A Wild Pursuit by Eloisa James Page A

so hard that she almost cried, so she stopped.
    He wasn’t laughing with her. Damned if the Puritan didn’t have the sweetest eyes in the whole world. He scooped her off the ground and then strode over to the birch and sat down, back against its spindly trunk. Bea found it very interesting that when he sat down he didn’t put her on the grass, but on his lap.
    â€œYou have triumphed,” he told her. Sunlight filtered through the birch leaves in a curiously pale, watery sort of way. It made his eyes look dark blue, an azure bottom-of-the-sea type of blue.
    She raised an eyebrow. Actually, now that she thought of it, all the color she’d put into her eyebrows and lashes had probably made its way down her cheek. Oh well, he likely thought it was just mud.
    â€œA goat conqueror.”
    â€œOne of my many skills,” she said, feeling a little uncomfortable.
    â€œI just want to suggest that you rest on your laurels,” he said, and his eyes had a touch of amusement that made Bea feel almost…almost weak. She never felt weak. So she leaned against him and thought about how good that felt. Except she wasn’t quite following the conversation.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” she finally asked.
    There was a definite current of laughter in his voice. “Your bonnet.”
    Bea shrieked and clapped a hand to her head, only just realizing that she had felt rain falling on her head as well.
    â€œThere.” He pointed to the right. The damned goat was chewing up her very best hat. The green plume hung drunkenly from his mouth, and he seemed to be grinning at her.
    Bea started up with a shriek of rage.
    â€œI think not!” The Puritan had arms like steel. He didn’t pay a bit of attention to her wiggling, just picked her up and turned her around. When she looked up at his face, she suddenly stopped protesting.
    He didn’t kiss like a Puritan. Or an old man either.
    He kissed like a hungry man. Bea’s first sensation was triumph. So the Puritan had pretended that he didn’t notice her charms. Ha! That was all an act. He was just…he was just like…but then somehow, insidiously, she lost her train of thought.
    He was kissing her so sweetly, as if she were the merest babe in arms. He didn’t even seem to wish to push his tongue into her mouth. Instead he rubbed his lips against hers, danced on her mouth, his hands cupping her head so tenderly that she almost shivered. She quite liked this.
    Oh, she felt his tongue. It sung on her lips, patient and tasting like raspberries. Without thinking, her own tongue tangled with his for a second. Then she realized what she was doing and clamped her mouth shut. There was nothing she hated more than a man pushing his great tongue where it didn’t belong.
    But he didn’t. His lips drifted across her face and pressed her eyes shut, and then closed back on her lips with a ravenous hunger that made her soften, ache deep inside.
    He probably thinks I’m a virgin, Bea thought in a foggy sort of way.
    His mouth was leaving little trails of fire. He was nibbling her ear, and she was tingling all over. In fact, she wanted—she wanted him to try again. Come back, she coaxed silently, turning her face toward his lips. Try to kiss me, really kiss me. But he didn’t. Instead, his tongue curled around the delicate whorls of her ear, and Bea made a hoarse sound in her throat. He answered it by nipping her earlobe, which sent another twinge deep between her legs.
    He tugged her hair and she obediently tipped her face back, eyes closed, and allowed him to taste her throat, all the time begging silently that he return, return, kiss her again…But he seemed to be feasting on her throat. She opened her mouth to say something, but at that moment he apparently decided he had tormented her enough, and his mouth closed over hers.
    She could no more fight that masculine strength than she could rise to her feet. He didn’t coax