Page 28 of A Tempest of Desire
“The rain.”
She jerked her head toward the window, and he decided he liked her profile, the way it revealed her neck sloping down to her shoulder. “It stopped.”
After tossing the book aside, she hopped off the sofa and dashed to the window, and he imagined how welcoming it would feel to walk through a door and see her dashing toward him with such unbridled enthusiasm.
“The sun is peering through the clouds, just barely, but they aren’t as dark as they were.” She spun around. “Do you think the storm has passed?”
“Possibly.”
“Do you have a way to get off the island?”
“I have a small boat.”
“Therefore, we can leave?”
It bothered him that she was so anxious to be rid of him. He’d been a terrible host. Standoffish. Caring for her while trying not to show he cared. He set aside his book, pushed to his feet, strode over to the window, and looked out. The isle was so small that there was nowhere in this dwelling where one couldn’t see the water. “It’s too choppy. It would be a struggle to row us across. Perhaps it’ll be calm enough tomorrow.” The disappointment in her eyes hit him hard, so hard that he was tempted to at least try to get her to the other shore. “What I can do is offer you fish for dinner.”
Chapter 12
With fishing poles in hand, he knew it was complete madness to find Marlowe—charging ahead of him across rocks and bits of green—alluring. Over his shirt and her makeshift skirt, she wore his greatcoat, its hem nearly reaching her ankles. Or where her ankles probably were. He couldn’t see them because she’d stuffed bits of linen into a pair of his boots so they at least stayed on her feet. She reminded him of a little girl playing at dressing to look like an adult.
Although she was far from being a little girl.
Unfortunately, she’d assumed herself invited on his outing. Not that he could blame her for wanting to escape the confines of what had no doubt felt like a prison. It wasn’t her place of solitude. No, hers was in the sky.
He possessed additional fishing poles because sometimes his younger brother would join him for a lazy day of casting out a line and waiting for a nibble. Hence, he was carrying a pole for her as well as himself. For some reason, he was under theimpression she wouldn’t want to simply sit and watch; she’d want to participate.
The more he was coming to know her, the less he understood her willingness to become some man’s ornament.
And the more he wished he hadn’t changed his blasted cards that night at the Dragons. He wouldn’t have bedded her, not under those circumstances, but he might have kissed her, might have touched his fingers to a cheek that had yet to be bruised by a storm. Might have trailed those fingers over the long length of her neck, along her bared shoulders. Might have taken some liberties simply to teach Hollingsworth that he needed to demonstrate more diligent care when it came to the woman who warmed his bed. He’d obviously begun to take her for granted, as men often did with their mistresses.
And Langdon was beginning to believe she never should be taken for granted.
Suddenly she stopped, like she’d rammed into a brick wall. But there was no wall, nothing about. They were still on the high ground, walking near the edge of the cliff. Then she lowered herself to the clover.
Immediately, he dropped his fishing gear and began running toward her. “Marlowe!”
Had her injuries overcome her? Were they worse than he’d surmised? When he reached her, he slid to his knees. “Did you grow faint? Swoon? Are you feeling ill?”
She looked at him, smiled softly. “No, the rainbow.”
“Rainbow?”
With a slender finger, she pointed and turned her attention away from him. “I wanted to take a moment to appreciate it. How is it that nature can be so ugly, throwing about its wrath, and then create something so beautiful?”
Irritated by his near panic that she might have been in need of assistance, he dropped to his backside and scooted away just a little. The woman was turning him inside out. But he had to admit the rainbow was awe-inspiring, one of the largest he’d ever seen, stretching across the sea with one end disappearing somewhere in Cornwall.
“What do you think is on the other side of that rainbow?” she asked.
“Water.”
She laughed, a sweet, noncynical sound that caused a strange tightening in his gut. “You’re not very imaginative, are you?”
Oh, he wouldn’t say that. He could well imagine trailing his mouth from her throat to that sweet valley between her thighs and lingering there until he’d had his fill. Could take days.
“When a storm isn’t raging, it’s rather peaceful here,” she said. “I don’t suppose we could stay a few days, even after the sea is not so choppy and is safe to travel.”
“Don’t think you’ll grow tired of eating eggs?”
