She shivered.
What would that feel like? To touch?
She licked her lips and got so lost in her own imagination that she didn’t realize he’d turned and was watching her.
“Naomi?”
She lifted her gaze to his and her insides tightened at what she saw there.
Lust?
But then it was gone. She’d imagined it. She must have. And she could chalk the sudden bout of her own physical yearnings up to the changes her body was going through. This unfortunately wasn’t the first time she’d caught herself doing this.
If this unsavory habit wasn’t caused by the physical changes her body was going through, what kind of a woman would she be? And if she had seen lust, then what kind of man would that make Luke? Reluctant to analyze these questions, she shook her head and smiled cheerfully. “Sorry. Excuse me?”
“Hand me one of those rags?”
“Oh, oh. Yes.” She scooped one off the floor and approached the ladder. What she failed to take into consideration was that, when she handed it up to him, her face would be embarrassingly close to what she’d been ogling moments before.
Heat flushed up her neck.
“Are you all right?” He’d bent down to peer at her closely. Lost for a moment in the sky blue of his eyes, the memory of him rowing her across the pond last spring popped into her head. Last spring, without fail, he had treated her with respect and concern.
She had liked him.
He hadn’t been as flamboyant as Arthur, but she had liked Luke very much.
When he’d taken her out on the water, she’d wanted him to kiss her. How had she forgotten that?
“Naomi?”
Dismayed at the turn of her own thoughts, she practically threw the rag at him and then stumbled backward. “It’s… hot in here. I think I’m just a little overheated.”
“I’ll get you some water.” He was narrowing his eyes now as he climbed down, the leak momentarily forgotten.
“No. Don’t bother.” She backed toward the door, refusing to meet his gaze. “I’ll check in with Ester and get it myself. Please, don’t concern yourself. I’ll be right back.” Or not at all. Not, at least, until she could get these inclinations under control.
“Perhaps you ought to lie down for a spell,” he suggested.
“Yes. Yes.” Anything to curtail these yearnings. Because the thoughts that had begun to cross her mind were unthinkable.
She missed the intimacy she’d experienced withArthur. That was all.
That was all!
Naomi rushed out of the room and into the foyer and, instead of seeking out Ester, scurried into her bedchamber and immediately closed the door behind her.
If she was to be strictly honest with herself, the facet she’d loved most about her marriage had been the lovemaking. It was nothing she could ever admit to anyone. Whenever she’d overheard older ladies speak of the marriage bed, they’d complained that it was something to be endured, to be tolerated. It was meant only for the creation of children.
But… Arthur had awakened something inside of her and now…
Now he was gone.
Standing with her back pressed against the door, Naomi moved the hand resting on her belly to just beneath her breast.
“Arthur,”she whispered, imagining it was her husband’s hand. Only he’d also used his mouth. He’d laved his tongue gently around the tip. He’d been learning what she liked. Both of them had been. The first few months of marriage, her husband had only begun to allow her a glimpse into the pleasures they could share with one another.
And then he’d left.
