Page 117 of If the Slipper Fits
Caden caught her easily, one arm about her waist. He shifted to face her. He told himself she needed a moment for her eyes to adjust to the green tinged other-worldly darkness enfolding them.
Their eyes locked for a timeless moment.
Then her gaze dropped to his mouth and her lips parted.
Now,he thought,finally.She would come to him, ready and willing and,Christ, he was as hard as an untried youth.
Lifting her chin, she fisted her skirts in her hands and marched past him toward the clearing on the opposite side. “This way?”
Frustrated desire ate at his resolve to stick to his plan. “Right-o.”
They emerged into a clearing of sweet smelling grass liberally dotted with yellow and white wildflowers. A limestone wall standing two stories high and ran the length of the property as far as the eye could see. Rich green vines covered it.
She spread her arms wide. “This is lovely, but I’d hardly call it a secret garden. More like a remote picnic spot.”
“This is not the garden.” He nodded his head toward the massive wall. “One would think the wall marks a perimeter. Which it does. It also encloses the estate’s hidden-by-design garden.”
“Why did you never show me this when we were young?” she asked, her tone half accusatory, half dubious, as if she doubted the garden’s existence.
“It would hardly have been proper to bring you here, where we’d have been completely unsupervised.”
She arched a brow. “You expect me to believe you kept this place a secret due to your moral ethics?”
He kept a straight face for a full second, then barked out a laugh. “Hardly. I myself learned of its existence after you’d been gone a long while. For some reason my parents, or, more likely, the earl, thought it best not to reveal such a rife location for mayhem to two rambunctious boys.”
She laughed. “Fair enough. But now…” she pressed her palms together, steepling her fingers under her chin. Her eyes sparkled with unabashed excitement. “Show me.”
Everything in Caden wanted to drag her close and plaster her with kisses until he had his fill. Instead he sent her a jaunty smile, as if hisinsides weren’t tangled in knots by unfulfilled desire. “As you command, my lady.”
He reached unerringly for the hidden lever, gratified when he heard a soft click. He tugged, overcoming a modicum of resistance thanks to the overlapping vines, and out swung the low-hung arched iron-and-stone gate. “After you.”
Anna ducked inside.
He followed.
She moved into the garden’s center. The delight in her expression as she took in seemingly every nuance made the torture he’d endured in bringing her here without breaking down and kissing her worth it.
“It’s beautiful, Caden. Like a dream.”
Peeling off his leather gloves—because it was warmer in the garden than on the open path, and not because he meant to touch every inch of her exposed flesh she’d allow—he made his way to the lone slatted bench where he sprawled, legs outstretched, arms spread along the back. He tried to see the space as she might.
Sunlight entered through the domed, open-trellis styled roof, across which grape vines grew in abundance. Velvety green vines and brilliant climbing florals covering the walls swallowing, reflecting and softening the light so it appeared ever dusk or dawn.
Birds chirped merrily atop the trellis. A few had found their way inside to bathe in the trickling, large marble fountain where ecstatic angels frolicked.
Riotous English rose blossoms in pink, white, and red abounded. He didn’t know all the other flowers by name, but he thought he spied clematis in blues, purples and pale lilac, and in the raised beds, peonies, pansies, and herbs—sage, lavender, mint, certainly. The combined scents of flora and fauna sweetening the air almost rivaled Anna’s own intoxicating scent.
The placewasbloody magnificent.
“Caden, I hope you know how grateful I am you brought me here,” she said in a feather soft voice. She moved toward him.
“I thought you’d like it.”
“No. I mean, thank you for bringing mehere.” Gloved hands twined before her, she lowered onto the bench beside him. “I’ve been thinking.”
Sitting this close, her rosy cheeks and creamy complexion called to him. He could no longer resist touching her. His fingertips grazed her cheek. Soft and dewy as a newborn babe’s.
“About me kissing you breathless?”
