He kissed her with a mouth that tasted of passion and desire. His arms closed around her, one around her shoulders and the other to the slope of her behind. His tongue flicked and stroked around the inside of her mouth.
A thought occurred to her. Did he think she was a virgin? Most unmarried women in this era were, weren’t they? Should she tell him she wasn’t? That she was sorry she’d done it with the guy she’d done it with? He was selfish and therefore terrible in bed and out of it. He didn’t deserve her.
Did Nicholas?
He released her and turned his scarred back on her. “Climb on.”
Don’t tempt me, she wanted to tell him. She looped her arms around his neck on held on when he dipped and swam with her on his back through the waterfall.
She wanted to laugh but water went into her mouth. He swam a little farther, behind one of the falls. “What is this?” she faintly heard his voice through the roar of the water. He turned a bend and swam into cave.
“Oh, Nicholas, it’s huge!” Her voice echoed beneath the high rock ceiling. Sunshine coming through from the vaulted entrance faded to a golden incandescence. He stopped swimming and stood up, bringing the water with him. Kes let him go and watched the liquid flow down his body in rivulets, over hills and valleys. She stood with him on flat rocks, much like the ones outside.
“Have you been here before?” she asked him, wondering how many women had been here with him.
“No.” He shook his head and looked around. “I do not swim often and when I came here with Edward and his family, we did not venture through the falls.”
She liked that they were seeing it for the first time together. “Do you think there are many visitors?” Finding deserted little paradises in the twenty-first century was rare. There would be twenty other couples in here with them if they were home.
“I do not think there areanyvisitors,” he said, his voice, deep and thrilling against her ear as he stepped closer. “We are alone.” He scooped her hair away from her nape and kissed what he’d exposed. His arms slipped around her and pulled her close against him. He felt as hard as his armor, but he was warm, his muscles twitched and tremored when her flesh touched his.
A few rays of sunshine shot into the cave before a billowy cloud passed the sun and cast them into its soft radiance. They smiled at each other, close enough to kiss.
Instead, Nicholas bent his knee and took her hand. “Kestrel—”
Her heart thundered in her chest and felt like it moved to her throat and lodged itself there. Was he going to ask her…?
“Since you got here, you have taken over my thoughts. I think about you all the time. I want to be with you and nowhere else. I want to laugh with you and learn about your life and the people you love. I want to take pictures,” he stopped to smile at her, “of us and our children. Nothing in this life would please me more than to be your husband. Will you be my wife?”
She brought her free hand to her mouth. His wife. His wife!
“Yes,” she said in a dulcet whisper. She could give no other answer.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Yes, I’ll beyour wife.”
Was she crazy? Marriage? This meant she couldn’t leave here without him. It also protected her should anything befall him. But marriage? Her? She smiled thinking about what Lilith and Jack and the others would say.
She watched her fiancé…or betrothed as they said here, stand up. Her mouth went dry when he scooped her up to cradle her in his arms. He carried her up the next few ledges, where the water barely reached, and set her down.
“You will tell Elia whatever you wish for our wedding and celebration.” He sat beside her with her between his legs and gave her an indulgent grin. “Whatever you wish. I will spare no expense.”
Goodness, he sure knew what to tell a girl. “And where did you come by so much money?”
“Everything that was my father’s and his father before him, is now mine. I also have the pay from my service to the king and to England, and—”
She held up her hand to stop him. Ok, he was rich I. She got it. “Well, I’m glad we won’t be starving.”
“I will take care of you, Kestrel, and I will provide for our children. We will never starve.”
“I want to help,” she told him, looking into his eyes. “In twenty nineteen, many women provide for themselves, as I did with my career as a historian.”
“Very well, help then.”
She almost gasped a smile at him. She never expected to hear him agree. She thought he’d beat his chest a little. But he didn’t.
“Do whatever you can think of to keep yourself busy, and that will not get you thrown into a cell. I will put coin to your desire, aye? If you wish to continue your work as a historian, Walter has enough pieces of history in his house to log and keep you happy. Or open a shop at the market, with Elia, mayhap. Have yourexerciseclasses, though I will have to station a man outside the door to protect you. Whatever you wish, my love.”