He had intended only to comfort. He meant to stop her tears, not seduce her. Jamie dropped his hands to his side.Who am I kidding? I meant to take.He struggled to gather up the scattered pieces of his self-control and of the respect he owed her.
“Nora,” he breathed. “We need to think about this.”
Nora didn’t wantto talk. She didn’t want to think. He was her husband. He may leave eventually, but she would never have another. She knew that in her gut. After the horrors of Isabella’s disappearance, the interminable hours waiting for news, she needed his comfort. She needed to be his wife fully. She needed his touch. She wanted him now.
“Jamie, please,” she begged, “Don’t leave me like this. If you want your freedom later, I won’t hold you, but we’re married now. Let me be your wife, just for now.”
He stood still as stone, serious, and unbearably dear. He had notime to clean up, change clothes, or shave since the hunt for Isabella. With his beard stubble, rumpled shirt, and loosened neck cloth, he looked like her shabby major again. Her heart turned over. She loved him.
Exultation overwhelmed her body and soul. She dropped backward onto the bed. She sat upright and never took her eyes from his.
“Jamie,” she started again, clasping her hands together.
He stood in the shadows, her bedroom door closed behind him. “There’s no going back, Nora,” he said, his breathing ragged. “If we do this, there’s no going back. I won’t sleep alone any longer.”
She felt her face stretch into a smile that echoed her joy. “Of course not!” she said.
“I’m not finished. I can’t promise I’ll stay. You know that. You and Isabella have a life here. I, well, I have my own life to straighten out.”
Straighten out? What does he mean?She could help. She would make him see that later. She wouldn’t let him close her out.
“I promised you freedom. I mean it,” she said instead.
She watched his throat work to swallow. “If we’re going to carry what we’ve started to its conclusion, I need take better care. I’m not a ravening wolf,” he said. He took a step closer.
Edmund had never looked at her as if he could devour her, the way Jamie looked at her now. She should hate it, but she didn’t.
“I quite liked the ravening wolf,” she said past the lump in her throat.
Jamie shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it to a chair. A slow smile spread across his face. “I can raven if you like it,” he said. His shirt followed the jacket. He unbuttoned the fall of his trousers. Nora felt air against her eyes when she widened them. She couldn’t blink.
His hand stilled, and he took a step closer, and then two. Just as she thought he would reach for her, he sat down next to her.
“This might be easier without my boots,” he said and reached down to remove them. She watched him, mystified.
A moment later he chuckled deep in his throat. “Youknow, you stared at my feet just like that the day you came to my rooms to demand my services,” he said.
Nora broke her stare and bent to remove her slippers.
“You looked away that day, too,” he said, drawing her eyes back.
He slipped to the floor in front of her and brushed her hands aside.
“Let me,” he said, holding her eyes with his.
One warm hand slid under her skirt and up her leg. He untied the bow halfway up her calf, unwound the ribbons, and pulled off one of her slippers. He held her silk-clad foot in his hand, caressing the instep with his thumb.
She felt a little humming sound vibrate through her lips. He swiftly did the same to her other foot.
When he tipped her shoulder to turn her, she didn’t object. For a man with large hands, his fingers were nimble on the ties of her gown. His lips followed, kissing and licking from the back of her neck, down to the top of her corset cover, to her shoulder. Nora felt heat pool in her lower parts. Her breathing had become erratic. She began to remove the sleeves to her gown. He stopped her.
“I want to do it,” he said.
Jamie took her hand in his as if to negotiate an intricate step to a minuet and raised her to her feet. He kissed her fingers then looked her up and down with deep concentration.
“This first,” he said, sliding the gown off her shoulders and allowing it to drop. “And then this, I think.”
He made short work of the laces to her stays. Corset and cover disappeared under his skilled hands.
