d bathed with.
It was going to be a long night.
Chapter Fourteen
Sebastian needed to get her back to the cottage and into her room before taking a swim in the lake. He unerringly followed the route across through the trees that brought him out onto the road a short distance beyond the village’s square. Seb started back to his manor through the well beaten off track running along the estate park wall.
“You are very strong,” she said approvingly, slipping one of her hand from around his neck to squeeze a bit of his shoulders. “I suppose dukes have to be strong.”
He grunted something unintelligible. It was bloody hard to think when she touched him so. “I suppose so.”
“When you are tired, Seb, let me know. We’ll switch and I’ll carry you a bit of the way,” she murmured sleepily.
“Have you ever lifted anyone on your back?”
She rubbed her face against his nape. “What man have done…ladies can do.”
“Why do you laugh?”
“I am imagining the spectacle of you trying to lift a man of my size onto your back. I would flatten you to the ground immediately.”
A quite indelicate yawn sounded. “You’d roll so that I’d land atop you…and then perhaps you’d then ravish me senselessly.”
He stumbled a bit at that, and silently cursed. Theodosia tugged a longing inside him that he preferred not to acknowledge. To want another with such acute intensity made Sebastian feel as if he did not know himself, and that was an unpleasant notion for he had known the kind of man…duke…and father he wanted to be since nineteen years of age.
She nuzzled the side of his neck. “I like you.”
“Why?”
“You argue with me.”
“And that made me likable did it?”
“Hmm.” she pushed forward to dip her head down over his shoulder and kissed his cheek. Sebastian almost stumbled. “Yes. I stood toes to toe and challenged you many times and you did not try to dismiss me as inferior. But crossed wits with me. That and your lovely mouth makes you entirely likable.”
“Tell me more,” he invited.
“About?”
“My mouth…what have you been thinking about mylovelymouth.”
She all but purred into his neck. “That sinful bit? Too scandalous to share.”
Now he was bloody curious. “I thought we were friends?”
“When did I say so? And not even Prue and Charity I would tell this,” she whispered in a shocked undertone.
“So, your musings are wicked then?”
“Very wicked,” she said conspiratorially.
The affection in her voice struck him, and he did not think it was the ale. It was entirely possible their liking was mutual.