Page 55 of The Winter Husband
Everything is just as it was before.
“You were so warm curled up next to me,” he said, rising up on his elbows to nip a freckle on her upper thigh. “I couldn’t resist.”
“Feel free to not resist,” she murmured, “any time you please.”
“You taste good.”
She choked out a laugh. “You must be hungry.”
For you. Always.
“Is there something I can do for you?” She pulled a lock of hair away from the corner of her mouth. “You must be ready to burst, you poor thing.”
His cock twitched, but he willed it down. “Not now.”
“Lucas, you know how I love to return favors.”
“I do.” By the saints, this woman. He planted another kiss on her thigh and then slid out from under her knee. “But this one was just for you.”
She looked confused, and a moment later, wary.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” He sat up and traced the faint bruise on her hip. “I was too rough on you last night.”
“Oh, that?” Her voice dropped, but only a fraction of the wariness eased. “You didn’t hear me complaining.”
“All the same.” He dragged the linens over her flushed thighs and up to her breasts. “I’ll try not to be a wild bear when I mate with you from now on.”
“How disappointing.” She narrowed her eyes. “Still, I like the way you apologize.”
Mischief danced across her face, washing away the last of her wariness. She’d forgiven him, then, for his roughness last night.
Or maybe she was just as willing as he to push from her memory how close he came to speaking words of love.
“I’m starving.” Tapping her pretty, rounded bottom, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Any of that stew left?”
***
Keep her happy, Lucas thought.
What else could he do?
That night, he made her ice skates from the shin bones of deer. Later in the week, he taught her how to use them in a shallow bay of the frozen river. As the temperature ticked up to a more comfortable chill, they explored eastward and found a long, low slope that formed a natural, treeless valley. The next day, they brought an oiled deerskin and enjoyed an afternoon of sledding. He imagined, now and again, he glimpsed a softer look in her eyes as the days rolled into weeks. But maybe that was just her dreaming—not of him, but of returning to her friends and her safer life in the Paris convent. The wordsI love youhovered on his lips every morning,stay with mesurged in his throat every evening.
He swallowed the words down. He’d be an empty husk of a man if she said no.
Then, one day, the ice broke on the St. Lawrence River.
“Good morning, Lucas.”
Lucas turned away from the spectacle of the churning river to the vision of Marie on the porch, dressed in moose skin breeches and fur boots.
His ribs squeezed.
“I’m ready.” She thrust her hand into a glove, though the weather was balmy compared to the weeks prior. “What are we doing today?”
“Tapping maple trees.” He gestured toward the woods. “We’ll start with the ones behind the cabin.”
“Ah, yes, those magical trees that ooze sugar.”
