“She’s turned me into a bloody eunuch.” Frustrated, he drained the last of his ale.
And then he thought of Maggie’s words, “You prefer mulled wine...”
Cursing again, he set the tankard back on the table. How had she done it? How had she wormed her way into his carefully guarded heart?
Over and over, he could feel her against him. Hear her murmurs in his ear as her breath stirred against his skin. Closing his eyes, he savored the memory.
And then he cursed it.
He would banish her from his thoughts. Aye.
“Braden?”
He almost jumped out of his chair at the sound of her voice coming from behind him.
Turning, he saw her standing in the shadows. “I thought you would be in bed by now.”
“I can’t sleep.” She paused at the table, turned to face him, then leaned her buttocks against the table’s edge so that she could see him while they talked.
Braden kept his gaze on the tankard. He didn’t dare look into those deep amber eyes lest they captivate him, and make him forget what he must, or more to the point, must not do to her.
“What is on your mind?” he asked with a nonchalance he didn’t feel.
“I was thinking of something you said to me earlier.”
She paused, and when it became apparent that she wasn’t going to finish her thought, Braden made the mistake of looking up at her.
His heart ached at the confusion and sorrow he saw in her eyes. Her gaze on the floor beside his chair, she had her brows knitted.
“And what was that?” Braden prompted her, in spite of the voice in his head that told him to leave the matter be.
Maggie looked up and pinned him with a probing stare. “You said that you would love to have a family of your own. Did you mean that?”
His gut wrenched. So, that was what was on her mind. She was now looking for him to marry her. And he couldn’t do that. Nay, he mustn’t.
“Now, Maggie, don’t be thinking?—”
“I’m not thinking of marrying you,” she said sharply, cutting him off. “I am not the woman for you, and we both know it. I just wanted to know if you meant what you said. Do you want children?”
He couldn’t imagine why she would ask such a thing.
Unbidden, an image of a child popped into his mind. One with her mother’s curly russet hair and her father’s bright hazel eyes. He could see the child so plainly in his mind, hear her gentle laughter as she ran, that one would think she was real.
And worse than the image was the sudden need he found within his heart to make that child a reality.
“Nay!” he roared, wanting to push the thought out of his mind as quickly as possible.
Maggie blanched.
“I see.” She pushed herself away from the table. And him.
Braden reached out to take her hand and keep her at his side. “Maggie, wait, I didn’t mean that.”
“Aye, you did.” She pulled her hand away from his. “I heard the passion of your denial all too plainly.”
“It wasn’t directed at your question.” It had been directed at his own senseless need.
“Then what was it directed at?”
