his spine. He’d vowed to keep away from sentiment. To avoid rejection. Yet, more than anything, he needed to tell Win the truth. “Every day I fall a bit further.”
“Fall? Like tumbling off of a cliff?”
Sep chuckled. “Sometimes it feels that way, yes.” He leaned in closer, relishing the hitch of her breath when he stroked his hands up her arms. “Falling under your spell, Win.”
“I don’t cast spells, despite what the lady in the pub may think.” She tensed, the muscles of her arms tightening under his touch.
Mercy, he was terrible at speaking from his heart. He’d spent too many years stuck in his own head.
“Forgive my blundering tongue, Win. If my feelings for you were less potent, I suspect I could express them more easily.” He filled his lungs with the cool night air and blurted, “I’m falling in love with you. Looking back, I see that you quite captured me from the moment we met. And every day since, I…fall a little more.”
She dipped her head and began examining the buttons of his waistcoat. Sep traced the edge of her jaw and nudged her chin up, needing her to see as much as hear his bungled declaration. If he couldn’t get the words out right, he wanted her to see the truth in his eyes.
He leaned an inch closer, wishing the moon was brighter, wishing there wasn’t a chance Cornelia and Miss Renshawe might emerge from the pub and interrupt them. “When I look at you…” He swept a finger along the downy slope of her cheek. “I see a woman I wish to know.” He bent and pressed a kiss to the edge of Win’s mouth. “To kiss.”
He meant to touch his lips to hers gently, briefly, but she responded by clutching at his shoulders, and he wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her closer. She fit against him as if their bodies had been molded for this moment. He bent to kiss her and shivers of pleasure rippled across his skin.
But chaste kisses would never be enough with Win. None of his feelings for her were chaste.
He kissed her again, and again, stroking hair, her skin. She slipped her hands inside his coat, slid one finger between the buttons of his shirt. The stroke of her bare skin against his sent a spike of need through his body. He kissed her one last time. If they continued, he feared he’d lose all grasp on gentlemanly behavior.
They both struggled to catch their breath.
“You’re going to tell me we should go back in the pub,” she whispered between them.
Sep pressed her hand to his chest. He couldn’t bring himself to stop touching her.
“You don’t have to go back in. I will go and retrieve Cornelia and Miss Renshawe so we can depart.”
She cast a long, silent look at the pub. Then she looked up at him. “I can do it,” she said in a decisive clipped tone. “I’m ready to face them again.”
“You won’t be alone.” Sep slipped his hand over hers. She turned her hand so their palms fit together and smiled up at him. “If you wish it, Win, you needn’t ever be alone again.”
Win couldn’t think about ever. If she thought of the future, worry would steal the moment’s bliss.
She only knew she wanted to kiss Septimus again. In his arms, the world felt right, and all that came before and lay ahead faded into a misty blur. Fears couldn’t crowd in because sensation blotted out every thought. With his heat and scent surrounding her, she felt safe. Desired. Loved.
He was the first man who’d ever called her beautiful. But she couldn’t let herself relish his praise. Words were hard to trust.
His reactions were far easier to believe. Every touch, every kiss, every heated breath against her skin told her what he felt for her. The way he touched her conveyed more than any words ever could. Septimus caressed her tenderly and then, when they kissed, he did so fiercely, as if he never wished to stop touching her.
His kisses weren’t a lie. The heat in his gaze wasn’t feigned. She knew with absolute certainty that he desired her as she did him.
Perhaps they were alike in that way, both needing proof—empirical evidence, Septimus would say—before they allowed themselves to believe.
But love still frightened her. Terrified her.
No matter how she felt about Septimus or he about her, she still saw ghosts. And he was a rational man of science. Regardless of how