Page 23 of The Christmas Countess

{ Chapter 9 }

She was slow to wake. Not like she usually did, with her eyes popping open, alert, the moment the slightest semblance of lucidness hit her.

No, she stayed in the state between sleep and awake, reveling in the warm comfort she was encased in.

Warm, safe comfort. Where she was always meant to be. Home. Home in a cocoon of strength.

Strength.

Damn.

Domnall. Domnall’s arms were about her. His cocoon. His strength.

And yet still, she fought opening her eyes. She wanted this as long as possible, selfish though it may be. For once he found out the truth of her, she’d never have a moment like this again.

He moved beneath her and she realized how fully she was on top of him. Somewhere during the night he’d shifted them, leaning back in the corner of the settee for support with a leg long on the cushion. She’d draped herself fully along his body.

So fully she could feel a rather large, rather stiff reminder jutting into her abdomen of how intimately their bodies were entwined.

Yet still, she couldn’t let go of the moment. Of the warmth.

Domnall cleared his throat, his hand moving along her back.

Karta refused to look up at him, keeping her face buried in his lawn shirt just above the cut of his waistcoat, her voice a whisper just in case he was still asleep. “Dom?”

“Yes?”

“I lied.”

“About what?”

“I did think of you.”

He didn’t answer for a torturous moment. Maybe he was talking in his sleep.

Then his chest lifted in a heavy breath.

“When?”

“All the time.” She braved the tilt of her chin, her eyes upward to see his face. “Every day. In moments of happiness. In moments of sadness. In moments of nothingness. All the time. I wished you were by my side all the time.”

Without a word, he dragged her body upward, his lips meeting hers in a brutal, searing kiss. A kiss that she’d imagined thousands of times over.

A kiss that would break her.

Destroy everything between them.

She jerked away from him, her palms flat on his chest as she pushed herself upward.

His hands were quick to her upper arms, stopping her motion. “Why do you flinch?”

“I—I don’t flinch.”

“You flinch when we are close. You want me—then you push away.”

She stared down at him, at the confusion in his dark blue eyes.

Confusion she couldn’t abate. She didn’t dare tell him that she pushed away because of what she’d become. That whatever they started would never be finished once he knew the truth.

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