Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)

She inched closer. “Reading is certainly no substitute for practical experience.” She drew nearer still.

“But … wait … Lucy, you can’t possibly—” And then he blurted out a question directed more at God in heaven than at Lucy herself. “Why me?”

“You mean besides the fact that there’s no one else? You’re so proper, Jemmy, so cold. There are icebergs in the North Sea with less frost on them. If I can thaw you out, I’ll have no problem seducing Toby.”

“I assure you, you could not ‘thaw’ me, even if I wished to be … thawed. Which I don’t.” He retreated a step. Then two.

“Try to resist, by all means. I like a good challenge.” She closed the distance again, her eyes lit with mischief. “I’ve learned to snare grouse and angle for trout. Is catching a husband really so different?”

Yes, Jeremy meant to insist, but somehow his jaw would only move up and down noiselessly, in a rather good imitation of—well, of a trout.

And then she caught him by his shirt and reeled him in, catching him up in that net of chestnut curls and kissing him within an inch of his life. Her lips attacked his with the same steely determination. But when she threw her arms around his neck and fell against him, the rest of her was soft, pliant, yielding. Silky strands of her hair slid over his forearm. Lush curves molded against his chest.

Before he could gather his wits to protest, she pulled away suddenly and studied his face.

“Well? Is it working?”

It was a simple question. And as Jeremy’s mind recited the reasons why his answer ought to be an emphaticno , other regions of his body were decidedly sayingyes . Good Lord, he was only a man. A man who, it seemed, had wasted the past several months not kissing anyone, and whose body was veritably leaping at the chance to end the reign of self-imposed monasticism. He shook his head firmly in the negative, hoping she would overlook the ragged breathing that argued otherwise.

Lucy was undeterred. She shot up for yet another attempt, but Jeremy caught her face in his hands. Her cheeks flushed soft and warm beneath his palms.

“Have you gone mad? This is not going to happen. It cannot happen.”

“Well, of courseit cannot happen.” Her mouth spread into a grin, and her cheeks dimpled under his thumbs. Jeremy was seized by an unpardonable urge to trace those little laughing hollows with his fingers, explore them with his lips.

“Have no fear, Jemmy, I have no plans forit . Thenyou would have to marry me, and that would not do at all.”

“It most certainly would not.” He studied the face cupped in his hands. Her skin drank in the firelight and glowed like burnished gold. Her eyes danced with reflected flame, daring him to look closer, draw nearer. Who was this woman, and what had she done with Lucy? She felt like a stranger to him, and that was a dangerous thing. A stranger was fair game, for kissing … and more.

Jeremy began a short list of the reasons why Lucy was not—most definitelynot —fair game.

Point one, she was the sister of his oldest friend.

Point two, his oldest friend was a crack shot.

“Listen to me,” he said, giving her head a little shake. “If you have questions about … about the marriage bed, you ought to take them up with Marianne. Or you should wait for your wedding night, when your husband—who willnot be Toby—can enlighten you. There will be no lessons on fishing for husbands or ensnaring men.”

She smiled. A smug, maddening smile that Jeremy longed to shake right off her face.

“Do you understand me?” he demanded.

“Yes.” She pressed her lips together briefly before they parted again in laughter.

“Then damn it, why are you laughing?”

“Because I think itwas working.”

That damned impish grin again. But this time he saw not the impudent smile, but rather what composed it.

Lips.

Full, sweetly bowed lips, flushed deep red with kissing and laughter. Lips that begged to be covered with his own.

He closed his eyes to the temptation, sliding his hands back to fist in her tumbled hair, as if by taming those curls he could control her. Control himself. But—sweet heaven. It was like plunging his hands into liquid silk, and behind his eyelids he saw those strands of exquisite softness stroking every inch of his skin.

His eyes snapped open. In desperation, he glanced downward, just to see if the third button of her nightgown was still undone.

And it was. Damn it, it was.

She laughed softly, drawing his gaze back up to her mouth, now tilted at the perfect angle to receive his kiss. Those lips … and just a hint of a moist, pink tongue … the instruments of his irritation for so many years, now offered up in invitation. Just waiting to be silenced, mastered, tamed. There was one certain way, a dark voice inside him argued, to make Lucy finally see sense.

Kiss her senseless.