“Sigh?” Lauryn asked, her eyes popping open.
“Close your eyes, sugar,” he demanded again. “And sigh.” Lauryn closed her eyes and sighed. “No, no, no,” he chuckled. “Close your eyes and sigh through your mouth.”
Shrugging her shoulders in irritation, Lauryn did as she was instructed. But her eyes sprung open immediately when she felt the moisture of his mouth blend with her own for just an instant.
She took a step back from him, completely thrilled and yet entirely surprised. He smiled and winked at her.
“You see,” he mumbled. “I made improper advances toward you when you were sleeping the other night.” Lauryn felt the blush rise to her cheeks. “I told you that certain things tasted great here. And I wasn’t talking about your Mama’s chicken.”
Lauryn was alarmed. Her mind and her body’s reaction to Brant were telling her that she was not strong enough to have him! He was some all powerful, perfect man that could completely control her if he ever chose to do so. Her heart raced madly, ached with the regret of not having been awake when he’d ‘improperly advanced’ upon her in the attic. Her body hurt to be in his arms. Her mouth watered for want of his kiss. And yet, at the same time, she was afraid of him.
“I’ll tell you what, sugar,” he whispered as his hands went to her waist and pulled her closer to him once more. “I’ll let you come into my room and make advances like that toward me any time you want to. Okay? Then we’ll be even.” His smile was no less than entirely seductive. “Hell, I’ll let you do it right here and now.” He quickly sat down on the grass pulling her down next to him. “Sorry,” he whispered his usual insincere apology for swearing in front of her.
Lauryn was entranced, unable to argue or even comprehend immediately what was happening. Furthermore, she knew she was helpless in resisting him. She didn’t want to resist him!
Taking hold of her wrist, he lay back in the grass, pulling her arm across his chest, forcing her to lay next to him. Lauryn tried to pull away from him, but the hypnotic quality of his gaze, his strength and her desire to be close to him were clouding her ability to act rationally.
Brant’s free hand went to her head and he pulled her face toward his. “Come on, Lauryn,” he whispered smiling mischievously. “I’ve misbehaved. Molesting you in your sleep! What a cad I am. I deserve your revenge. An eye for an eye and all that.”
She was frightened, his poor little pixie. He could more than just sense it. Hesitation and fearful inexperience were written across her blushing cheeks as clearly as if the words had actually been tattooed there. But Brant had noticed something about Lauryn Kensington, and he’d use it to his own advantage now. And to hers.
He had come to realize that Lauryn was not unlike Samson, in a manner. Her hair, the way she wore it, often determined her strength, her demeanor. Brant had noted the fact since he’d come back to Connemara. And now, his theory would be put to the ultimate test.
Reaching out, he tugged at the pin holding Lauryn’s hair in a loose knot at the back of her head. Immediately, her long, nutmeg ringlets cascaded down about his face and across his chest. He shuddered at their softness on his flesh, and the good man in him tried to argue the need for self-control with the devil in him who was nearly winning over. He knew he shouldn’t be doing it; corrupting his sweet friend. But she was too beautiful. Too compassionate and kind. Too funny and caring. Too, delicious! He had to kiss her. Really kiss her. Just once he had to drink from her lips, savor her mouth, feel her body held tightly in his arms. He thought for a moment that, perhaps his little Tennessee pixie was, indeed, just that…a fairy sprite with some magical power that was weaving a spell around him. Just once, he told himself. Just once he’d have a real kiss from her. Something to fill his memory and dreams.
His theory did, indeed, prove accurate. For immediately after her hair was unpinned, Lauryn’s eyes began to burn with a vixen’s passion instead of an innocent’s fear.
Lauryn smiled as Brant caught a strand of her hair in his mouth and tugged at it with his teeth for a moment. He couldn’t be real and she had to be dreaming. She’d heard of men like this before…men who could seduce a woman into acting completely out of her rational mind. But she never believed any really existed. At least, not until she’d met Brant.
“Don’t be afraid of me, Lauryn,” he mumbled. “You’ve kissed me before.”
