Pamela woke in the darkness to the unfamiliar sensation of an arm slung protectively over her waist and another body curled against hers. The body was warm. And hard. And separated from her naked skin by barriers of cloth. And decidedly male.
The fire had long since burned low in the grate, and it cast scarcely any light.
Not that she needed light to know who it was holding her in his arms, his even breaths coasting over her ear. She would know him by his scent, by the way he felt, by her body’s reaction to his. But more than that, she knew because her body was still tingling from making love with him earlier. She ached in places she hadn’t ached in years.
But more than that, she wanted.
Desire still resided low in her belly. Her sex still felt heavy and eager. Fulfilled and yet desperately wanting. Had she thought that taking Theo as her lover once would satisfy her? If so, her body was making a thorough liar of her as she lay there in the quiet stillness of the night, listening to the comforting sound of his rhythmic breaths and loving the way it felt to be so near to him.
As near as he would allow her.
For he had secrets aplenty, her lover. And one of them was the reason he refused to disrobe before her. She could only guess at why. When she had first married Bertie, he had been painfully shy. He’d spent the first year of their marriage hiding beneath a banyan under the cover of darkness. It had only been with much coaxing on her part that he had become comfortable with his body. They had both been virgins on their wedding night, and they had taught each other how to love. Finding pleasure together had been a great joy.
She didn’t think it was shyness, however, that was the reason Theo refused to remove his clothes. Indeed, there was nothing timid about him. His words, his touch, his voice, his kisses were all so very confident. So brazen and bold and commanding. He was a skilled lover who knew how to bring her to ecstasy, who took care and listened to her body when it told him what she liked.
Why then, would he hide himself away?
She yearned to ask, but everything about their relationship—if she dared even refer to it thus—was yet so new. So entirely unpredictable and unlike anything she’d ever known. So unlike herself, too.
“What are you thinking?” he murmured, his lips grazing her ear.
And to her shock, there was nary a hint of slumber in his voice, quite as if he had lain there with her in his arms for however many hours had passed whilst she slept.
“You’re awake,” she said stupidly, feeling suddenly shy herself, for she was naked beneath the counterpane.
After they’d made love, he had tended to her, cleaning her with a cloth and water from the basin on her rosewood table. And then, he had stripped her of her night rail and slid into bed beside her, wearing everything but his boots and his coat. He hadn’t even loosened the knot in his cravat.
“As are you.” He pressed a kiss to her temple, the gesture so tender that a strange new emotion came loose inside her.
She refused to examine it just yet. Too new. Everything was so different, so strange. Perhaps she would feel differently by morning light. For now, Theo was here, and he was hers, and that was all she would think of.
“I fell asleep, however,” she reminded him. “Have you not slept at all?”
“I rested.”
She noted the clever manner in which he had evaded her question. He was a man of so many mysteries she longed to unravel.
“Resting and slumbering are two different states,” she said tartly, taking care to keep her voice quiet so that it would not carry.
With so many guards traversing the halls and her brother’s chamber not far, she had no wish for suspicion to be raised.
She wanted these private moments alone with Theo while they lasted.
And if she were brutally honest with herself, she would admit that she never wanted them to end, even if the rational part of her mind knew they would. That they would have to.
“Are you worrying over me, Marchioness?” he asked, his voice teasing.
“Someone ought to,” she said, before thinking twice about her words, her assumptions. And then it occurred to her, in one shocking, terrible moment, that she had never asked him if he had anyone worrying over him. If he had someone. A wife, a lover, a betrothed. “Of course, for all I know, you have a legion of women worrying over you. It would hardly be surprising if you did.”
He kissed her cheek, his fingers lightly stroking her forearm beneath the covers. Bare skin on bare skin. “There are no other women, Pamela. There is only you.”
She believed him. And the way he said her name.Swoon.She felt like a young woman again instead of a widow fast approaching thirty years old.
“I should have asked sooner,” she forced herself to say. “What must you think of me? A proper widow who takes a lover within days of meeting him, who never asks—”
Gentle fingers caught her jaw, turning her face toward his, and his mouth covered hers, swallowing further rambling. Which was just as well. He kissed her deliciously, slowly, wonderfully, before taking his lips from hers.
“I think you are the most incredible woman I’ve ever met,” he said softly. “And I think I’m so damned fortunate you chose me as your lover.”
