Bollocks. He had said that.
“Also,” her voice was low, “I was worried you might think I didn’t trust you….”
Gods. That hadn’t occurred to him. Although it should have after the way she’d frozen in his arms.
“Do you trust me?” he asked, regretting the words as soon as they were out. The answer was important. Too important. He desperately wanted her to trust him. And that need unsettled him. Made him wish he’d just avoided the subject entirely. And he truly did not want to know what it would feel like if she said no. “You don’t need to—”
“Yes, I trust you. Absolutely.”
Gods. She never did, or said, what he expected. And this, her trust, meant so much to him. She didn’t trust easily, but she had given it to him. And more than anything, he wanted to be worthy of it.
He pulled her closer to his side and started moving them forward once more, avoiding thinking about the feelings swirling through him by concentrating on finding them somewhere safe to warm up.
It took about an hour for him to find what he was looking for. A huge spreading oak tree with thick, twining roots, standing a few feet in from the tiny deer path. He quickly dug out the leaves and twigs that had fallen into the hollow formed between the roots and trunk while Lucilla helped as best she could with her shaking fingers, her body shivering and teeth chattering.
And then came the difficult part. He had to get her warm. And there was only one way to do it.
He cleared his throat. “You need to take off your clothes.”
Smooth.His beast chuckled, and he wished he could take a swipe at it. He hurried to explain, “I will too… ah… we have to get you warm.”
“What about you?”
“My beast, scales… ah, I’m warm enough.”
“O-kay,” she replied slowly.
Well. She hadn’t run screaming.
“We have a couple of hours before dawn. We can rest here, try to warm you up, and then get moving again. If you stay like that, you’ll get sick.”
“Okay,” she said again. But she didn’t move.
It occurred to him that this was probably the first time she’d ever taken her clothes off in front of a man, and he wanted to kick himself for how blunt he was being. He was the charming one, damn it.
Well, partly he wanted to kick himself. Mostly, he wanted to start taking her clothes off for her. Ever since he’d seen her floating in the water like that, he’d had a potent need to touch her. To feel his skin on hers. To know that she was alive and safe.
Oh, please. You’ve wanted to touch her since the moment you first saw her.
Several different ideas for touching her as he helped her to warm up immediately played through his mind, but he forced them away.
“Sorry, I’ll turn around.” He faced away into the dark forest and peeled off the damp, shredded, and bloody remains of what used to be a decent shirt. He laid it over a branch to dry and pulled off his boots.
Behind him, he could hear the soft rustle of clothes being stripped off and hung over the branches, and it took everything he had not to turn around and watch.
Not that he needed to. His imagination went mad supplying him with a detailed vision of exactly how those soft curves would glow in the moonlit darkness. How her hips would flare out and then taper into her narrow waist. How the bindings would fall away from her heavy breasts, nipples hard in the night air. How her pulse would speed up as he ran his hands over that silky skin.
Fuck it all. He ripped off his breeches, desperately wishing the cold would ease the massive erection he could feel growing with every passing second.
He lowered himself across the front of the hollow, facing the tree, and then looked back at her over his shoulder, keeping his eyes resolutely focused on her face.
He studiously ignored the way she wrapped her tattooed arms around herself, red-and-black ink contrasting with pale skin. Pushing her soft breasts even higher. He wouldn’t look down.
Wouldn’t. Look. Down.
“You want me in there with you? Between you and the tree?” she asked. It was too dark to be sure, but he thought he could see a hint of red creeping up her cheeks.
“Yes.” It was all he could manage. And it was true. Sort of. He wanted her in many, many ways. But he would settle for holding her against him while she warmed up.
