Page 52 of Lord of the Forest

“Forgive me.” His voice was warm with laughter. “I should have suggested you disrobe first—to protect your clothes.”

“How you can walk through here with no shoes on your feet, I can’t imagine,” she grumbled.

The branch sprang back behind her and, once again, she was in the small glade that surrounded the ancient oak. A shaft of sunlight speared through its branches, illuminating the soft moss that grew before the cleft. It felt like coming home.

“Hot and cross, Mistress?” Why was he wearing that mocking smile? Why that wicked glint in his eyes? “Shall we refresh ourselves?”

It sounded an excellent idea. Her feet were itchy and uncomfortable from the long trek over rough ground. Huddling down on the turf near the brook, she removed her shoes. The crystal-clear water trickled temptingly by while, high above her, a dove cooed its soothing call from the branches of the oak. Tension fell away, and the urge to remove her stockings and dip her feet in the water was strong.

A shadow fell across her, and she sensed Lancelot at her back and heard the rustle of his movement as he settled behind her. She felt his hands flex on her shoulders, and a thrill of delight shivered through her.

“What are you doing?”

“I think you need to relax. It’s been a trying morning. Are you hungry? I can check my traps—if they’re not completely overgrown by now—or hunt for roots and berries.”

“Nay.” He needed to keep doing what he was doing. Beneath his firm, expert fingers, the muscles of her shoulders were easing, and a heady warmth stole over her.

He pressed his thumbs in toward her spine, rolling them back and forth. “I could do this better if you weren’t clad in your female armor.” He brushed a few strands of her hair away from her neck and tugged gently at her kerchief.

It slid away, creating a delicious friction on her breasts as it did so. Her nipples peaked.

One hand cupped the side of her neck while Lancelot bent his head to kiss the other. “You smell of paradise.”

“Flatterer. Don’t stop.” His free hand was smoothing up and down her spine, lulling her into a hedonistic version of reality where nothing mattered but his touch. “It would work better if you took this thing off.” He plucked at her bodice.

Why make things difficult for him? He’d offered to marry her, and now he was offering her pleasure. She wondered how many other significant things lay within this man’s gift.

Feeling gloriously wanton, she started drawing the lace of her bodice through the eyelet holes, until her breasts were no longer supported. They felt ripe and heavy. Thank goodness she wore her shift, or the wanton behavior of her nipples would be revealed.

But why be ashamed? He’d never hidden his body from her before—why should she now hide hers from him?

The bodice came off and was laid to one side, along with her shoes and stockings. Lancelot’s clever fingers began to work again, molding her shoulders, massaging the space between them, then roving wickedly to caress her flanks. She changed position, leaning back on her arms, raising her face to the sky.

“This next, I think.” Lancelot deftly removed the pins holding her hat and coif in place and released her hair. She felt him lift it to his face and heard him inhale.

“Paradise as well?” she mocked.

“Don’t be presumptuous,” he growled. “When I wish to give a compliment, it will be because I’m ready, not because you’ve asked for one. Tell me, have you ever lain naked in the stream on a hot day?”

She gulped, then flushed. Wretched man, trying to discomfit her like that. He must have known she would immediately imagine it, and find it tempting. “Of course not.”

“Then you have not yet lived, Mistress Clemence.”

He was pulling away from her. Why, when he’d just created such a longing in her with his expert manipulation? She sat up and turned, just in time to see him sliding out of his hose.

“Feel free to join me.” He grinned at her. Then, before she had a chance to cover her eyes, he pulled his shirt up over his head and dropped it with the rest of his clothes.

She couldn’t tear her eyes off him as he padded past her, completely naked, and stepped into the water. Before she could respond, he was partly submerged. With a great sigh, he let his mounded muscles relax. He was at one with the water but, at the same time, his powerful body robbed it of vitality. All she could see was him, slick, beautiful and powerfully-made, his dark locks floating about his head, the water eddying cheekily around his slender hips and flowing unchecked over his muscular legs. This man had no inhibitions. Whatsoever. He didn’t even seem to mind that she could see his private parts—enticingly, mysteriously male.

He lifted his head and his green eyes drew her under his spell. “Come, join me.”

This must be what Adam looked like as he lay in the Garden, naked, glorious, and unashamed. She tore her eyes from her perusal of his perfect form and busied herself with her own clothing. She couldn’t quite bring herself to dispense with her shift. She was out-of-doors, after all, beneath the full glare of the sun, and under the burning gaze of a hot-blooded and interested man.

She settled upstream from him, so she could see and admire his nakedness without his knowledge.

It was cold, and strange, lying in the water—like being touched by hundreds of tiny fingers that trailed their way over one’s skin. But deliciously refreshing—in no time at all, she knew she had joined him on that plane where all that mattered were the satisfaction of the body and the calming of the mind.

She closed her eyes, stretched her arms above her head, and delighted in the sun’s golden touch on her eyelids. She mustn’t linger too long, however, or she’d never be able to get her shift dry in time to get home before her parents started to worry.