Page 16 of Miss Barton's Mysterious Husband
When he’d first kissed her, she seemed uncertain, as if she hadn’t kissed a man in a long time. She’d already admitted that she’d taken no other lover, but even if she hadn’t told him, her kiss revealed that she’d waited for him.
The knowledge was glorious. He’d tormented himself so often, imagining other men touching her, kissing her, possessing that lissom body. But no longer. When they met, he’d trusted her immediately This was an honest woman. Now, when he didn’t deserve such good fortune, he realized that she’d stayed true.
He already loved her so much, he was near sick with it. Discovering that she’d kept faith wiped away an ocean of rancid misery seething inside him.
That first hesitancy melted under the blazing kiss. She met him with rising passion, digging her fingers into his waist. He drowned in the joy of having her in his arms once again. For the first time since she left, Roland felt whole.
His hands slid back to tangle in her mass of russet hair. That vivid shade had haunted his dreams. It was unusual, but not unique, so every time he caught a glimpse of a woman with deep red hair, his heart leaped with the hope that it was Charmian.
But it never was, and he was left more disconsolate than ever. Worse because of the fleeting surge of hope. Since he’d lost her, he’d learned to despise hope and its lying promises. But it wasimpossible not to hope when the wife he loved was kissing him as if the world would end if she stopped.
He wanted to kiss her all night. Hell, he wanted to kiss her to the crack of doomsday. But sensual heat burgeoned between them and tenderness had long ago flared into desire.
While he wanted her like blazes, he didn’t mean to rush her. So he pulled back and returned to little kisses. The way that he’d started what seemed like a century ago.
They were both panting when they finally drew apart. She stared up at him out of dark, yearning eyes. Her hands kneaded his waist. Her lips were red and swollen, and his hands had made a tangle of her severe hairstyle.
“That was…” she began, lifting a hand to those tempting lips.
“A beginning?” With the greatest difficulty, he made himself release her and he stepped back. The powerful urge gripped him to carry her across to that chaste single bed and bury himself inside her, to take the kiss to its ordained end. After losing her for so long, his natural impulse was to snatch and seize and capture. Make sure that she never went away again.
But all this time without her had taught him caution. He sought a lifetime with this woman, not just a quick tumble to satisfy years of frustration. Still, it nearly killed him to take another step away.
“It’s late.” His voice was gruff with reaction to that wild kiss and the effort it took to behave like a civilized man. “I’ll go down to the kitchens and fetch you some more hot water. The water I brought up earlier will be cold now.”
He shouldn’t be pleased to see disappointment in her eyes. She’d gone up like a column of flame in his arms. The passion between them hadn’t faded, he was grateful to note. Grateful and relieved.
But passion had never been their problem. From the moment that they met, they’d been voracious for each other. Throughouttheir hectic courtship, she’d brimmed with innocent ardor. His memories of their brief weeks together were tinged scarlet with the heat that they’d generated when they finally shared a bed.
“You don’t have to. I can go. Or wash in cold water.”
He smiled at her. “Let me look after you, Charmian. You’ll sleep better after a decent wash.”
Although she still looked puzzled, she nodded. “Then thank you.”
He went to the door and opened it, desperate to get out before he did something drastic to scare her away again. A Christmas miracle on a stormy night had brought them together. He couldn’t allow himself to shatter the frail bond of trust forming between them.
Losing Charmian once had nearly killed him. The prospect of losing her twice was too agonizing to contemplate.
Chapter 7
Charmian lay in her narrow bed and stared into the darkness. The rain continued, slamming against the window and pounding against the tiled roof. But that wasn’t what kept her awake.
Since the weather turned bad this morning, she’d been rushed off her feet. She should have fallen into bed and gone straight to sleep. But here she lay open-eyed, feeling like the storm outside raged inside her as well.
The reason for that wasn’t hard to fathom. The reason lay on the floor in front of the fire wrapped in a blanket.
When her mother and aunt had cooked up the plan to get her away from home, they’d hoped to rescue her from the despair where she’d languished since leaving Roland. Or so they said. At the time, she should have guessed that some plot was afoot, but she’d been so heartsore that she hadn’t thought to question their decision to send her to help Aunt Janet.
They’d schemed to keep her out of a ruthless seducer’s clutches. Tonight the ruthless seducer lay silent on the far side of the room, with no designs on his wife’s body, damn it.
She hadn’t shared a room with a man since she’d run away from Roland. That was enough to make her restless. That, and those spectacular kisses that made her feel alive for the first time since they parted.
He’d kissed her as if he’d starved for her, then stepped away and acted like her brother. The passionate lover had given her grounds for optimism. The polite stranger made her feel like howling in denial.
Not to mention that those kisses had woken parts of her she’d done her best to ignore since coming to the Spotted Fox. Therewas a pulsing weight in the pit of her stomach and her blood raced with carnal desire.
Carnal desire that clearly she experienced alone.
