The Winter Wife (8 page)

Then finally,
finally,
she nodded.

“
I trust you, Sebastian.”

Relief flooded
him, made him dizzy. Relief and gratitude.
After the mull he’d made of everything, he didn’t deserve her consent, but he was bloody glad she’d given it all the same. Now he had it, he’d make sure she never regretted it.

“
Thank you,” he whispered, wondering if she knew how profoundly he meant those simple words.

He leaned forward to brush his lips across hers.
A
deliberately light kiss however much her nearness eviscerated good intentions.
A glancing touch that promised more.
A
salute to the woman who would become his partner in rapture tonight.

Her lips were impossibly soft under his. Smooth. Satiny. He lingered a second, savoring the exquisite sensation. In nearly eleven years, he hadn’t kissed his wife. He’d kissed her before they’d married, during

the giddy days of their short engagement. He’d kissed her during

their first
weeks together, but the spiraling unhappiness of their life at

Balmuir had soon made kissing seem a travesty.

Kinvarra started to withdraw, the beast inside him straining against gentleness.
Then
Alicia made a soft sound deep in her throat and her lips parted.

Her warm breath filled
his mouth. She tasted familiar.
Yet as fresh and new as a fall of snow. Hot darkness exploded inside his head and reaction ripped through him. He longed to ravish her mouth with all

the passion locked for so long inside him. He clenched his hands in the blankets, struggling to remember what was at stake.

God give him strength. His control already shredded and he’d hardly launched his seduction.

Alicia cradled his head between her hands, holding him close as though afraid he meant to pull away, even now. Foolish woman, as if he was going anywhere. He’d ventured up to the gates of paradise and to his astonishment, they’d opened to allow him inside.

Her kiss was clumsy, as if she hadn’t kissed anyone in a long time. Shock rocketed through him. On an intellectual level, he’d known that she’d never been unfaithful. But that urgent, unpracticed kiss reassured his needy soul that in all the years they’d been apart, she’d belonged only to him.

Once, when he’d been an arrogant stripling who thought the world was his for the taking, that knowledge might have provoked triumph. Now he was only humbly grateful that she’d waited for him.
After

so long without her, he took nothing for granted. He was under no illusions how lucky he was that
Alicia was in his arms right now.
The slightest misstep could put them at odds again.
This time forever.

His arms encircled her, curved her into his body. She molded to him with an eagerness that set his heart cartwheeling. His mouth shaped itself to hers as she curled her arms around his neck. Her breasts crushed into his chest until blazing heat threatened to incinerate all will

beyond his hunger to possess. Even as he kissed her deeply, ravenously, stroking her tongue with his, he struggled to remember that he couldn’t dive headlong into this fire.

Kinvarra’s resolution faltered when her tongue moved in unmistakable response and she moaned with female pleasure. Restraint became even shakier after she sighed into his mouth and rubbed her body against his.

His shaking hands clasped her head as he plundered her mouth, stoking her passion. She began to touch him, feverish brushes of her hands as if she needed to learn the shape of his body again after all this time. Her unfettered reactions intoxicated him.
Who would have

guessed his wife contained such delicious wildness? She was glorious, the answer to his every dream.
When he finally
raised his head, she whimpered in protest and her eyes were dark and slumberous under heavy, drooping eyelids.

A
soft, shaken laugh escaped him as he stroked his hands through the soft hair at her temples. He couldn’t resist touching her—he couldn’t rely on fate being generous enough to let her stay with him past tonight. “I’m struggling to be careful, my darling, but you make it almost impossible.”

Uneven gasps escaped her moist, parted lips. Her face was flushed with arousal. “I’m not seventeen anymore, Sebastian,” she whispered. “I won’t break.”

Almost reverently, he cupped her jaw. “You deserve respect.” Her smile was tremulous. “Is that what you feel for me?”

“
Of course,” he said swiftly.
Then after a pause, “And desire.”

“
Show me the desire.”

He bit back an agonized groan. Leashing his hunger was the most fiendish
of tortures. But she couldn’t know what she asked. He’d acted the savage with her when he’d been a mere boy, but now he wanted her with a man’s passion. If she’d thought him a barbarian then, she’d quail if she guessed the fierce
hunger raging inside him tonight.

“
I promised I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said in a raw tone. Her gaze was steady. “You won’t.”

“
I did once.” Shame bit deep, chastened his craving, although nothing could ease his craving apart from having her.
The devil of it was that one night, however dazzling, wasn’t going to be enough for him.

