Page 71 of Beyond the Cottage

Instead of awkwardness or confusion, it filled him with primitive satisfaction. For the rest of his nights, whenever he took himself in hand, he’d hear her throaty little moans and feel her legs clamped around him. And it would be terrible because it wouldn’t come close to the real thing.

She’druinedhim for coming without her.

A bleaker thought intruded—what if she regretted it? He had no idea why she’d let him slake her, and she probably didn’t either. Would she now face him with shame in addition to contempt?

Gretta shoved his shoulder, and he rolled to his back. When she stood in the moonlight and looked at him, he had his answer. His half-hard cock deflated.

“This was a mistake,” she said. “We’re going to pretend it didn’t happen.”

Ansel propped on his elbows. “How exactly do you expect me to pretend that?”

“I’m sure you’ll manage.” She lit a lantern and looked down at herself with a gasp.

Two wet spots stained the fabric between her legs. An absurdly larger one soaked him.

“Goddammit,” she muttered.

He jerked his shirt on. “What did you think would happen? And by the way, those fluids aren’t all mine.”

She blushed.

Jaw rigid, he got up to dampen one of Isobel’s dishtowels in their wash bucket. After they both cleaned up, he tossed the towel in the compost bin and resettled on the floor.

Gretta clicked off the lamp before returning to the couch.

He listened to her fidget, replaying every moment of what ‘didn’t happen’. Despite her reaction after, he didn’t share her regret.

Should he, though?

Though they’d spent years apart, he struggled to separate the girl he’d adored from the woman who fascinated him. And hated him. It had been easier in the throes of the moment, of course. But now that reason had traveled from his dick to his brain, understanding what they’d just done felt like putting together a puzzle with a different picture on each side.

Still… Approaching it with logic and sense was in its own way senseless. They’d both changed, and his feelings for her had shifted. Undoing that would be as futile as turning lead into silver.

And Ansel would forget hisnamebefore he forgot that night.

Giving up on thought altogether, he closed his eyes, memorizing her taste on his lips.

Chapter 26

As Ansel rowed to the compound, he tried to stop himself from staring at Gretta.

He’d slept better than he had in days, and his dreams had been finer than any he could remember. His subconscious had embellished memory in ways that ought to make him ashamed, but he’d also dreamed of her curled beside him, asleep in his arms.

In reality, she’d barely spoken to him that morning. When he’d smiled at her flushed cheeks and tousled hair, she’d closed her eyes and let out a frustrated grunt. She only snapped out of her morning grouch after shambling to the kitchen to find a letter from Isobel waiting on the table.

Isobel herself—and the gold—had disappeared. And naturally, her letter specified which moment she’d chosen to make her escape.

I knew you scamps would work it out,she’d written.I averted these rheumy old eyes, I swear.

Now Gretta sat on the other end of the boat, poring over Isobel’s chicken scratch.

“I don’t get what she means here,” she said, swatting the paper. “I’ll miss you and this miserable, malodorous, mosquito-ridden swamp, but I knew my time here would eventually be up.” She looked at him for the first time in an hour. “Do you think she offed herself?”

“There’s approximately zero percent chance of that.”

“Where do you think she went, then? She mentioned aunties, but I didn’t take her literally.”

“I couldn’t begin to guess.” If Isobel had family, it was news to him.

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