The Duke Is Mine - Eloisa James [65]
“Wait! I’m going down first.” He swung down to the branch below. Then he looked up, feeling a wicked curl of anticipation in his stomach. When she didn’t move, he bent backwards so he could see her face.
“You’re planning to look at my legs, aren’t you?”
“I love your legs,” he said with perfect truth. “And if I didn’t look at them I would be remiss in my duty, which in this case is to keep you from being injured.”
She snorted, and then—much faster than he could have anticipated—pivoted, swung down, and alit beside him. The branch bounced and he instinctively reached out to steady her, but in so doing he lost his own balance and crashed through two layers of branches, landing hard on the ground.
The wind was knocked clean out of him, and the pain that resulted was spectacular. Black dots swam before his closed eyelids, and he couldn’t seem to get air into his lungs at all.
“Oh, dear Lord!” he heard, before he could even see again. “Oh, Quin, oh, Quin, please don’t be dead. Why did I do that?” Olivia was down from the tree. “Please be breathing . . . You’re breathing!”
He was breathing. He was sure of it because every inhalation hurt like . . . a series of curse words crashed through his mind and only barely avoided escaping his mouth.
He felt Olivia patting him all over his chest. Although pain likely impaired his mental acuity, Quin made an instant decision to keep his eyes closed. No man in his right mind would interrupt a woman on a mission. At least, this mission. He’d rather stop breathing than discourage her.
“I don’t feel any broken ribs,” she muttered to herself, patting even more firmly.
That could be because she had moved down to patting his abdomen, where he was fairly sure there were no ribs, but he wasn’t complaining. Her hands hesitated for a moment, and then she very quickly, very lightly, gave him some pats below his abdomen.
A groan erupted from his lips before he could stop himself, and he grimaced. He wasn’t used to being so undisciplined. He had always been in complete control of all his physical reactions, even with Evangeline, his own wife.
“Oh, Lord,” Olivia cried again. “I’m going to fetch Justin. Please hold on! I’m afraid that you’ve broken something. I hope it isn’t your back. I’ll never forgive myself!”
The ragged sound of her voice made him open his eyes and snatch her arm just before she sprang to her feet. “I’m all right,” he grunted. “Just give me a moment.”
“I’m sorry!” Olivia said, her voice cracking. “It was so stupid of me, Quin. I never thought. That’s how I always get down from the tree outside my bedroom. I just swing down fast and then find my feet.”
“You climb out of your bedroom window?” He was forcing air into his lungs now and realizing that although his body ached, nothing felt as if it was broken.
“The tree is the only way one can leave my house without my mother knowing,” she said. “Can you move your toes? I’ve heard that if a person can’t move his toes, it’s a terrible sign. I can see you moving other places, but . . .”
He raised his head, wincing. She was looking toward his feet, and therefore toward that part of him which was stirring. Damn well leaping out of his breeches. “My toes can move,” he said, sitting up fast to block the view. His head spun.
Olivia didn’t look as if she even recognized what she saw in the area of his breeches. It really wasn’t clear to him whether she was merely skilled at flirtation, or more experienced.
Evangeline had not been a virgin when she came to his bed. He’d been surprised at the time, but when he got to know her better, he understood. Evangeline didn’t have a voracious sexual desire, but she did have a voracious wish to be wanted, a longing so deep that no one man could have satisfied her.
His head was pounding, but even so, he could smell Olivia, some delicate, sweet scent that was hers, and hers alone. The scent was like bottled temptation. Like need.
Just having her kneeling beside him made him feel reckless. Even now, his body bruised