Page 69 of Marrying the Gardener
Breathing hard.
Lying beneath me, lips swollen, parted, eyes roving my skin.
Careful to protect the sight, I pull my shirt off my arms and chuck it somewhere it can’t bother us anymore. Her cool fingertips line my muscles, starting at my bicep, perusing my neck, flattening against my stomach.
“Crimson,” I whisper, shaking, raw. My muscles tense, tightening in response to the slight scratch of her nails. I…can’t. My head drops against the pillow beside her head. My nose buries itself in her hair. Desire floods my brain, erupting. I fight it. “Crimson,” I croak, “we…we should talk. We need to talk. What—”
Her other hand finds my back and punctures as she lifts her mouth to my neck.
She bites; I cuss.
“It’s like a disease,” she says.
“What is?” I brace myself on my forearms, coming undone. I have never once fallen apart like this for a woman, and that scares me… That scares me because that means I’ve never once cared like this for any other woman.
And that means I have so, so much more to lose.
“You,” she whispers, licking where she bit my flesh. “I haven’tbeen able to get touching you like this out of my head. It replays. All night. Touching. Kissing. Everything we’ve done; everything we could do. I keep dreaming about exploring you, and it doesn’t end. You’re a disease in my brain.” Her arms wrap around me, holding me, and I sink against her body, letting her heat rise into my veins. Her fingers coast through the short hairs at the base of my neck. “I’m sorry it’s taken me so many days to talk to you. I didn’t know how to put these feelings into words. I didn’t want to give you hope. I thought it would go away. But it hasn’t. It’s gotten worse. So now I don’t think it’s false hope to tell you.” Her arms tighten. “Kaleb.”
My breath catches.
“I think I’m falling in love with you.”
Everything in my mind collapses, fixating on those words, replaying them, over and over and over. She’s…falling in love withme? Crimson—my Crimson—isfalling in love with me?
Elation collides with my heart, so potent it robs me of air and sense. Circling her in my arms, I roll onto my back and sag into the mattress, cradling her on my chest, against my hammering heart. “You’re in love with me?” I ask, breathless.
She pushes against my chest, and I reluctantly force my arms to free her. As she rises, over me, waterfalls of her flaming hair floating around her, I see my entire future. “Falling,” she corrects. “Notfallen.”
“Right. Of course.” Mindless, my fingers tease the hem of her dress as my attention slips from her beautiful face to the way her skirt has bunched at her knees, which are parted around my waist. Her fists—pressed to my chest—singe my skin, and I get stuck on the picture of her burning me alive as she takes me to a place where I’ll never be cold again.
Clinical as a nurse delivering bad news, she says, “Desire began infecting me sometime at the bar. I’ve been incapable of shaking it since, and I fear it may worsen considerably before Ican deny it. What do you…dowith thefeelings?”
My mind blanks. “With what feelings?”
“Thebury your nails in him and make him bleedfeelings.”
I blink. “I’m sorry. What?”
Unclenching her fingers, she plants them in my shoulders, bends, and rends my flesh as she claims my mouth again. Teeth and tongue. And—
I shake as swears riot in my head, hissing between my lips when she finally sees fit to free me. I can hardly breathe. Think. Remember what we were talking about. “Those are…” I swallow, taste a tinge of iron. “…somewhat violent feelings, aren’t they?” I lift a hand to my mouth, and I know I’m blushing like a teenager.
I am undoubtedly bleeding. I don’t know if it’s my lip or my tongue. I’m not sure I care.
“They are,” she confirms. “It’s like cute aggression, which I have never experienced before. I have no antibodies against these emotions. And they inconvenience me. I’m drawing hearts in the margins of my planner like I’m going through puberty.” Her nails embed deeper. “Yetanotherthing I have never experienced before.”
I glance toward her womanly figure. “You…didn’t experience puberty?”
Relinquishing one talon, she plants her fingers gracefully upon her bosom. “Inever went through an awkward phaseora feelings phase. There were no crushes. There was no acne.”
Wow—I swallow—lucky lass.
“I’m like a black widow spider, suddenly offered a mate. Your life is at risk, Kaleb. I fear for you.”
“The story that black widows always eat their mates is more myth than truth,” I offer.
Her stunning red lashes flutter. “What?”
