Ines's face did not just blush. It exploded.
The color, a deep, furious, scalding red, flashed from her collarbones to her hairline. She was, in that single second, the color of a ripened, sun-hot tomato.
"Oh! Y… ye… yes," she stammered, her voice a high-pitched, breathless squeak. She could not look at him. She stared, wide-eyed, at the knot of his shirt. "I know. Y-you don't have to… to remind me."
"Don't I?" he murmured.
His hand, the one that had been on the back of her neck, moved. His fingers, calloused and warm, slid from her hair to her shoulder, his thumb still making a slow, agonizing, hypnotic circle just behind her ear.
He leaned in, his mission, his "lesson," clear.
His lips, which had been inches away, brushed the side of her neck.
Ines gasped, a sharp, silent intake of air. Her entire body went rigid. His lips were not chapped. They were not rough. They were soft, and firm, and impossibly, unbelievably hot.
