her so firmly that all he would need was a bit of friction to spend in his trousers. He released her skin, pulling away enough to see his mark upon her. Satisfaction rushed through him.
He took her lips again, roughly, harshly. He could not help it. There was no finesse in him when it came to her. There was no caution, no tenderness. There was only stark, ravaging want. Relentless need.
And that was when he felt it. Wetness.
Rain? There had not been a cloud in the sky, he swore it.
Not rain. Salty, like her skin had been. On their lips.
He raised his head. Nell’s eyes were wide, so blue they were almost violet, laden with tears. Trails tracked down her cheeks. Glistened on her kiss-ravaged mouth. Impossible. His feisty, indefatigable warrior was crying.
He swallowed against a rush of his own emotion, a ball of it coming up his throat. “Why?”
At last, she pushed at his chest, stumbling away from him. She swiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand, her lower lip trembling. “You had no right.”
“To kiss my wife?” He moved toward her, fury mounting, along with unchecked desire for her. “To remind you of the way it was between us? What had I no right to do, Nell? Say it. To make you want me again?”
She shook her head. “You had no right to touch me. To make yourself so familiar with me. I do not want you.”
“Lies.” He was angry with himself for losing control. But angrier with her for continuing to be so stubborn. For denying what they’d had once—and what they had now. “You do want me, damn you. I felt it in your kiss, in the way you responded to me. I have not forgotten what we are like together, Nell. And nor have you, no matter how hard you are fighting me.”
She shook her head. “Leave me alone. I refuse to wait here with you. I am walking back to Needham Hall. Alone!”
Like hell she was.
But she had already spun on her heel and was striding away from him. Grimly, he bent and retrieved her hat. The sun was still high enough in the sky that her fair skin would burn if she did not have a brim to shade her face.
Then he stalked after her.
Chapter Five
Walking back to Needham Hall had been a mistake.
Nell admitted it the next morning when she got out of her bed and the stinging heels of her blistered feet sent such pain radiating through her that she cried out and sank to her knees. Her handsome boots had not been made for the mile walk back to the hall. Refusing to accept her hat from Needham had been another error in judgment, she acknowledged grimly to herself as she pressed a hand to her heated forehead.
Her skin was burned. Her feet were bloodied and raw.
A sob welled up in her throat. More tears she had no wish to cry.
But the biggest blunder of all yesterday? That had been not just allowing Needham to kiss her, but kissing him back. And wanting him, too. She had betrayed herself, her pride, and Tom as well.
The door adjoining her chamber to Needham’s flew open, and he strode over the threshold, clad in nothing more than a dressing robe. It was fashioned of navy silk, and it had an embroidered dragon upon it. Likely something he had purchased in his travels. The thought sent a strange, unwanted surge of resentment through her.
But she did not have long to dwell upon it, for he was rushing forward, the loose garment flapping around his well-formed calves. Even his feet were bare. She swore she caught a glimpse of knee, and above it, strong, masculine thigh.
“Nell? What the devil is the matter? I heard a commotion. What are you doing on the floor?” he asked as he stalked forward.
He moved unencumbered. Though he had followed her all the way back to Needham Hall, holding her hat in his hands as if it were a wounded bird he sought to protect, asking her to wear it every quarter hour, he did not seemingly suffer any adverse effects of yesterday’s ruinous trip. They never had made it to Tom. By the time they had reached the hall, she had been desperately exhausted, her stomach begging her to stop and eat her dinner at last.
She had taken a tray in her chamber and promptly gone to sleep.
And she could have sworn she had locked the