His smile quirked with self-deprecation before he picked up her hand. He glanced at her as he began to thread the ring onto her finger, challenging her to refuse it.
Her fingers flexed lightly in his grip, the feel of the ring sliding into place more impactful than she expected.
Perhaps he felt her instinctive tension. His own grip tightened.
“‘Fiancée’ is a lot nicer than some of the euphemisms I’ve been trying to find for ‘mother of my illegitimate child.’ I want to call you my wife, Scarlett.”
“I know.” Guilt had her pursing her lips, but marriage was such a big decision. “I do think about it every day, you know.” She stared at the sparkling ring until her eyes went hot. “What our life would look like.”
“It would look exactly like what we have right now.” He let their joined hands relax into the space between them. His other hand rose to touch her chin, nudging her gaze to come up to meet his. “With the addition of physical intimacy. Which I think about daily.”
Her cheeks went hot and little tugs and pulls accosted her insides.
“Do you?” she asked with a measure of doubt. “You’re very…” She shrugged, trying to turn her spasm of insecurity into a diffident smile. Aside from innocuous touches to her lower back or a brush of his hands against her as they transferred Locke, he only made physical contact with her in bed and that was—at most—a bit of spooning in the middle of the night when one of them came back from tending their son. “You’ve been very hands-off since that first night.”
“Because we have seven more nights to get through. If you think I’m not counting them down, you’re not nearly as smart as I’ve always believed.”
She wrinkled her nose, humor breaking through a veil of worry she hadn’t realized was thick enough to weigh on her until she caught this glimmer of light. “I thought you were…”
His brow went up, prompting her to continue.
“I don’t know.” She drew her hand from his and tangled her fingers. Sharing a bed and a bedroom meant there had been a few wardrobe slips that had revealed a stretch mark here and a plump thigh there. She hadn’t run on a treadmill in months, unable to find the energy.
“I don’t look like I did before.”
“No, you don’t,” he agreed gruffly. His touch on her chin tightened slightly. He gently turned her face so he could examine each side of her profile. “You look fragile with these hollow cheeks and dark circles under your eyes. Your skin is translucent and even your lips are pale. I heard the doctor telling you to take your iron and get more rest. I want you to eat more and quit worrying about losing weight, but that’s the only demand I feel comfortable making when you well up over a kitten crying in a tree. That doesn’t mean I think there’s anything wrong with this new figure of yours.”
He raked his gaze down the blue silk of her robe, eyeing where her lapel lay against the inner swell of her breast. He bit his own lip.
The air changed. Her scalp prickled and she curled her toes in her slippers.
“Make no mistake,” he said in a throaty voice. “I’m obsessed with seeing more of it.”
She swallowed, accosted by a flush of wry pleasure and sexy twinges she hadn’t experienced in what felt like ages. And she was tearing up, but they were happy tears.
“Really?”
“Deeply. But I’m afraid if I start touching you…” He allowed his fingertip to draw light patterns on her breastbone. The back of his knuckle caressed the swell of her breast, making both her nipples peak against the light layer of silk. “I may not stop.”
She looked at his mouth. I don’t want you to stop, she wanted to say, but his mouth was already coming down on hers.
They both moaned with satisfaction as the kiss dragged them into passion like an undertow pulling them into a heavy sea. She crashed herself into his big frame, knocking her own breath from her lungs.
His hands caught her and roamed, greedy, his touch everything she needed and not nearly enough. She folded her arms behind his neck and tried to drag him down closer. Into a harder kiss. Something that could appease this ache that had been simmering below the surface, ignored and quilted over with exhaustion and worry, but now rose up as a conflagration that engulfed her.
It was like that day in this apartment. Once the fuse was lit, it ran from one to the other, setting barrels of gunpowder alight so they exploded again and again until there was only this. Fire and flame and heat and light.
His big hands slid down her backside and caught under her cheeks, and he pulled her up. Her legs parted and she hugged his waist with her thighs as a wall pressed against her back.
He felt so good! Heavy and strong. So much warm satiny skin beneath her splaying fingers, muscles shifting and straining. She couldn’t get enough. His mouth devoured hers and she loved that, too. The soft abrasion of his beard, the scent of his soap and the faint taste of mint in his mouth as he raked rough kisses across her lips. Their tongues tangled as the kiss grew flagrant and unmistakably sexual. He plunged his tongue between her lips, letting her know what he really wanted.
The erotic signal made her blood run like warm honey, sweet and thick. Her body dampened with slick heat and she moaned her capitulation. To passion. To him.
He dragged his head up. They panted, breaths mingling.
“My towel is falling off.”
“I know.” She could feel the shape of him against the gusset of her knickers, so hard and hot the silk should have singed away. She wanted him so badly she could have wept.
The