Lauryn lost her balance as Brant took her face between his capable hands and pulled her closer. Her palms pressed against the warm, solid contours of his chest and her heart beat so madly that she thought it might burst! Her face was so close to his that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her lips as he spoke.
“You see,” he whispered. “All you have to do…” and he brushed her lips very lightly with his own for a moment. “Is that.” Again he kissed her tenderly. Kissed her so softly that, had it not been for the incredible thrill traveling through her being, she would not have been sure he actually had kissed her.
She was still frightened. He could sense it. Lauryn was uncertain of herself. No doubt she was very inexperienced, which only served to further fan Brant’s devilish delight in ensnaring her. She needed tutoring, he knew. And he didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable with him. He wanted her to trust him, know that he would calm her fears. He did not want her to feel, in any way, embarrassed for her sweet naivety.
And so, without further pause, he rolled her onto her back and leaned over her dominantly. He wouldn’t toy with her anymore. He’d simply kiss her.
Lauryn sighed when Brant buried his hands in her hair for a moment, gazing down into her face. His eyes were narrowed, his grin simply impish.
“Here,” he mumbled. “I’ll show you.” He kissed her again, more lingering this time and far more firmly. It was heavenly! Like floating in the most delightful of dreams.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked, unexpectedly. Lauryn looked up at him, completely puzzled by his question. She didn’t want to answer questions. She wanted him to kiss her. Of course, he had kissed her. But she knew with every thread of her existence that these kisses were only infantile compared to what he was capable of administering.
“How…how do you mean?” she stammered breathlessly.
“Are you scared of me?” he repeated.
How could she possibly answer? Of course she was scared of him! Scared nearly to death. After all, he was breaking her heart without even knowing it. He was intoxicating! He was powerfully intimidating. What woman on earth wouldn’t be scared of him?
“I’m not scared of you,” Lauryn insisted.
“Oh, really?” he mumbled. “Then stop trembling.”
“I’m not,” she managed to argue, in a whisper and knowing full well she trembled violently as he leaned over her.
“You are,” he insisted. “Why?”
“I’m not scared of you,” she told him. “It’s just that you’re…you’re just very intimidatin’ some times.”
“Why?”
Lauryn had difficulty breathing for a moment. She found it hard to look at anything other than his seductive smile, his mouth. What should she answer him? The truth? That he was so perfect, so strong, handsome, clever? That she was afraid she’d never be able to find any sort of happiness in life without him? Of course she couldn’t tell him the truth!
“You’re…you’re tall,” she stammered.
He smiled. “I’m tall?” he repeated. “That’s why you’re scared of me?”
“I’m not scared of you,” Lauryn insisted.
Brant brushed her lips lightly with his thumb and Lauryn noticed the corner of his mouth twitching slightly.
“That’s good,” he mumbled. “I don’t want you to be scared of me.” Then he bent, caressing her cheek with his kiss.
Lauryn thought she would completely lose consciousness! Here was a man who was incredibly gifted in wooing a woman. Just the look in his eyes nearly melted her like butter in a hot skillet. And, she feared she was powerless to resist him. Yet, h
e was a gentleman, wasn’t he? A man who thought that stealing some sort of a kiss while she was asleep had constituted molestation.
“Let’s put it to the test, shall we?” he whispered. “Let’s see if I can get past your being intimidated because…because I’m so tall,” he chuckled. As he kissed her neck softly Lauryn’s body was covered in a delightful tingle, and she knew he was well aware of why she was scared of him.
“What?” she squeaked.
“We talk, you and me,” he mumbled as he kissed her cheek once more. “We laugh. We discuss this miserable mystery until we’re nearly sick. But you do all that with the Captain, too, don’t you?”
Lauryn didn’t answer; she was too bewitched by him. He kissed her shoulder then, and even though her blouse covered her flesh, she could feel the warmth of his lips there and she shuddered delightfully.
