“’Tis just dreams,” I whispered. “I can’t remember them. I can’t control that.”
“Nay, you can’t control the deepest desires of your heart. Isthatwhat this is? Is ithimyou think of?” He was pacing now, highly agitated. He ran his hand through his hair, grabbing it in a fistful. “I’d heard of your broken heart before we wed, aye. Some stable boy who’d been banished to Edinburgh. I’d heard the story of you father’s refusal, your sorrow—all of it. I chose to treat it as the gossip I thought it to be.”
My husband approached me, frustration radiating from his big, battle-sculpted body. His hair was in disarray and his strength a visceral presence. But I didn’t flinch back from him. I knew by now that he wouldn’t hurt me. Over time, as this realization had taken hold, my body seemed to have adjusted to the knowledge with odd effect. As though the little reservoirs where the fear had once lurked were now simmering with understanding. With heat and passion. With soft-edged lust.
Kade stood before me, ferocious and immense, his weapons, his fury and his musculature displayed in full. His intensity only succeeded in stirring my smoldering arousal further. Within the glaring aura of his raging masculinity, I felt more feminine than I ever had. I felt receptive, as though the purpose of my humanness resided here, in this room, with him.
“I haven’t thought of him in some time,” I said honestly. I wanted to reassure him and, most of all, to calm him down.
“Well, youdreamof him. Is that notworse?”
I realized then that something had changed between us. We were discussing this jealousy as though it wassomething real to discuss. My husband was, quite obviously, well...jealous.Wickedly so. It wasn’t just an animal jealousy, either, although that was part of it: a possessive male protecting his own territory. There was more to it than that. There was emotion to this envy that surprised me with its vehemence, and with its complexity.
“I told your stable boy I would challenge him to a fight to the death if he ever touched you again,” he said. “And I meant it.”
“Aye,” I commented. “I heard you.”
He strode over to one of his half-emptied trunks, riffling through it until he found what he was looking for. I couldn’t see what he held behind his back as he returned to me, the menace of him glimmering in the firelight. “I have other ideas foryou.”
Kade stood close to me, his eyes uncharacteristically dark. “You deserve...a lesson, let’s call it. You can ask me for mercy at any time, of course, and I will do my best to honor your request. I have, however, been pushed past my boundaries. You should know this about me—I do not take vows lightly, and I expect you to uphold yours. I happen to beveryprotective of what is mine. You, whether you like it or not, happen to be just that.Mine.Mywife.And I will not tolerate infidelity.”
It was true that my body was already responding to his potent virility; I couldn’t seem to stop my own deep-seated primal urges whenever my husband so much as entered the room. But I didn’t like the sound of his barely concealed threat. Already, I could feel mydefiance rising. “I haven’t been unfaithful to you. His fingers barely touched mine. I didn’t even speak to him.”
“I don’t care if you spoke to him or not!” he said savagely, startling me with his loud outburst. “I will not toleratethoughtsof infidelity!” I almost smiled at this, gently; but I didn’t dare, in case he misinterpreted the reason behind it. His emotion touched me and endeared him to me with potent effect. He seemed genuinely hurt by the fact that I called out to Caleb in my sleep. I wanted to explain to him that my dreams were convoluted. Caleb was in them, aye, but so washe.My dream lover, my garden phantom. My husband, one and the same.
He paused then, his brow furrowed, his shoulders hunched slightly as if he was expecting a blow. “Do you love him?” he asked quietly.
“I—” Kade’s darkened eyes were searching for honesty. I decided to give it to him. “I thought I did, once. Yet it never felt like something that was meant to be. We were doomed from the start.”
“We’re all doomed from the start,” he replied.
“I felt safe with him,” I admitted, ignoring his morbid comment. “He was the only man I’d ever met who didn’t frighten me.”
He snorted lightly at this. “Nay, he is perhaps the least frightening specimen of mankind I’ve yet to come across.” Despite his scoffing, my admission cooled his rage by a single degree. “I understand, with your history, why you might have chosen someone so mild, Stella, but surely by now you realize you have no need for such preferences.”
I touched his bare arm, looking up at him. “Husband,” I said, “do you hear me call toyouin my sleep, as well? Have you heardthatpart of my dreams? Because you’re in them, too. Those are the ones I remember. I had all but forgotten Caleb.”
I had meant to appease him, but my words seemed to have the opposite effect. Any reference to Caleb in my dreams or otherwise wastoomuch reference of Caleb; this was clearly written on my husband’s face. “All butforgotten?” he said, running his hand through his hair, making his appearance all the wilder. “I am going to give you reason now to forget him entirely, wife, once and for all. I will keep my word to you, you need not worry yourself about that. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to make it very clear to you that I expect everything of you.”
Without meaning to, I took a small step back from him. But he would have none of it. He snaked his arm around my waist and pulled me roughly to him, so I was arched up against him, my breasts lifted against his chest. I could feel the many hard edges of him, uncomfortably, and I made a small sound of protest. Yet I had never been more hopeful, more receptive or more turned on in all my life.
“Is this dress one of your favorites?” he asked, and the question caught me off guard; it seemed wildly off-topic. He disengaged his hold on me, fingering the front buttons of my gown with both hands.
“N-not especially—”
My husband ripped my gown and my shift open inone swift yank. My full breasts bounced free of the constraints. I huffed in surprise. “What are you—?”
“I want you completely naked before me. Take off your clothing.” He observed my face, challenging me with the garish jewel-like glint of his turquoise eyes and his white teeth, exposed in a half snarl. “No fear,” he said. “I’ll not hurt you, and you know it.”
Did I know it? I contemplated the smoldering vulnerability of him. He looked bigger and more powerfully built than I had ever seen him, carnal and determined in the fire-flicked night. And here I was, half-naked, quivering from the cool air and my feverish responses.
And I decided that Ididtrust him. Not only that, but Iwantedhim. I didn’t want to protest whatever it was he was about to do. I wanted to find out exactly what unspeakable things he was capable of. Aroused and with defiant flair—I wanted to show him that it wasmethat was invitinghimas much as he was making whatever point he had in mind—I did as he commanded, lowering the gown from my shoulders to drop to the ground, and stepping out of my shoes.
He circled me, letting his fingers trail across my skin in an unhurried claim. His hands brushed the taut surface of my nipples, playing lightly. Then his touch feathered down my stomach. He circled me again, lazily tracing the swell of my hips, and lower, delving gently between my legs, where his fingers slid silkily across the dampness. He leaned close to me, supporting some of my weight as I swayed. “You want me,” he purred into my ear.
I said nothing, forcing my own silence and unable to do so under the glide of his nudging fingertips. A small moan escaped me.
“Say it to me.”
