Her entire body trembled. Tact had nothing to do with what she’d just done. That had been all lust.
His hand stroked along her hair again, and she realised belatedly that he was probably trying to quell her shaking. A laugh escaped her, though it quivered on the way out, and her nose stung.
Her intentions with seducing him had been to convince him to want her—all parts of her. She’d been certain that if he knew she would give him everything as a wife, then he would be content to take her back. Take up the reins of their life as though he had never let them drop. What she hadn’t anticipated from the act was this sense of vulnerability. As though he had cracked herchest open to reveal her still-beating heart. A violent sensation, though he had been nothing but gentle. And now she felt as though she were bleeding all over him.
She’d wondered what the sensation of love felt like, and now she wondered if it was this—thisfearof losing him, this overwhelming sense of being open when she had spent so long trying to close herself.
If this was love, she didn’t know if she wanted it.
She wasn’t sure if she could live without it.
“Talk to me,” he murmured. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”
She buried her face in his shoulder. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“To leave?” The hand stroking her hair stilled, holding her against him. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want you to decide I’m not worthy as a wife.”
“Cecy—”
“I know I’ve not always been . . .what you wanted—but if you give me a chance, I will make it up to you.”
“Cecily,” he said, attempting to ease back, but if he saw her face, all would be lost. “The problem was never that you aren’t what I want.”
“The problem has always been that I am not what you thought I could be.”
By his stillness, she knew she had found her mark. “All I ever wanted from you was your love, my darling.”
And in all their years, she had done nothing but deny him.
“Can you forgive me?”
“It’s already done.” He nuzzled the side of her face, warm lips brushing her ear. She squeezed her eyes tighter, knowing tears beckoned, but not wanting to cry after such an act, in case he thought she’d returned to her own ways, determined not to enjoy the things he offered her. “Can you forgive me?”
“Whatever for?”
“I meant to take my time with you. Take you inmybed.” He gave a wry, not entirely steady laugh. “This was not precisely that.”
“Iwantedyou to lose control,” she admitted, and this time, when she looked at him, she wasn’t afraid. “And I think—I think I don’t have to pretend that you are Odysseus.”
His breath released as though she’d punched his gut. “No?”
“You are my husband, and you love me.”
In the light, it appeared as though his eyes glistened. “Very much.”
“How do you know?”
Those tear-softened eyes searched hers for a moment, and then he urged her off his body. “Let me clean myself up and we can talk.”
Talk. A single word had never sounded so menacing before.
Still, she shuffled up against the pillow, watching as he lit a candle, the glow glinting off his silvering hair. Twenty years separated them, and she had once thought it an impediment, but now she admired the wisdom it gave him. The patience. She’d never appreciated what a gift his love was, no matter how foolishly bestowed. A man of her own age, a man ten years his junior, might have given up on her already.
But here he was, standing in this sparsely decorated room, cleaning himself with a washcloth. With a sigh, he abandoned his nightshirt entirely, tossing it to the side of the room and returning to her naked. This was—surely it couldn’t be the first time she’d seen him without his clothes, but she’d never appreciated it before. The strong lines of his shoulders, the way his curling, dark chest hair greyed the same as his hair. The softness around his waist that she’d felt under his nightshirt but had never truly seen until now; when they’d married, she suspected that he’d been made up a little differently. Four yearshad taken their toll on his body, but as he approached her, she reached out her hands.
He watched her gravely as she rested her palm against his heart, its beat a little elevated, and rested the other on the rounded curve of his stomach. Underneath, his length lay limp and spent under a still-dark thatch of hair. Though, as she watched, it appeared to thicken slightly.
