This is how it could be with his own children. Someday. “Where to?”
She cast him the softest smile, but the pain reflected in her eyes seemed to intensify. “Three flights up. Can you manage?”
“They weigh no more than feathers. Show me the way.”
Lily walked ahead of him, her hips lightly swaying as she climbed the stairs. He liked the view, but her tense silence bothered him. She wasn’t angry, but he sensed that she was deeply hurt and determined to hide it. What had he done to cause her this anguish?
He deposited the boys in their beds, his gaze lingering on Lily as she tucked them in and kissed each on the forehead. “Love you,” she whispered.
The girl had so much love inside her. She’d make a wonderful mother someday, tender and protective of her children. He wanted her to whisper those words to him—love you—but he knew it would raise a host of other problems. He’d be leaving England in two months. Why start something that could only end badly? She’d be miserable in the Highlands, so far away from her family.
As soon as the boys were settled, Lily hurried out of the room ahead of him. He stopped her halfway down the first flight of stairs. Obviously wary of him, she edged back against the wall. Her breaths were uneven and he noticed the slight heave of her perfect breasts with each intake of air. Her gaze remained on him, questioning his reason for being here. Questioning his reason for stopping her on the steps. Questioning the hunger in his eyes.
He placed his hands on each side of her shoulders, neatly trapping her against the wall. They needed to talk. Just talk. He wanted to ask so many things about her. First and foremost, why did she wish to avoid him?
“Oh, hell,” he said instead, lifting her into his arms and crushing his mouth to her generous lips. Passion and frustration had built within him for weeks, sensations he was unable to control when it came to Lily. He didn’t want to kiss her. More precisely, he desperately wanted to kiss her, but knew he shouldn’t. So what the hell was he doing with his tongue sliding across her teeth, possessively delving inside her velvet-warm mouth?
He tried to gentle the kiss.
She clutched his lapels and drew him closer, tilted her face upward to give him better access to her warm, lightly parted lips. She didn’t want gentle.
She wanted him. She wanted him hungry for her.
A good thing. He couldn’t manage gentle just now, not while he held her glorious body in his arms. Not while his own body ignited in flames at her mere touch. Hell, his body blazed hot at the mere thought of the girl. He was worse than Jasper.
She arched into him, drawing him over the edge as her breasts came in contact with his chest and her taut nipples teased against his body. He wasn’t just on fire. He was wild, out of control, walls-of-Jericho-toppling ablaze. All cannons firing ablaze. He wanted to strip her out of her confining clothes, touch her warm, silken skin, lick the molten core between her thighs and taste its flowing nectar. He wanted skin to skin contact. He wanted to be inside her. He wanted to ignore his intense need for her, pretend she didn’t matter.
He wanted answers. He wanted her.
“Ewan, I can’t bear it,” she whispered against his deepening kiss. “You have to let me go. You’re with Callie.”
“Never.”
He felt a tear stream down her cheek. Her hands, no longer pinned by his, slipped upward to circle his neck. “What do you mean by ‘never’? That you’ll never let me go? That you’ll never be with Callie? Because it seems to me you’ve made your decision, told your grandfather and the entire world quite clearly that you’ll never take an English wife. Not that I even want you to want me. I don’t. We’re friends, nothing more.”
So that was it? She was jealous of Callie? “Lily—”
“No. I have work to do. Lots of research work.”
“You’ve finished your monograph on the structure of baboon colonies. Swampland baboons, to be precise. I’ve read it. Thought it was brilliant.”
“You have? I thought your grandfather burned it.”
“He didn’t.” Ewan kissed her again, loving the sweet eagerness with which she kissed him back.
She broke away with a slight moan. “I’m helping Ashton with his Madagascar lemurs. He’s desperate. He can’t finish it without me and doesn’t dare let your grandfather know. I promised to help him out. Go back to your party. Callie must be wondering where you are.”
“You’re doing this for Ashton?” He frowned. “Your family forbade you to work on the report. The Royal Society won’t publish it if they suspect you wrote it.”