AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He brushed a kiss across each of her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids. The urgent need for climax had retreated to a muted simmer. His primary emotion at the moment was quiet contentment. And for a man unused to examining something as hazy and insubstantial as feelings, it was a significant shock to realize that the woman in his arms was as necessary to him as breathing.
The knowledge was exhilarating and scary as hell.
He pushed her over onto her back and urged her legs around his waist. Her skin was soft and luminous in the unforgiving light of day. What would it have been like to be her pioneer husband, bound inside a tiny log cabin for weeks at a time as blizzards howled?
Isolation. Nothing to diffuse the interaction between male and female. Nothing to run interference when one of them was in a bad mood. Nowhere to escape when tempers flared.
He’d have taken her night after night, wrapped in a world of only two. And it would have been as close to heaven as a man like him was liable to get. He’d said Jesse didn’t deserve her, but the truth was, neither did he.
She smiled at him, a secretive curve of soft pink lips that made him shake. Her gaze was slumberous. The look of a woman who had been well loved. Any man in his right mind would move heaven and earth to make her his. He’d grown up believing that everyone and everything had a price. But not Bryn. She had never asked for a single thing.
And he wanted to give her the world.
He moved in her, wanting to imprint his touch on her heart so that she could never forget him.
She dug her heels into his lower back. “Whatever happens, Trent, I’ll always remember this.” Her gaze was solemn, melancholy.
He nuzzled her neck. “I’ll work it out. Trust me.”
A slight frown appeared between her perfectly arched brows. “Work what out?”
He withdrew almost completely and chuckled when she said an unladylike word. He dropped his head forward, resting his brow against hers. “Mac. Jesse. Allen. The letters. You’ll see.”
She tightened her legs around his waist with surprising strength. “Less talk. More action.”
He tried to laugh, but it came out as a groan. He let it snap…the cord he’d bound so tightly around his need, his control. Again and again, he entered her, holding back until he heard her sharp cry and felt her body spasm around his rigid flesh. And then he buried his face in her neck and leaped into the unknown, feeling only the soft pillow of her breasts and knowing that there was nowhere else he wanted to be.
Sweat dried on their skin. The sun moved lower, brushing the mountains with gold and lavender.
He came so close to blurting out his love for her. But the habits of a lifetime were deeply ingrained. Never operate from a position of weakness. Make a plan. He’d get everything worked out in his head, and then he’d tell her. When the time was right.
Bryn was so silent and still beneath him, he felt panic tighten his throat.
He sat up and gathered her in his arms, warming her skin with his hands. The words rushed from his mouth, shocking the hell out of him. “Marry me, Bryn. Make Allen my son.”
Thirteen
Over the years Bryn had entertained dozens of fantasies in which Trent declared his everlasting love for her, went down on one knee to offer her a ridiculously extravagant ring and begged her to marry him. None of those scripts bore any resemblance to what had just happened.
She stood up awkwardly, painfully aware of her nudity, and scrambled to pick up her clothes and put them on. In one quick glance she saw that Trent was frowning. No less magnificent and commanding in the buff than he was fully clothed, he stood with his hands on his hips.
When she was ready, she folded her arms across her waist and made herself look at him. She managed to swallow against a tight throat. “Thank you for asking,” she said quietly, “but, no.” He hadn’t technically asked her at all. It had been more autocratic than that. An order. The mighty Trent Sinclair telling a minion what to do.
She hated that she was suspicious of his motives, but her instinct for self-preservation had kicked into high gear. She couldn’t be one of his acquisitions. Her heart couldn’t bear it.
Trent’s scowl was black enough to make a grown man cower, but Bryn held her ground. His jaw was clenched so hard, the words bit out in sharp staccatos. “Why the hell not?”
