“Relax. We’ve plenty of time.” He inched his way closer. “Has anyone ever told you that your lips are like rose petals? Or is that too obvious?”
“No one’s ever said anything like that to me.”
“What? No suitors? No lovers in America?”
Lovers—like Lancelot and Guinevere, or Tristan and Isolde. There’d been times when she imagined herself among them.
“You deserve admirers,” he murmured. “A hundred dashing gallants at your feet. I don’t believe you know your own loveliness.” He reached out, cupped her chin in his hand. “So unaware of your own… desirability.”
Cassidy shivered, less at his touch than at the odd note in his voice. She wanted to get up, but Quentin held her trapped with hand, gaze, and words.
“All feminine,” he said, stroking her cheek. “All woman under that unpolished exterior and charming inexperience. Braden is blind indeed.”
She was mute, fascinated by the new, almost frightening things he said to her. “Braden—”
“I don’t believe you’ve ever been kissed,” he said, smiling a different kind of smile than she’d ever seen on his face. “Well, well. Braden did send me out here to teach you. One lesson is as good as another. I knew there would be some compensations.”
Before she understood, he leaned forward, pulled her toward him, and covered her lips with his.
In the next few seconds a thousand sensations and thoughts rushed through her mind and body. The heat of Quentin’s mouth, the feather-lightness of the contact, the throbbing of her heart and the blood in her veins. But beyond that was the absence of something essential that should have been part of what he did. A warmth, a oneness—like what she’d felt with Braden in the woods, and when he’d talked of the Change and touched her hand…
Braden. She closed her eyes and imagined Braden with her now, Braden’s scent, Braden’s lips.
“Braden,” she whispered.
An ominous growl answered. Quentin drew back without haste and glanced toward the noise. Cassidy touched her mouth and did the same.
The wolf was a scant few feet away, head lowered, ears and tail erect, gray and black and white fur bristling along his spine. His gaze was fixed on Quentin, who scooted back on his knees and threw his hands up in the air with a sheepish grin.
“Easy, Brother. I’m not exactly poaching—you did say I was to teach—”
The wolf snarled, and Quentin wisely shut his mouth. Then the wolf crouched, teeth still bared, and began to blur.
When the dark mist evaporated, Braden crouched in the wolf’s place. He was scowling, ominous—and undeniably naked.
Braden stood, Cassidy gasped, and Quentin fell back onto the grass.
“Let the lessons begin,” Quentin said.
Braden had told himself there was excellent justification for following Quentin and Cassidy on their morning ride. For all his talk of Quentin’s responsibility, Braden knew his brother too well. A leopard doesn’t change his spots, nor a wolf the color of his coat.
Now it was brutally apparent how Quentin regarded the task set for him. His words to Cassidy had given warning of his intentions, and then there was the unmistakable sound of lips meeting, lingering…
Braden fought back the anger that kindled in his chest. It was not reasonable. If Quentin found Cassidy attractive enough—if Cassidy was willing…
He didn’t complete the thought. He was too aware of Cassidy’s rough breathing, the heightened intensity other scent, the lush fragrance other womanhood.
Of arousal.
He turned on Quentin, hands clenched. “Is this how you planned to teach her?”
Quentin lolled in the grass, assuming the posture of submission. “But Brother,” he said with a parody of humility, “after our several conversations, I was under the distinct impression that you wished me to—”
“Go.” Braden advanced on his brother, and Quentin scrambled up from the ground. “It is clear that I cannot trust you to complete the work I set for you. If not for your blood—” He bared his teeth. “Go.”
Quentin obeyed with satisfying alacrity. Leather creaked, the gelding snorted, and then there was only the sound of retreating hoofbeats.
A bird gave a hesitant chirp among the branches overhead. Cassidy didn’t stir. Braden became acutely aware of the warm breeze on his bare skin, and of a tension every bit as tangible. He had learned to feel stares the way others saw them.