Then Comes Murder

Within the Orchard (part four)

His whisper, loud as the thunder that surrounded them, stuttered her frantic heart. His hand at her hip, her face, the brush of his thumb across her lip, heated her buzzing blood. She was wild and thoughtless and ancient and helpless: a million things and nothing at all.

"Kiss me," he said again. The brilliant ring of gold in his hazel eyes glowed.

Then she was water, flowing into his embrace until his face blurred into turpentine and rain. His arm curled around her shoulders, pulling her face towards his to kiss her, softly at first, and then with a fiery intensity that turned her to vapor and mist. He tasted like juniper and spirits, thunder and danger. With a careful strength, he lifted her from the ground and became her only anchor. The steady, burning tether to an otherwise rapidly dissolving world. His mouth was gentle and restrained, viscous and brutal. He parted her lips with a savage expertise that set her nerves alight with wild sensations no book had ever properly explained. And then, in stolen breaths and gasping sighs, she realized she was kissing him back.

"Nora," he murmured against her lips. She could feel the satisfied curve of his mouth as she wrapped her legs around him. His fingers dug into her hip, her sides, pulling her ever tighter to him. Heat flared in her center as his fingers loosed her laces, as they teased the hem of her skirt. Her own bold hands pulled at his vest, his cravat, searching for some sliver of skin she might claim for herself.

In easy strides, he carried her to a stone bench tucked under a veil of foliage Nora might have known the name of if she wasn't otherwise occupied. He released her gently before pulling at the cravat she'd loosened. With a practiced ease, he tugged off his vest. From the dip in his linen shirt, she could see a patch of golden skin, dusted in coarse curls. Heart in her throat, Nora's gaze dipped lower, to where he fumbled with the buttons at his breeches.

Jacob grinned crookedly, and that bright flare of wicked heat threatened to consume her. With a guiding hand, he pushed her back onto the bench. Cold stone bit through her soaked dress and into her spine.

But his lips returned to hers, her jaw, her throat, and that dizzying heat buried reason.

His words from the dinner table suddenly fell into place. For marriage...and I don't think either of us are suited for that.

"Wait," she said, pushing him away. It was too hot to think. She needed air, the rain, something to drown out the singing in her nerves. This wasn't like her. She needed to focus. "I can't."

Incredulous, Jacob retreated. His wet hair hung into confused eyes. "What do you mean you can't?"

"I can't do this, Jacob."

"Outside?" His mouth tilted wickedly. "We could find somewhere else to go."

"This," Nora hissed. Indignant, she gestured frantically at them, at the garden, at her state of undress. Her cheeks burning, she pulled up her dress to cover herself. "I can't do this."

Jacob frowned. "I thought you weren't hunting for a husband."

She blinked in surprise. "I'm not," she said.

"Then why can't you do this?"

Lord have mercy. It was as if she was talking to a dog chasing its tail. As if all the blood in his body had left his brain so that he could only focus on a single thought.

"Because—" Nora paused. Bloody hell, she couldn't get the words to leave her mouth. Her father might have been a surgeon before an earl, but she wasn't raised completely feral. She was still a lady! Even if he had managed to tear her flimsy hold on propriety away with a single kiss. "Isn't it obvious?"