Page 32 of The Winter Husband
“Flemish.” He’d sailed thousands of miles away, but in his nightmares he still found himself on the fields of Flanders. “Or maybe Huron. I speak them both.”
Have nightmares in both.
“Huron,” she said, testing the name. “Isn’t that one of the local tribes?”
He nodded. How could she pretend nothing had happened? Why didn’t she go away, let him catch his breath?
“When I was at Etta’s, before our wedding, Philippe welcomed two local trading partners. They smoked a long pipe in the study and spoke in a language I’d never heard before—”
“Abenaki.” The word rasped across his throat. “Philippe speaks Abenaki. It’s different.”
He slid a glance toward the door of the cabin. In the barn, there wasn’t any crockery to break, no woman to probe his weaknesses, and no one to see his shame.
She said, “In my father’s nightmares, he spoke Spanish.”
He turned his head sharply, caught a whiff of rosewater scent.
“So many times, I woke him from nightmares.” She shrugged and hugged her arms. “He fought against the Spanish in the Battle of Rocroi. Have you heard of it?”
He shook his head as he fell into her eyes.
“It was a victory against the Spanish, but a disaster for my father’s squadron of cavalry. On bad nights, he relived it.”
He shoved away from the mantel. What witchery was this? Was this still part of the dream? He didn’t feel himself yet. The madness wasn’t gone, though his hands had stopped shaking, and his heart was no longer a trapped rat fighting tooth and claw. She should be bolting herself behind a door, having seen what violence he was capable of. He was more dangerous to her in this moment, as the sea of memory had receded like a tide, leaving a sucking, empty hollow—
“How my father would rage,” she whispered. “My heart broke for him every time.”
“I’ll sleep in the barn.”
“No.” Her cool hand lit on his arm. “Stay here.”
He breathed deep, willing patience.
She said, “We can move the chairs, and maybe the table, too. You’ll cause less damage to them, and yourself.” She squeezed his forearm. “I don’t want to be alone, Lucas. I need you here in the cabin.”
A rumble caught in his throat. She shouldn’t say things like that. Did she know what her eyes promised? The oblivion of pleasure, the kind that could be found in a bottle of rum, or in the arms of a willing woman…like the one blinking up at him with the softest look on her face.
His reason fled to the shadows.
He seized the back of her head and brought her lips to his.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lucas’s warm mouth slid over hers with shocking wet ease.
She slapped her hands against the wall of his chest. She meant to push, but his skin pulsed against her palms. He made a rumbling sound in his throat, and immense muscles shifted under her touch. Even in the white brightness of her surprise, she knew what she should do—what shehadto do—but her body had other ideas. Her blood thrummed like the hum of a thousand bees.
She couldn’t push him away.
Her lashes drifted closed as strong, wicked currents tugged her deeper into sensation, rousing her darker angel from a long slumber. She raised up on her toes, moving her mouth against his because his rough lips felt like heaven, as did the brush of his beard against her cheek. His fingers tightened on the back of her head, holding her fixed, and a dangerous thought streaked across her mind.
Why fight what I want?
Her pulse leapt at the possibilities as his rough hand swept up her side. No shawl impeded his grasp as he gathered up the folds of cambric. She’d left her shawl in the bedroom in her haste. She’d stepped out into his presence wearing nothing but a shift. She may as well be naked, the fabric was so thin. When his roaming fingers skimmed past the side swell of her breast, the touch jolted through her like liquid lightning, sizzling away the last tendrils of sober thought.
His lips separated from hers with a sweet, wet sound. With a moan, she surged up to recapture the kiss.Don’t stop, Lucas.Her thighs felt buttery weak. A familiar, swollen sensation throbbed in the juncture between them. Scattered thoughts careened as their lips brushed faintly once, and then again, her breath ragged, blood pounding in her ears. They were man and woman—husband and wife—brought together precisely for this joining, for the comfort that could be found in each other’s arms. She ached for the tenderness of a man’s touch, the comfort of an embrace, and all the promises of a hungry kiss.
Lucas lifted his face again, this time too far away for her to reach even when she stretched to the very tips of her toes. Dazed by feeling, she blinked her heavy lids open to a man of a wild and breathtaking beauty. A shock of hair fell across his brow, shading his probing eyes. How smoky those eyes, how intense he looked right now, standing in questioning suspension.
