Page 16 of Tanglewood Legacy (The Three Sisters 3)
“Why I’m so incredibly drawn to you. We have something in common—a connection. A loss…a past grief… Who was yours?”
“My nephew,” she said, before she had a chance to second-guess herself. “As a baby.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
They stood in companionable silence for a moment, Isis staring up at the stars. When she looked back at Pierre to ask him to teach her about the constellations, their eyes locked, his suddenly gleaming like a predator’s. He stepped closer to her, and she raised her hands to rest them on his chest. Nothing but hard, lean muscle existed under his shirt. His gaze fixated on her mouth, their nearness infusing the air with tension. One of her shadows tousled his hair, and she shooed it away with her will. He leaned in closer. So… close… Was this a dream? Some type of magic was at work, considering the way her body ached for him.
Everything else fell away as he touched his lips to hers.
ChapterEight
Pierre considered himself a gentleman and a man of science. He’d never hired a prostitute or brought strange women to his bed. He’d taken lovers over the years but always women he knew well and who consented to the arrangement. When those relationships ended, because the woman took a husband or became enthralled with someone else, he parted ways amicably. In short, he was a disciplined man who’d never accomplished divorcing physical pleasures from emotional ones.
As he pulled Isis into his arms, surprise heightened his senses and made the entire experience surreal. He knew he should stop. There was an insistent tap in his brain trying to remind him that what he was doing was improper. She was simply irresistible, as enchanting as the night itself.
He crushed her to him, his mouth melding with hers, and lost himself in the evening primrose scent of her, the feel of her silky hair against his fingers, and the soft press of her body against his. He ran his hands over the silk of her dress. By God, she melted against him, and arousal gripped him in its velvet clutches.
His mind sent him a luscious vision of leading her to his bedroom, pulling up her skirt, and having his way with her. Her breasts strained against the fabric of her dress. He longed to worship them with his hands and lips. If only he could pull the pins from that lovely black hair and wrap it around his hand.
Only the caress of a cool breeze across the back of his neck brought him to his senses. He steadied her on her feet and backed away, horrified. The kiss they’d just shared was anything but chaste. He’d be lucky if the woman didn’t run from his presence right then.
Her fingers lifted to lightly brush her bottom lip, her chest rising and falling in a steady pant that matched his own.
“I owe you an apology—”
“Nothing about that kiss demands an apology,” she blurted, and didn’t that bring a smile to his face.
“Still, you are a woman in my care, unchaperoned after dark. As wild as la Nouvelle-Orléans is, if one of the priests saw us, I fear we’d both find ourselves in the confessional.”
She giggled. “Your kind is so strange.”
“My kind?”
She hesitated for a moment as if the question caught her off guard. “Where I come from, showing physical affection to a romantic interest is far more accepted.”
Raised by pirates, he thought again.
Drawing a deep breath, she straightened herself, her gaze drifting over him. The impish grin she wore seemed to indicate the kiss was as mutual as he’d hoped. Should he kiss her again? He wanted to desperately. His cock was entirely set on the idea.
Considering it, he blinked twice, but he was distracted by the shadows gathered around her. They were casting themselves in the wrong direction based on the position of the moon. He darted another glance at the bright orb in the sky and then looked back at her.
He must have been mistaken. The shadows were perfectly normal now.
Putain, it must be his overwhelming desire for her messing with his mind. His cock twitched as he thought about kissing her again, but he held his ground. She may be willing, but he cared too much for her to ruin her. In fact, for the first time ever, he could envision a future married to this woman.
“Tell me more about the stars,” she said, casting an intrigued smile his way. Was that her way of easing the tension that had grown between them? If so, it worked.
“I like to start at Polaris.” He pointed out the bright twinkle above them, then moved on, mapping the constellations for her one by one. He talked about how the position of the stars changed over the course of the year and all he’d learned about the theories surrounding their existence and the phenomena he played witness to. The heavens held limitless fascination for him, and he found as he discussed his work, that she held a similar fascination. Isis was like no other woman he’d ever met. She was an eager and interested learner who asked the kinds of questions that made him analyze the things he thought he knew from a different angle.
“Do you sometimes look into the night sky and think there must be other worlds out there, other… realms waiting to be discovered?” She watched him intently, as if how he answered this question meant everything to her.
“There have to be,” he said. “Why, la Nouvelle-Orléans was only discovered in 1682, but it was here long before that. Where we are in the vastness of space, our place among the stars, it’s a small part of something incredibly expansive. There must be more.”
Now, she was studying him, her deep blue eyes seemingly fathomless in the night. “And that doesn’t scare you? You wouldn’t mind being challenged by something new? Perhaps discovering new creatures or new worlds?”
He straightened. What a strange question. “No,” he said, believing it to his soul. “I would find it exciting to discover something new. It speaks to who I am as a scientist.”
“You are a true philosopher, Pierre,” she said, glancing back at the moon. “What a welcome surprise to meet you here. I did not expect it.”
