Page 33 of The Winter Husband
I want this, too, Lucas.
The words danced at the tip of her tongue. If he would only growl like he had before, or if he would lower his head so she could take that full lower lip between her teeth and show him how much she wanted him to keep touching her. She quivered, but the longer he delayed moving, the further the words burrowed in her throat.Please, Lucas.She didn’t want to think, and she especially didn’t want to stop. A bed waited for them in the other room.
This coupling was inevitable.
She had feared it—and ached for it—maybe from the start.
“Go, Marie.”
She startled at his voice, though he’d spoken in a whisper.
“Go,” he repeated, tilting his head toward the bedroom. “And bolt that door behind you.”
He unshackled his grip on her head. She dropped hard to her heels. His body withdrew from her, taking all the warmth with him. She watched, bewildered, as he turned on one heel and walked with shoulders of stone toward the front door. He shoved his feet into his boots and didn’t glance back as he passed into the biting cold. He slammed the door shut behind him.
Come back.
She strained her ears for his footfall.
Come back, Lucas.
Frustrated sensation churned inside her, pleasure spoiling into a pulsating ache. Had she dreamed what had just happened? Had she imagined the hunger of his touch, the wanting flickering in his eyes? She lifted her hands and stared at palms that still tingled from the feel of his warm skin. The imprint of his thumb throbbed where he’d brushed the side of her breast. She ran her fingers across lips so swollen, they felt bruised.
Strange thoughts crept around the fog of her disorientation, growing into filmy tendrils of confusion…and shame. Could it be that he didn’t want her? That she’d only imagined all the signs of his interest? And yet she’d fallen into him. She’d melted against him. Now she sank to the floor, the hearthstone hard against her knees. She’dencouragedLucas’s kiss,beggedfor his caresses. Had Lucas not left the cabin, she would have given herself over. She would have followed Lucas to the bedroom like a lamb.
No.
She wouldn’t have followed Lucas to the bedroom.
She would have led.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The next morning, Lucas winced against blinding sunlight as the barn door swung open.
“There you are,” she said. “Not sleeping.”
He squinted at her silhouette. He knew it was Marie—who else could it be?—but he didn’t think she would have the grit to come knocking so soon after the lip-grappling they’d shared the night before.
“I brought you sagamité.” She closed the door behind her and plunged them into softer light. “It’s stone-cold now, but that’s your fault for not coming to the cabin for breakfast.”
She clutched the bowl in two hands, her hair pulled back so tight not a single strand came loose. So different from last night, when soft, dark wisps had flown around her passion-dazed face. He grunted and turned his attention back to the snowshoe frame lying across his lap, where he tied another strip of rawhide webbing. Futile to think about how he’d kiss her again in a minute—hell, he’d kiss herright now—if she wasn’t glaring at him like a porcupine with its quills up.
“Leave the bowl there.” He gestured to a crate with a half-empty bottle of rum atop it. “I’ll eat later.”
“It’ll freeze if you wait.” With a rustle of petticoats, she set the bowl down. “Do you plan to starve yourself?”
Of you, yes.He nudged an oilcloth lying open by his foot, revealing dark strips of meat. “I’ve got pemmican.”
“Pemmican?”
“Dried meat. I spent last summer putting it up for times like these.”
“Times when you wake up from a nightmare and then forget your promise of celibacy?”
He met those blue eyes with a slow burn in his own. He’d had the whole restless night to rue how she’d caught him in the midst of delirium, and how in his weakness he’d stolen that damnable kiss. He sure as hell didn’t want to talk about either.
But he would set her straight on one crucial matter. “I didn’t break a promise, Marie.”
