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This time she carefully tested her teeth against his skin. No matter how casual his words, he was on a razor’s edge—she could tell by how stiffly he held his body—and a wicked part of her wanted to send him over that edge. Wanted to drive him to the brink of insanity.
She scratched her nails down his back.
“Helen,” he rasped, “that isn’t wise.”
“But I don’t want to be wise,” she whispered back.
That did it. Whatever thread that had held him snapped. He lunged, driving his length into her softness, pummeling her, thrusting into her, panting and uncivilized.
She wrapped her arms about him and held on as he plunged and writhed above her, watching him, watching his strong, scarred face. Even when the edges of her vision blurred and pleasure began to sweep over her in hot beats, she still forced her eyes open, watching, watching.
o;Oh, what animal is that from?” Abigail asked with interest.
“I’m not sure.” The bone was only a fragment. He held it up before placing it in another small glass jar. “Possibly a small mammal such as a mouse or mole.”
“Huh,” Abigail said, and straightened. “Are there other clues to the badgers that we might find about?”
“Sometimes there is debris in the earth dug up by the badger.” Alistair picked up his specimen satchel and strolled closer to the burrow hole. A movement in the dark depths made him stop and catch Abigail’s shoulder. “Look.”
“A baby!” Abigail breathed.
“Where? Where?” Jamie whispered loudly.
“See there?” Alistair bent his head near the boy’s and pointed the direction.
“Coo!”
A small black and white striped face peered from the burrow with another jostling for position behind it. The badgers froze, staring for a moment, and then abruptly disappeared.
“Oh, that was nice.” Helen’s voice came from behind them. Alistair turned to find her smiling at him. “Better anyway than the scat, I think. What shall we search for now?”
And she looked at him as if it were the most natural thing in the world to spend an afternoon with him. To share her children with him.
He shuddered and abruptly turned in the direction of Castle Greaves. “Nothing. I have work to do.”
He strode away, not waiting for Helen or the children, aware that his movement looked like he was fleeing from them, when what he fled from was far more dangerous: hope for the future.
AFTER THE WAY Alistair had so rudely cut short their afternoon ramble, Helen had sworn to herself that she wouldn’t go to him again. Yet as the hour struck midnight, she found herself stealing through the dim castle halls toward his room. She knew she was playing with a particularly hot fire, knew she was risking both herself and her children, and yet she couldn’t seem to stay away from him. Maybe, some rash, perpetually hopeful part of her whispered, maybe he’ll open himself to you. Maybe he’ll grow to love you. Maybe he’ll want you for his wife.
Silly, childish whispers. She’d spent half her life with a man who’d never truly cared for her, and there was a practical, hard part of her that knew when this thing with Alistair ended, she would have to leave with her children.
But it wouldn’t be tonight.
Helen hesitated outside his door, but somehow he must’ve heard her, though she hadn’t knocked. He opened the door, grabbed her arm, and drew her inside.
“Good evening,” she began, but he swallowed the last word with his mouth. His lips were hot and so demanding they were nearly desperate. She forgot everything around her.
Then he raised his head and pulled her toward the bed. “I have something to show you.”
She blinked. “What is it?”
“Sit.” He didn’t wait for her to comply but turned to rummage in the drawer of his bedside table. “Ah. Here it is.”
He held up a small lemon, no bigger than the tip of his thumb.
She raised her eyebrows. “Yes?”
“I had Mrs. McCleod purchase it last time she bought groceries. I thought…” He cleared his throat. “Well, I thought you might wish to use a preventative.”
