He turned on his heel and walked—no, it was a march, a propermarch—out of the room.
Phoebe sat for a while, feeling calmer—far, far calmer—than she had before he’d come into the room. That was something to puzzle over at a later date, she decided, when she had moreenergy and wasn’t feeling as though her body was humming with the aftereffects of her emotional confession. She suspected that it would take reserves that she currently lacked to work through the idea that her husband had actually brought her comfort.
Strange, strange, strange.
Perhaps there was more to Aaron Warson than met the eye—and perhaps there was even more than what he revealed when they kissed.
And Phoebe decided that she was going to figure it out on her schedule, not his.
Aaron was having a wonderful dream.
This was unusual because typically his good nights of sleep were those in which he didn’t dream at all, given that his dreams were almost always vaguely horrific scenes of screaming and gore and the feeling of slippery boat decks beneath his feet.
It was never specific—there were no faces, no names, and Aaron, who could navigate from practically anywhere in the world just based on the stars, never knew where he was in them. But somehow that vagueness made the horror even worse, even more sickening. He often woke from those nightmares in a cold sweat, gasping, clutching at his own chest.
This one was similarly vague but in a way that was lovely. There was a soft warmth enveloping him, and instead of the bitter tang of blood, there was a dusty, floral scent like soap and rosewater. And instead of pain or the wracking grip of terror, his body felt a growing sensual pleasure that radiated from the heat pressing up on his middle.
Sleepily, Aaron reached around and felt his bed linens. Ugh, no, he was waking. He willed himself to return to sleep and that sweet, arousing smell, but something pricked at his senses, dragging him back to the land of the living.
With extreme reluctance, he opened his eyes.
And he saw his wife, standing at the side of his bed, her arms crossed and a smirk on her lips as she peered down at him.
Hm. He had been circumspect and reserved in reality; he was patient and had waited—was still waiting—for Phoebe to come to him.
But it seemed that his mind had provided for him.
“Wellthattook you quite long enough,” she said tartly. “I thought you were a soldier! You’re quite lucky I’m not an enemy, let me tell you that. I could have killed you a dozen times over.”
Aaron… wasn’t entirely certain that he wasn’t still dreaming. But surely, he had to be. She couldn’t really be here.
“Phoebe?” he said, squinting up at her. He raised a hand to her waist. She felt real. This was a great dream.
But, he thought, it could be better. He reached over and hauled her on top of him.
Yes. That was better. This dream had a great deal of potential.
Except…
He didn’t think he could have imagined the way the heavy fabric of her dressing gown coasted over the curve of her body where her hip met her thigh. And he didn’t feel that his dream Phoebe would let out such an alarmed little squeak.
Good Lord. This wasn’t a dream.
Which meant that his wife really was in his bedchamber—in hisbed.
Straddling him.
Because he had—Jesus bloody Christ—grabbed her and dragged her onto him.
Except… she wasn’t fighting to get off him. She was just still looking down at him with that same pert expression.
And goddamn him if that didn’t appeal to him far more than it ought.
Aaron had a fair bit of experience avoiding getting hard at an inopportune moment. Quarters on a ship were tight, even for officers, and it made for a mighty awkward command if the men you were ordering about saw one… swelling at the wrong moment.
Aaron put every ounce of that experience to bear as he realized that the warmth in his lap that had woken him was his wife’s…
Best to not finish that thought if he wanted to have any hope of achieving his goal.