She touched his cheek with a tenderness that speared him with guilty awareness of how badly he’d behaved. “We’ve both grown up since then, Sebastian. I trust you. Please, trust yourself.”

Staring into her beautiful face, he realized she was right. She was no longer the frightened girl he’d first
married and he was no longer the greedy, thoughtless boy who hadn’t appreciated the jewel fate had delivered into his keeping.
The yearning to prove himself worthy of

her confidence
flooded
him. He couldn’t fail her now. But nor could he continue to treat her as if she were made of spun glass. It would destroy him.

Time had changed them and now it offered the opportunity to start again, to move beyond their mistakes and create something new and invincible and shining. He wanted to insist on declarations, but he

was wise enough to know that the moment was too fragile to bear the weight of anything beyond the present.

His hands were gentle as he undid the next button on her shirt. By the time he slid the garment from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor,
she was trembling. Her hands had dropped to her sides.

Her scent filled
his head, making him drunk with desire. Even so, he still held back. Painful as restraint was. Carefully he undressed her. Finally she was bare to his sight and he paused in wonder.

In their years apart, she’d changed. Her body was a woman’s. Ripe. Alluring. He drew a shuddering breath and reminded himself of the risks in what he did. His blood beat hot and hard, but he managed to

cling to control.

Just.

In shy wantonness,
Alicia lay spread before him. Color lined her slanted cheekbones and the breath came fast between her lips.
Almost hesitantly, Kinvarra reached out to cup one full, white breast. It plumped in his hand as if created for his touch and the raspberry nipple pearled.
When he bent to kiss that impudent peak,
Alicia’s surprised gasp of pleasure rewarded him. He drew harder on the nipple and ran his hand down the smooth plain of her belly to the feathery curls at the juncture of her thighs.

She was already damp. Her musky scent lay heavy on the air. This slow seduction worked its magic on his wife, too. He took her other nipple between his lips and bit softly at the crest. She shifted restlessly under his hand and buried her fingers
in his hair, urging him to continue.

He needed no further encouragement. But as he licked and bit and suckled, as his hands roamed her silky skin, some trace of reason lingered. She wasn’t ready yet, however her touch and sighs spurred him to further depredations. He wanted to be inside her more than he wanted his next breath. But this night wasn’t about what he wanted, but about showing her the pleasure a man and a woman could find
together.
To his everlasting regret, he’d never given her that.

Her mouth kept luring him back. He had ten years of kisses to make up for. Each kiss was hotter and sweeter than the last. He couldn’t get enough of her taste.

“
You’re wearing too many clothes,” she said in a broken voice. “Whereas you’re dressed just right,” he said with a low laugh,

kissing her breast again.

She’d been lovely as a girl, fresh and dewy and as rich with promise as a furled rose. But the voluptuous woman in his arms now took his breath away.

With every second, he felt her confidence
increase.
When she dragged his shirt up from his breeches, her caresses on his naked back shot lightning behind his eyes.

“
Sebastian, I want to see you.”

He’d never heard her sound like this, choked and frantic and

starving for him. In those joyless, mean little encounters in his bed at Balmuir House, she hadn’t spoken at all.
And then she’d cried.
This woman claimed her right to sample every pleasure.

He couldn’t remain immune to her pleading. He rolled off the bed and tore his clothes away, hurling them into the corner.
Then he paused, wondering if he should have been more circumspect.
Would his rampant nakedness terrify his wife?

When she was a girl, his unabashed maleness had frightened her. He’d come to her in the dark, and even then what he’d done had revolted her. Could that have changed?

She slid up against the headboard, making no pretense at modesty by covering herself with the sheet. Dear Lord, she was a sight to set a man’s passions afire.
Her face was flushed
with eagerness and curiosity, her lips were full and red, her body was a symphony of curves and hollows. Her golden hair cascaded around her shoulders, teasingly covering one breast and leaving the other bare. Kinvarra felt himself grow harder, larger, needier.

Her eyes widened as her inspection continued down past his chest and belly. Hell, what would he do if she stopped him now?

Could he stop?

Yes, something inside him insisted. For
Alicia, he could stop.

“
Magnificent,”
she murmured, her eyes glinting blue fire
under their

heavy lids.

Her smile glowed with such anticipation that his foolish heart crashed inside his chest. She’d always been able to confound him with a mere word.
A
decade without her hadn’t changed that.

She stretched out one hand in invitation.
To his astonishment, she wasn’t shaking.
All trace of her earlier uncertainty had vanished.

“
Come to me, my husband.”