The Winter Wife (7 page)

“
Damn it,
Alicia…” He drew in a shuddering breath and the hand on the chair tightened until his knuckles shone white in the flickering firelight.

“
I’m not…I’m not attempting to seduce you,” she said, and suddenly wondered whether that was the truth.

What in heaven’s name was wrong with her? Surely she couldn’t want to revisit the messy humiliations of her married life. Memories of those fumbling, painful encounters had tormented her since she’d left him.

Kinvarra’s long, lean body was as taut as a violin string.
Tension vibrated in the air.

He closed his eyes as if he was in agony. “I know. Dear God, I know.” His chest rose as he sucked in a shuddering breath. He opened his eyes again and stared at her, his gaze blazing across the distance between them. “But if I get into that bed, there’s no way I’ll keep my

hands to myself.
And I don’t want to hurt you again.
I couldn’t bear to hurt you again
.”

She was appalled to hear the naked pain in his voice.
This wasn’t the man she remembered.
That man hadn’t cared that his passion had frightened and bewildered his inexperienced bride.

This man sent excitement skittering through her veins and made her burn for his touch. She’d never felt like this. It was like balancing on the edge of a cliff over a wild sea. Dear God, was she likely to end up smashed on the rocks below?
The answer didn’t matter. It was too late for caution.

On unsteady arms, she raised herself against the headboard and

drew in a breath to calm her rioting heartbeat.
Another breath. She took

the last rash step into infinity.

Her voice was quiet but steady. “Then be gentle, Sebastian.”

Chapter
Three

KINVARRA’S GRIP
ON the chair turned punishing. Good God, he must be mistaken in what he’d heard.
Alicia couldn’t be offering herself. In all these many years, she’d never offered herself. Even in

the beginning, he’d always had to take. He’d grown to hate it, whatever physical pleasure he found in her arms, so that when she’d finally begged for a separation after those wretched months together, he’d almost been relieved.

Of course, he hadn’t realized then that his agreement would lead to ten excruciating years without his wife.

She sat up against the bedhead, pale against the dark wood, and watched him with a glow in her blue eyes that in any other woman he’d read as blatant sexual interest. She’d taken her beautiful golden hair down and it flowed
around her shoulders, catching the firelight.
She’d become his fantasy
Alicia.
The unforgettable woman who had haunted every empty day he’d endured without her.
The woman she’d never been for him, even when they’d lived together.

“
Sebastian?”
A
faint frown drew her fine
eyebrows together.

He should say something. His continuing silence must make her nervous.

“
You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said in a constricted voice, wondering why the hell he tried to talk her out of fulfilling
his dearest hopes.

He’d missed
Alicia since the day she left him. Now she was near enough to touch.
And for once she didn’t seem to loathe him.
All

his dearest, most outlandish hopes came to fruition. He’d always been blackguard enough to want more from their meeting tonight than mere conversation. One bed and a cold night and
Alicia in an

uncharacteristically amiable mood all seemed to augur at the very least a physical respite from his damnable longing.

Then he’d remembered those fraught encounters at Balmuir House. However much he wanted her, he couldn’t bring himself to inflict himself upon her again. So he’d consigned himself to an excruciating night in the chair.
That was less excruciating than seeing her now and knowing that she’d accept him into her bed—and realizing that in his desperation, he was only too likely to disgust and frighten her again.

She raised her chin, an act of bravado familiar in the young
Alicia. The memory made his gut clench with poignant yearning. He’d hurt her before. He couldn’t bear to hurt her again. He must stay away from her, for both their sakes.

An uncertain smile curved her lips as the silence extended into awkwardness. “Tonight you chased my lover away. Honor compels you to offer recompense.”
Then in a low voice, “Sebastian, once long ago, you wanted me. I know you did.”

He swallowed and forced his response from a tight throat. “I still do.”

She raised trembling hands to the buttons on her mannish ensemble. An ensemble that looked anything but mannish on her lush figure. She’d filled
out from the girl he’d married. Delightfully so.

Her traveling garb was cut like a riding habit and the white shirt under the dark jacket was suitably modest, buttoned high at the throat. Even so, when her fumbling fingers
loosened that top button to reveal a couple of inches of skin, every drop of moisture dried from his mouth and his heart flung
itself against his ribs.