“We need….we need our own relationship, Lauryn. Apart from them. We need a friendship…an association, a connection of our own making if we’re ever going to solve this miserable situation.” Lauryn’s mouth was watering, her entire being trembling. She gasped as he kissed the corner of her mouth softly. She tried to focus on the pink petals floating down from the trees to land on Brant’s back and in her hair. “And the only thing I can think of at this point that you’ve never shared with him,” he continued. “That you can share with me…” He kissed her, but very carefully on the lips. It was like someone lit a fuse that traveled down her spine and into her arms and legs! Her fingers and toes tingled, and she felt faint from not breathing normally.
“You may have been kissed before, sugar,” Brant told her as his mouth hovered just above hers. “But nobody has ever kissed you the way I can.” And his lips captured hers in a long, hard-pressed exchange.
Brant was finished with his boyish flirtations. The man in him was too dominant. Lauryn knew it assuredly as molten warmth seemed to course through every vein of her body, threatening to melt away her flesh and bone and leave only her soul to savor the euphoric delirium! His kiss spun a sort of hallucinative atmosphere about her. She felt weak and yet more vibrant than ever she had before.
His arms banded around her possessively, so powerfully that Lauryn wondered for a moment, if he might simply pulverize her tender ribcage.
His kiss was not sweet and soft, gentle and proper any longer. It was hard and driven and exploding with passion. He broke from her for a moment and studied her intently. Lauryn could not take her eyes from his, which burned with an emotion that she could not quite identify. Still he held her face between his hands and she was at his mercy, body and spirit. His thumbs caressed her lips for a moment.
“If I scared you before, sugar,” he mumbled. “You’re gonna be terrified by the time I’m finished.” Lauryn couldn’t stop the delighted grin that spread across her face. And when next he kissed her, his mouth seizing her own in a way she’d never dreamed of, she was astonished at her own response.
She entirely dissolved in his arms, her heart hammering so brutally within her chest that the ringing of it in her ears was almost deafening. Brant’s hands released her face, traveling caressively the length of her arms, leaving her flesh stinging blissfully as they came to rest at her waist holding her tightly and pulling her into an unyielding embrace. His embrace, coupled with the rapturous delirium evoked by his kiss, caused her to release some of her inhibitions and her arms slid around his shoulders, savoring the strength of his muscles. His strength and powerfully passionate kisses fed the fire of her own ardor as she stood wrapped in his arms, the dogwood blossoms raining down upon them.
She tasted like the sweetest ambrosia, and Brant knew he could never satisfy his craving for her. Her body fit perfectly to his and the sweet, ethereal fragrance clinging to her skin filled his senses with a fantastic satisfaction. He'd known she would be his undoing. He knew his desires for her would eat away at him, torture his body and mind. Why had he taken her to him? How would he now find the strength to give her up? To put her away from him when he so wanted to hold her, breathe her, own her? He kissed her harder, deeper. With an unquenchable thirst for her, suddenly feeling guilt rise within him in knowing that her tender lips had never before been so passionately assaulted. He tried lessening the demanding nature of their exchange, but the soft, moisture of her mouth, alluring, accepting…it all bewitched him, provoking his passion for her, and with a low, regretful growl escaping his throat he broke the seal of their mouths and held her to him for a moment, reveling in the scent of her hair in his nostrils, the silken texture of it against his face.
“I’m in a lot more trouble than I thought,” he mumbled to himself.
Lauryn struggled to breathe calmly again. The flesh surrounding her lips prickled with the residual sensation that his roughly shaven face had caused there and the moisture in her mouth continued to intensify, longing for his kiss again.
“What?” she breathed. He’d said something. But she hadn’t heard him clearly.
Unexpectedly, he released her and stood, rubbing his chin. Anxiety immediately rose within Lauryn’s bosom. Was he having some sort of violent regret?
“It’s done,” he mumbled taking her hand and pulling her to her feet. “We crossed a certain bridge together and things will never be the same again.” He took her face in his hands and looked sternly into her eyes. “Do you regret it?”
“Never,” she whispered. And as his smile returned, he took her mouth again with his. Burying his fingers in her hair for a moment, kissing her thoroughly, forcefully, impassioned.
