“Good,” she said sleepily.
He shifted, and the movement dislodged his softening cock. He withdrew slowly, flopping over onto his side. He should feel guilty, but he didn’t. He felt satisfied and relaxed. Happy. The emotion was so foreign he had trouble recognising it.
He rolled onto his back and his eyes caught the portrait of Cat and the boys above the fireplace. From this angle the picture was a series of shapes and colours, but he didn’t need to see it to know what the images were. They were seared into his brain. And for the first time, looking at it didn’t bring pain.
Instead, he was conscious of a warm sense of affection. He loved her, he always would, but perhaps he was finally accepting that what they had shared could never be restored, but might be replaced by something different? He hardly dared to hope. He turned his head as Aihan rolled towards him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder and her hand on his chest.
He clasped that hand and squeezed it. He would investigate the possibility of that embassy journey; if he could get her included, she could go home. He looked at her dark head beneath his chin and wrapped an arm round her thin shoulders, conscious of a vague ache in his chest at the notion of her going away. But if it would make her happy, he would do it. The leasthe could do for what she had just given him. His first taste of happiness in six years.
He drifted a bit, in the borderland between sleeping and waking. They should get up off the floor and go to bed, but he was too boneless to move. By his foot, Hector whuffled in his sleep, and Gussie snored by his head. The pack only lacked the boys to be complete, he thought nonsensically.
When the clock on the mantle struck twelve, it woke him with a jerk, and he blinked in the rosy darkness. The candles had guttered out and the fire had banked to a warm glow of embers. He nudged Aihan, who was still draped across his chest.
“Lass, we should go to bed.”
“Hm,” she stirred, raising her head and blinking. “Huh,” she muttered, sitting up. He rose and pulled her to her feet, her crumpled skirts falling round her ankles as she leaned drunkenly against him, obviously still half asleep.
“Wake up, Hana,” he said gently. “Bed.”
“Aye.” She raised her head and blinked at him, smiling. “Goodnight, Mac.” She reached up, kissed him on the lips, and wended her way towards the door.
He watched her go, his heart oddly full of conflicting feelings that were by far too complex to disentangle right now. He checked the fire, called the dogs, and made his way to his own room. He stripped, washed, and crawled into bed with the dogs at his feet, collapsing onto the mattress with a contented sigh.
Chapter Eleven
Col rose early to take the dogs for their morning ramble, feeling more refreshed than he had in a long time. He returned to the house intent on writing to the British government to enquire about the embassy to China. It was his fault she was stranded here, and his conscience demanded that if it was within his power to ensure she could get home, he must do all he could to make that happen.
After breakfast, he saddled his horse for a long overdue visit to his tenants. He’d received several requests for assistance with repairs and damage from recent floods, and he visited each to authorise payments for repairs, settle a dispute between neighbours over a lost pig and a goat, and even to help with the repair of a roof. By the end of the day, he was tired but content and looking forward to returning home.
The emotions were both familiar and foreign. This was the way he used to feel when he had Cat to come home to. Since her death, his life had become grey and bleak, devoid of joy. Even the simple pleasure of a good day’s physical labour helping a grateful tenant had eluded him. Everything had felt like a chore.Could last night have made such a difference to my previously bleak existence?Seemingly it had.
Riding home in the mellow light of late afternoon, he gave some serious thought to whether he should allow a repeat of last night’s activities. His cock stirred in his breeches as he recalled the details, a bit of a blur at the time, yet visceral moments came back to him in heated clarity.
Losing himself in the delight of kissing her. The shock of her hand on his cock and the equally shockingly delicious feeling of being encased in tight, wet heat as she engulfed his cock with her entrance and forced her body down over his. He caught his breath with the memory, uttering a low moan. His horse’s ears twitched, and he patted the animal absently in reassurance.
Her boldness had both shocked and delighted him. And he recalled now her statement about using a sponge, which showed that she had planned the whole thing. She’d meant to seduce him and had succeeded. He had not resisted. It would have been beyond him to do so.
She was an experienced woman who knew what she wanted and grabbed it with both hands. The contrast with women of his own culture, so protected and hedged about with strictures and prohibitions, admittedly for their own protection, was stark indeed.
Recalling her bold, unabashed passion made him hard as iron. She had wanted him, quite desperately, it seemed. She had been so wet when he touched her, and she came so easily, freely indulging her passion, taking what she wanted, not waiting for him to orchestrate it.
Any uncertainty he might have felt about engaging in intercourse with a woman after so long an abstinence, was swept away on the tide of her passion. He’d not had time for nerves or uncertainty. She whipped him up into a passionate frenzy of need, before he could even think.
He couldn’t pretend he didn’t want to do it again, in a bed, without clothes to get in the way, but whether theyshouldwasanother question. If she were to return to her home, was it fair to either of them to indulge a passion that might make parting difficult? Could he maintain sufficient detachment to protect himself from the hurt of loss all over again?
Because he didn’t think he could bear that again. Cat had snatched his heart from his chest on first sight and taken it, he’d thought, to her grave. But the organ seemed to be learning to function again in spite of that. He was unsure what that meant. If he came to care for Aihan, could he bear to give her up?
He had no immediate answers to any of this, but concluded that the more prudent course of action was to avoid any more intimacy. But he was ruefully aware that his body did not agree. He wanted her again, fiercely. If she tried to seduce him tonight, was he strong enough to resist?
The counter-argument, his body proposed, was that it was good for him. He felt marvellous. Where was the sense in denying himself something that felt so damned good and did no one any harm? If she continued to use protection there was no risk of getting her with child, a nightmare he couldn’t face. She emphatically was not making him responsible for her feelings, and that was a priceless breath of maturity. He had enough trouble being responsible for his own. If she wanted him, and she had made it clear that she did, was it futile, even selfish, to resist something he also wanted?
But perhaps he was getting ahead of himself. Perhaps having got what she wanted last night, she wouldn’t want a repeat? She had left him to go to her bed alone. That surprised him. He had thought perhaps they would retire together. And this morning over breakfast she had behaved quite normally, nothing particularly flirtatious in her manner and nothing awkward either. Perhaps she had scratched her itch and didn’t need him anymore? The notion was somewhat deflating.
His conclusion, reached as he dismounted his horse and unbuckled and removed the saddle, was that he would wait and see what she did and act accordingly.
Aihan had missed him. Learning from Fergus that Mac had gone to visit his tenants for the day, she had tried not to mind that he hadn’t told her himself that he wasn’t going to be home for luncheon. As it was, she didn’t find out until the meal was served and his place at the table remained empty.
Surprisingly, with their father away, the boys were on their best behaviour. But perhaps that had something to do with the lesson she had taught that morning. With the mattress available, she had taught them a couple of throws. She chose Rory to demonstrate on, and the lad was stunned to find himself on his back repeatedly, no matter what he did to try to evade or anticipate her actions.
