Asked. She believed she’d asked for what they’d shared.
“I do no’ mind. I do no’ care,” he said, fumbling the words. Did she now feel regret?
“Still and all,” she whispered. “Ye maun have a care. I will no’ touch ye again.” In defiance of the words—in direct defiance—her hand slid from the bandage downward, across his belly to where he stood for her. He caught his breath.
“How long,” she asked not quite artlessly, “before—”
“Should no’ be this quick,” he grunted.
“Still and all.” She jerked her hand away. “I should no’ touch.”
Nor should he. Yet his hand shifted from her hair to her breast.
She gasped.
“So,” she said even as his thumb moved against her nipple, “I ha’ been served, ha’ I? Even as a mare is served by a stallion?”
“If ye would term it that way.”
“And wi’ the same result?” Her gaze prodded his. “Will I produce a foal?”
That made him smile despite himself. “I do no’ suppose ’tis quite so certain as wi’ horses. It may take repeated—er—servicing.”
“Ah. A pity, that.” She kissed him, her tongue plunging into his mouth this time, and her meaning could not be clearer. A minx, was his wife. And not easily satisfied.
Especially as, during the kiss, she spread her legs in the manner of a cat stretching.
“I always imagined,” she purred when the kiss ended, “a woman was bred from behind, just like animals.”
“As I say, that can well be. I might show ye.”
She licked her lips. “Aye, then. Show me.”
He turned her over with careful hands. Drew her up into position. Near lost his mind with the headiness of it.
His wound be damned.
****
“On the whole,” Annista said drowsily, “I believe I prefer face-to-face. Not that the other was no’—thrilling. Utterly thrilling. But I like being able to kiss ye and to look into your eyes while we…”
The fire had died in the grate, the room gone soft with gloom. Alan’s wife lay half draped over him, and in his heart—well, there was a rare peace that seemed to have lodged there despite all the madness that beset them.
He tried to focus on that madness. It proved difficult with Annista snuggled into the crook of his neck, one naked leg draped over both of his and the taste of her kisses still on his tongue.
Danger yet surrounded them. That of the political intrigue into which Father had plunged him and the far more immediate threat posed by Evan.
What were they to do about Evan? And what further madness would this day hold?
“What is it?” Annista asked softly. “Ye be frowning. If ye prefer to mount me from behind—”
“Hush, nay.” In truth, he preferred to take her any way she chose. His wife most clearly enjoyed relations with him. “’Tis nay that.”
“Then, what?” Again she gazed into his eyes, searching. Was this the same woman who had once refused to do more than glare at him in anger? Who’d made him promise not to touch?
Was he falling in love with her? That thought startled him so much he went silent.
“Alan?” she prompted. “Are ye in pain?”
