Page 75 of A Dance with the Wayward Duke
Before she could open her eyes, Tristan was there—dry no longer, water darkening his trousers, skin still gleaming. He scooped her up with such ease that it stole her breath entirely, one arm behind her back, the other under her knees.
“Tristan!” she protested, clutching his shoulder.
“You froze,” he said mildly. “I’m merely assisting negotiations.”
She found herself seated on his lap, perched at the edge of the pier, his warmth a solid, undeniable fact beneath her. Her heart began behaving most undiplomatically.
“This is highly irregular,” she said.
He shifted them closer to the edge. Her toes hovered above the blue.
“Count to three,” he said.
She inhaled. “One.”
The world narrowed to the sound of water lapping below them.
“Two.”
Her body braced instinctively—muscles tightening, shoulders drawing up, every sensible instinct preparing for shock.
“Th—”
They went over.
She gasped, every muscle clenched—waiting for the bite, the ache, the cruel slap of cold—
The water closed around her like silk. Like the sun. Like relief.
Warm. Gloriously, indulgently warm.
Her breath burst out of her in a laugh as she surfaced, hair slicked back, eyes wide.
“It’s—” She sputtered, blinking at him. “It’s warm.”
He was grinning like a man who had known this all along. “Welcome to Ischia. The volcano warms the water.”
She scarcely heard the rest.
Marguerite slipped free of his arms with a small, incredulous sound and struck out on her own. The water closed over her shoulders, her spine, her hips—each inch a revelation.
She floated onto her back, and the Mediterranean held her up without effort, buoyant and generous. Sunlight fractured beneath the surface, turning the water into shifting silk—blue and gold and impossibly clear. She could see her own limbs moving through it, pale against the deeper hue.
She found him watching her. The sun warmed her face. The water warmed her skin. Her husband warmed the places neither could reach. When his mouth found hers, she had already forgotten the names of three Sicilian princes and one commercial grievance involving wheat duties.
“I want you.”
He caught her waist just as she broke the kiss, lifting her from the sea as though she weighed no more than the water still clinging to her. She gasped, arms instinctively looping around his shoulders.
The sun caught him as he stepped onto the sand, muscles slick, his eyes never leaving hers.
He carried her past the tide line, to a small rise in the sand where shadows pooled beneath a cluster of black pines. There,he laid her down carefully, like something rare, and sank to his knees.
“Wait. We’re—here? Now? In public?”
He looked around theatrically. “I see no audience but a few morally flexible gulls.”
She shoved his chest. He didn’t move. His eyes were shining.
