There was a big fireplace in the main room with a settee covered in a dusty cloth, set on a thick rug. A small cupboard was in the back corner on the opposite side of the room and a table with just one chair. The door on the back wall was closed, but she assumed it led to the bedroom.
Simon reached out and she jumped as his hand closed over her forearm. In the close and the dark, he suddenly felt so big next to her. His presence seemed to suck the air out of the room.
The room where they were alone. No one would be coming for them in this mess of weather.
“God, James must be beside himself,” she whispered.
Simon bent his head and his hand slipped from her arm. “I’m sure he is, but if he’s noticed that I’m gone, as well, I hope he knows I would not let any harm befall you if I could prevent it. At any rate, if the rain stops we’ll go back as soon as we can.”
She nodded as a great shiver racked her. Now that they were not moving, the cold seemed to permeate her entire being.
He frowned. “I’ll start a fire. I think I saw wood under the awning around the side of the house. It should be dry.” He crossed the room and bent to clear out some of the old ash collected in the long-neglected fireplace. “You go into the bedroom and look for all the blankets you can find. Then undress.”
She stared at him, unblinking, as shock washed over her. “Undress?” she repeated.
His gaze lifted and glittered in the dim light. “You’ll freeze if you don’t. We need to get your clothes dry, and they won’t dry with you in them. So find a few blankets, wrap yourself up as best you can and leave your clothes in the bedroom by the fireplace in there.”
She shifted. “But what about—”
He rose then, in one fluid movement, and reached out to catch her damp upper arms. That he touched her while he was talking to her about stripping out of her clothes made what he said all the more powerful. She caught her breath, her words screeching to a halt because she could no longer recall how to formulate them.
“Meg,” he said, laughing a little, though she thought it might be a bit nervous of a laugh. “Until you are safe, I’m going to stay wet. And I’m cold. So for my sake, stop arguing and get undressed.”
She worried her lip a bit and then nodded. “All right.” She turned away from his touch and moved toward the bedroom in the back of the cottage. As she touched the dusty handle, she turned back toward him. “Simon?”
“Yes,” he said, his tone filled with frustration that told her she wasn’t moving fast enough.
“I’m—I’m sorry.”
He stared at her a long moment, then motioned to the door. “Go on. We’ll have plenty of time to talk once we’re both warm.”
She left him, her hands shaking, not just from the cold but from the notion that within moments she would be naked with him. Naked with the man she loved more than anything in this world.
And she had no idea what would happen next.
Simon stood in front of the fire that now glowed hot and bright in the main room of the cottage. It helped a little, but he was still wet to the bone and cold. Of course, he also had a cockstand that rubbed painfully against the front of his soaked trousers.
“That’s a first,” he muttered.
Cold and wet normally weren’t normally conducive to such a thing, but here he was. Hard as steel, listening to Meg get undressed through the thin wooden door. Just a tiny barrier between him and smooth skin, long legs, open arms that he could...
“No,” he managed to remind himself through clenched teeth. “No.”
The door behind him opened at last and he forced himself to turn and look as Meg exited the bedroom. His mouth instantly went dry. She was wrapped in a thin gray blanket, in a rather poor toga style. Her hair was half down, tendrils of it teasing beneath the edge of the covering and pressing wet curls against all the skin that was exposed to him.
And there was so much skin. Most of her shoulders were bare, her back was bare, her neck was bare, as were the swell of her breasts that peeked up over the edge of the blanket. And then there was leg. So much smooth, glorious leg. The blanket only reached to just above her knee and he stared at those legs.
“Simon?” she said, her voice tense.
He forced his gaze back to her face. “Yes. Good.”
She wrinkled her brow at his response and came farther into the room, toward the warmth of the fire. Toward him and his raging cockstand, which was now even worse, if that were to be believed.
“I-I left another blanket on the bed for you,” she said.
He nodded and stepped back from her. His tone was sharp as he repeated, “Good.”
He walked away without saying anything else, only pausing to grab the stack of wood he’d placed near the bedroom door so he could build a fire in there, as well.