The Earl of Kinvarra was accounted a brave man. But he immediately recognized the emotion holding him paralyzed as ice-cold fear.

Tonight provided a miraculous second chance to heal the breach

in his marriage.
A
gift of love for Christmas Eve. But if he hurt
Alicia again, he’d never have another opportunity to bring her back to him.

He needed patience, self-command, insight to seduce his wife into pleasure.
Yet he burned hotter than a devil in hell.
What was he to do? He wanted her too much.
And wanting her too much would destroy

the cobweb of intimacy building between them in this quiet room.
An

intimacy woven from soft conversation and new understanding.

When his family had presented him with such a beautiful bride just after his twenty-first
birthday, he’d been confident
that he and
Alicia would find
happiness. Instead every coupling had been furtive and soured with shame, accomplished in darkness and ending with his

wife sobbing into the pillow. No wonder he’d lost his taste for forcing himself upon her, although to his endless torment, his desire had never waned.

Desire still roared inside him.

Her shirt fell open another fraction to show a delicate line of collarbone and a shadowy hint of her breasts. Her stare unwavering, her hand dropped to the next button.

“
Stop,” he said hoarsely.

Her hand paused in its downward progress. “Stop?”
The self- consciousness that flooded
her face carved a rift in his heart. “You said—”

Shaking his head, he finally
released the chair. He flexed
his fingers to restore the blood flow.
“And I meant it. But let’s do this properly.”

Her hand fell away from her shirt to lie loose in her lap. “Shouldn’t I

take my clothes off?”

Dear God, she was going to kill him before she was done.

He closed his eyes and prayed for control as recollections of

touching
Alicia’s naked body crammed his mind and turned him as hard as an oak staff.
When he opened them, she watched him as if he acted like a madman. She wasn’t far wrong.

“
We’ve got plenty of time.” He stepped toward the bed, his hands opening and closing at his sides as he fought the urge to seize her and tumble her back against the mattress. “Why rush things?”

“
Kinvarra…” she said unsteadily. She might have invited his attentions, but he caught the flash
of uncertainty in her eyes. He didn’t underestimate the courage she’d needed to ask him to join her.

“
You called me Sebastian before.”

“
You weren’t staring at me as if you wanted to eat me then.” She clutched at the sheet although she didn’t pull it higher. He was close enough now to notice the wild flutter
of her pulse at her delicate throat and the way her erratic breathing made her swelling breasts rise and

fall.

“
Believe me, I’d love to.”
The urge to rush, to grab, to possess before she changed her mind thundered in his veins but he resisted its demands. He had to rein himself in or the promise of joy would disintegrate to dust.

Her scent washed over him, floral
soap and something honeyed

and enticing that was the essence of
Alicia. In all this time, he’d never forgotten. He drew a deep breath, taking that delicious fragrance deep into his lungs.

Slowly, as if any untoward movement might scare her away, he reached for the hand that crushed the sheet.
At the contact, she jerked and released a choked gasp.

“
Don’t be afraid,
Alicia,” he murmured, feeling her trembling in his grasp. “I won’t hurt you.”

He hoped to hell he spoke true. His grip tightened even as he told himself he needed to be careful with her.

“
I’m…I’m not afraid,” she said on a thread of sound.

He laughed softly and lowered himself to sit on the bed, his hip resting against the blankets over her legs. “Liar.”

She blushed.
As a girl, her blushes had charmed him.
They still did, he discovered.

“
I’m nervous.
That’s not the same as afraid.”

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. He felt her shiver and her eyes darkened with unmistakable response.
Turning her hand over, he kissed her palm.
As he heard her breath catch, desire spurred him to take more, satisfy his pounding need.
With difficulty
he beat back his arousal.

She remembered him as a selfish
lover. He needed to vanquish those bleak memories and replace them with bliss. His voice deepened into sincerity. “Alicia, trust me.”

He held her gaze with his. Doubt, fear, and something that might have been reluctant hope swirled in her eyes. He felt tension in the

hand he held. In aching suspense, he waited for her to agree. Surely she couldn’t be so merciless as to deny him now.

The silence extended.
And extended.