“Happy?” he asked her.
“Very,” she smiled.
“Come on then.” He led her over to the carriage door, opened it, and handed her in. She settled herself against the velvet. She turned to say goodbye to him, but he was climbing in after her.
“What are you doing?”
“I am hitching a ride home. Children are exhausting.”
“Yes, they are,” Rose said, a little sadly, but he did not let her remain sad for long as he sat beside her on the soft bench and pulled her against him.
“Will—" she began to protest.
He laughed.
“I have been lying beside you half-naked all afternoon. What can it hurt to take you in my arms fully clothed? Anyway, the seat is too narrow. I have nowhere to put my arms except around you.”
“Good try,” she laughed.
He brushed the top of her head with his lips and said enigmatically, “I haven’t even started trying.”
As the horses moved off, with his horse trotting in the rear, Will kept her wrapped firmly in his arms.
“When did you last have a birthday party?” He asked.
“When you and your father took me down the river on that canal barge,” she remembered.
“You have never done anything since?” He looked shocked as she shook her head.
“We have to change that,” he said firmly. But Rose knew this could be the last one because by the next one, short of a miracle, she would be married to Ernest. Ernest! If he could see her now, wrapped in the arms of another man, having spent the afternoon hungering after every curve of him. She prayed they didn’t pass anyone who knew her. But it was a quiet country lane, and they still had some way to go.
Will suddenly said, “Oh, I forgot something.”
Rose sat forward. “Do we need to turn back?”
“Only the clock,” he smiled, as Rose looked confused. “I forgot your birthday kiss.”
“Will I—" She tried to fend him off, but he was already sitting forward to be level with her.
“What harm can there be in a birthday kiss?” he asked softly.
Plenty of harm,and you know that full well.
He reached out his hand and placed it on the side of her neck. His fingertips burned against her skin.
“Will—"
“Rose,” he breathed as he leaned closer and trailed his fingertips up the side of her neck to her jaw. He caressed her cheek with his thumb as he pushed the hair behind one ear.
“Your skin is like porcelain,” he said, almost with a tone of wonder.
She wanted to tell him to stop, but the tingling created by his fingers was delicious, and instead, she allowed herself to lean into it. He must have felt her resistance melting as he chose that moment to lay back, pulling her with him. She was lying half across his chest as he brought his other hand up to frame her face. For a moment, he just held her there, looking at her, his eyes roving her eyes, cheeks, lips. Then slowly, he moved his lips down toward hers. He lightly brushed hers with his, so lightly she almost didn’t feel it. She was only acutely aware of the tingling as her nerve endings responded to his touch. Then he leaned back and looked into her eyes again, and Rose felt as if the longing in her must be written on her forehead.
“Happy birthday, Rose,” he said huskily, the catch in his throat having an instant effect on the warmth in her middle. He was hardly touching her, but she felt her insides contract.
She didn’t trust herself to say anything in reply, but her breath was coming quicker in her chest, which was pressed hard against his. She saw a look in his eyes that she couldn’t place, almost indecision. Then suddenly he swooped on her lips again, this time in a fierce kiss, slaking his lips across hers, holding her whole head in his large warm hands, and then sliding them down the back of her neck to her shoulders and around her back. He was crushing her against him. The feeling of his embrace sparked a volcanic need that had been simmering all afternoon. She was kissing him back, leaning into him, pressing her breasts against him until they were half-sitting, half-lying on the carriage seat. He was running his hands up and down her back, all the way to the top of her bottom and back up to burrow into the hair at the nape of her neck. His tongue was dancing with hers, and all the time, she felt as if her insides were dissolving.
Eventually, he stopped kissing her and lifted his head. He held her slightly away from him as he looked into her eyes. She thought he would tell her they had to stop, which she knew they did. She thought he was going to move her aside to stop the roaring feeling racing through her veins, which she wondered if he also felt because his heart was beating as hard as hers. But he didn’t. Instead, he pulled himself back into a sitting position, taking her with him, and once again settled her against his side. Then, very gently, he put his lips back on hers and softly began to explore them again, this time without the urgency and force of before.