Her knees again weakened, but his arms were around her immediately holding her close against him as he adored her, unlike anything her young, romantic mind had ever imagined. In her wildest dreams, and she’d enjoyed some wild ones where Brant was concerned, he’d never kissed her as perfectly as he did now, in an actual moment of reality. She’d never considered that, maybe, reality could be better than a dream. But it was! At least, with Brant Masterson it was.
Eventually, their passion softened and Lauryn found herself sitting in the grass, leaning back against a dogwood tree, Brant’s head in her lap as he told her about his family back in Vermont. Still, it wasn’t long before he sat up and kissed her again, softly on the lips, tucking his hand in her hair before scattering moist, gentle kisses up and down her neck.
“You’ll be shy next time, you know,” he told her.
“What do you mean?” she asked innocently, all the while thrilled that he had implied he would kiss her again, in some other circumstance.
“When we get back to Connemara…when we’re surrounded by people and pressures again. We’ll both feel this freedom slip away.” He smiled and twisted a strand of her hair around his finger. “For one thing, you’re mother would have me tarred and feathered if she knew I’d paddled you out to an island to corrupt you.”
“You haven’t once corrupted me,” Lauryn told him with a smile, as she looked up into the blue of the sky.
“Maybe not,” he chuckled. “But I’ve spent three hours kissing you…”
“Three hours?” Lauryn exclaimed. She fairly jumped to her feet. “What will people think?”
“About what?” Brant chuckled.
“About….about…” Lauryn stammered.
Brant shook his head, obviously amused. He stood slowly, rather unwillingly and began gathering the picnic blanket. “Do you think the peacocks will rat us out to your mama and the rest of the town? All the same, I had better get you back to safety. Much more of this and I’ll have to make an honest woman of you.”
Lauryn’s mouth dropped open in astonishment at his insinuation. She was speechless and could only stand before him, stunned.
Brant chuckled and then mumbled, “Lauryn! I thought you said three hours were shocking enough. But I’m not one to pass up an invitation like this one.” He reached out quickly and pulled her head to his savoring the flavor of her kiss one last time.
He smiled at her when their final embrace was over, held her cheek tenderly in on
e hand and grinning said, “Oh, by the way….sorry—for molesting you in the attic, I mean.”
Lauryn smiled, completely enslaved by his charms. “It’s all right. I don’t mind.”
“You should,” he chuckled as he bent over retrieving the food basket and starting toward the canoe. “You should be spanking my behind pretty soundly for that.” Lauryn smiled, delighted at the knowledge he’d ‘molested’ her, as he put it.
As she watched him put the picnic things in the canoe, as she studied him while he was paddling back to shore, she began to feel renewed, newly motivated about solving the miserable enigma that was before them. Finding Laura would free them all. And, just maybe, with Laura at peace…well, maybe Brant would…. Her heart soared for a moment as she tried to squelch her secret hope. For that present instant, she would thoroughly relish the memories of their time alone on the millpond island.
Brant Masterson had kissed her, Lauryn mused. No, no, no. Brant Masterson had far more than simply kissed her. He’d thoroughly kissed her! For hours upon hours! As Brant paddled for shore, each time she lingered on the memory of their…their…their liaison, she felt weak and tingly all over again. Each time she looked at him, watched his muscles work to move the canoe through the water, she thought of the way his kiss tasted and the imaginary butterflies that dwell in every woman’s stomach would take flight causing a mad fluttering sensation in her bosom.
Her zenith met an abrupt end, however, when they reached the dock to find villainy at work. Two very dirty, villainous-looking men were harassing Mr. Jackson. Far more than harassing him! One of the men held Mr. Jackson’s arms at his back while another prepared to bury his fist in the old man’s stomach. Immediately, Brant realized what was happening and leapt from the canoe to shore.
“What are you doing?” Brant shouted as he strode over to the men and stepped between Mr. Jackson and the degenerate preparing to hit him.
The Fragrance of Her Name Page 24