“It’s not a sheep balloon,” he said. “I’ll explain if you think you’re ready for that level of anatomical detail.”
“Never mind,” she replied quickly, having no desire to be embarrassed further.
With a slow shake of his head, Gabriel asked, “How the devil did you come by the idea that I had the pox?”
“Because you’re a notorious rake.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Lord Chaworth said you were.”
“My father was the notorious rake,” Gabriel replied with poorly contained exasperation, “in the days before he married my mother. I’ve been tarred by the same brush because I happen to look like him. And because I inherited his old title. But even if I wanted to acquire legions of amorous conquests, which I don’t, I wouldn’t have the damned time.”
“But you’ve ‘known’ many women, haven’t you? In the Biblical sense.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “How are we defining many?”
“I don’t have a particular quantity in mind,” Pandora protested. “I wouldn’t even know—”
“Give me a number.”
Pandora rolled her eyes and sighed shortly to convey that she was humoring him. “Twenty-three.”
“I’ve known fewer than twenty-three women in the Biblical sense,” Gabriel said promptly, seeming to think that would end the discussion. “Now, I think we’ve spent enough time indulging in filthy conversation on the archery grounds. Let’s go back to the house.”
“Have you been with twenty-two women?” Pandora asked, refusing to move.
A rapid succession of emotions crossed his face—annoyance, amusement, desire, warning. “No.”
“Twenty-one?”
There was a moment of absolute stillness before something in him seemed to snap. He pounced on her with a sort of tigerish delight, and clamped his mouth over hers. She squeaked in surprise, wriggling in his hold, but his arms clamped around her easily, his muscles as solid as oak. He kissed her possessively, almost roughly at first, gentling by voluptuous degrees. Her body surrendered without giving her brain a chance to object, applying itself eagerly to every available inch of him. The luxurious male heat and hardness of him satisfied a wrenching hunger she hadn’t been aware of until now. It also gave her the close-but-not-close-enough feeling she remembered from before. Oh, how confusing this was, this maddening need to crawl inside his clothes, practically inside his skin.
She let her fingertips wander over his cheeks and jaw, the neat shape of his ears, the taut smoothness of his neck. When he offered no objection, she sank her fingers into his thick, vibrant hair and sighed in satisfaction. He searched for her tongue, teased and stroked intimately until her heart pounded in a tumult of longing, and a sweet, empty ache spread all through her. Dimly aware that she was going to lose control, that she was on the verge of swooning, or assaulting him again, she managed to break the kiss and turn her face away with a gasp.
“Don’t,” she said weakly.
His lips grazed along her jawline, his breath rushing unsteadily against her skin. “Why? Are you still worried about Australian pox?”
Slowly it registered that they were no longer standing. Gabriel was sitting on the ground with his back against the grass-covered mound, and—heaven help her—she was in his lap. She glanced around them in bewilderment. How had this happened?
“No,” she said, bewildered and perturbed, “but I just remembered that you said I kissed like a pirate.”
Gabriel looked blank for a moment. “Oh, that. That was a compliment.”
Pandora scowled. “It would only be a compliment if I had a beard and a peg leg.”
Setting his mouth sternly against a faint quiver, Gabriel smoothed her hair tenderly. “Forgive my poor choice of words. What I meant to convey was that I found your enthusiasm charming.”
“Did you?” Pandora turned crimson. Dropping her head to his shoulder, she said in a muffled voice, “Because I’ve worried for the past three days that I did it wrong.”
“No, never, darling.” Gabriel sat up a little and cradled her more closely against him. Nuzzling her cheek, he whispered, “Isn’t it obvious that everything about you gives me pleasure?”
“Even when I plunder and pillage like a Viking?” she asked darkly.
“Pirate. Yes, especially then.” His lips moved softly along the rim of her right ear. “My sweet, there are altogether too many respectable ladies in the world. The supply has far exceeded the demand. But there’s an appalling shortage of attractive pirates, and you do seem to have a gift for plundering and ravishing. I think we’ve found your true calling.”
“You’re mocking me,” Pandora said in resignation, and jumped a little as she felt his teeth gently nip her earlobe.
Smiling, Gabriel took her head between his hands and looked into her eyes. “Your kiss thrilled me beyond imagining,” he whispered. “Every night for the rest of my life, I’ll dream of the afternoon in the holloway, when I was waylaid by a dark-haired beauty who devastated me with the heat of a thousand troubled stars, and left my soul in cinders. Even when I’m an old man, and my brain has fallen to wrack and ruin, I’ll remember the sweet fire of your lips under mine, and I’ll say to myself, ‘Now, that was a kiss.’”
Silver-tongued devil, Pandora thought, unable to hold back a crooked grin. Only yesterday, she’d heard Gabriel affectionately mock his father, who was fond of expressing himself with elaborate, almost labyrinthine turns of phrase. Clearly the gift had been passed down to his son.