‘Maybe.’
‘It was Eldric. He’s gotten better at wrestling since the last time I saw him.’
She didn’t like that he got hurt. But the longer she gazed, the more she noticed his past injuries. The jagged line across his forearm that matched the identical jaggedness of the thin strip across his stomach.
She hated that. Hated that he’d suffered, that she hadn’t been there to protect him, to help him as she should have. He loved her—he should have stayed here. Hadn’t he realised that when she’d punched him in the nose?
‘I am concerned for you.’
A small smile. ‘I’ll have you know he didn’t get another swipe at me, and I won’t let him.’
Another pause from him. His gaze was waiting. Watching.
The chemise wouldn’t be so easy to remove. It wasn’t only the laces at the side, but the fact that she’d have to lift it over her head. Her arms didn’t feel as if they’d work properly.
‘Hugh...’ she said, her voice not indicating any nervousness, but instead a whisper of something else. Desire. Longing. She wanted this. But her hands seemed incapable of completing this strange game they started.
‘I’m right here, Alice.’
She could see that. The flames danced behind him. The tips of his hair curled, the light blond shining in the fire’s light. His eyes a dark murky blue.
‘I don’t understand this.’
‘I know. I don’t either, and it’s not how I imagined I’d react.’
‘You’ve imagined this?’
A laugh, a chuckle—low, pained. ‘Over thousands of nights and hundreds of days.’
‘I don’t think I can do this. Shouldn’t you be here?’ She indicated in front of her. Directly in front of her.
‘I should. Yes, I should. But, just as you can’t seem to lift that material, I can’t seem to move from where I am.’
Something forlorn tugged through her then. Maybe they would always be separate. Maybe they had waited too long.
‘Why are we like this?’ she asked, fearing the answer, but needing it.
‘Because I want you too much. Always have. And it’s like a dream that we are even here.’
Warmth spread through her. ‘But I’m real. I’m here... I want you to kiss me. Like at Lyman’s.’
‘Don’t mention Lyman’s.’ He closed his eyes, shuddered. ‘It makes it worse if you mention that room. What I wanted to do to you. What I’m aching to begin now.’
Was that how it was for him? Did she affect him so much? She could see it in the way his gaze went distant and heated at the memory of what they had done.
And knowing he shuddered simply at the memory made everything easy again. She simply gripped her chemise and ripped it over her head.
His chest suddenly stilled before he shoved himself away from the fireplace and strode towards her.
His eyes didn’t roam over her naked frame. Instead each watchful gaze fell against her skin like his heavy steps across the floorboards. From her feet to her thighs to her hips to the indentation of her waist and breasts. More steps, until his eyes locked on her lips. On her eyes. Until he stood before her as she had commanded him to do.
‘Too long,’ he whispered. ‘Too much. You are more beautiful to me than I could ever dream.’
Warmed by his words, she grew restless and urged, ‘Please, Hugh, touch me. End this.’
‘Lie down,’ he said.
She didn’t hesitate—wouldn’t, since for every step she took back he stepped forward. When she sat he took the final step, but did not sit with her.
