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Chapter 18
Grace woke with a start, her head still pillowed against Lincoln’s shoulder. The clock read 1:00 a.m., and the bedside light still cast a soft glow over the room.
He was lying on his back beside her with the sheet pulled to his waist. His eyes were closed, and his chest moved in slow, deep breaths. The top two buttons of his gray shirt had come unfastened, revealing a tempting V of taut, tanned skin roughened with dark hair.
Slowly, Grace pushed to her elbow. The third button was halfway out of the buttonhole. With a quick flick of her fingers, she pushed it through.
His shirt opened. Her heart thumped. She’d been more intimate with him than anyone else in her life—literally, he’d gone where no man had gone before—but she hadn’t even seen him fully naked. She hadn’t touched his chest or kissed his shoulders or trailed her hand between his pecs all the way down to his washboard abs and beyond.
She unfastened the rest of the buttons holding his shirt together. The two halves parted to expose a wide strip of his torso. Her breath caught.
She’d known he would be beautiful, but he wasextraordinary. Every part of his body, from his clavicle to the slopes of his pectorals to the V of muscles arrowing in from his obliques, looked as if it had been carved by a master sculptor.
She started to edge the sheet lower when her eye caught a thick, reddish line snaking out from underneath the left half of his shirt. She pushed the material gently aside.
Her heart almost stopped. His entire left shoulder was covered in a crisscross web of scars and tight, puckered skin. Several misshapen puncture scars spread over the outer part of his shoulder and disappeared under the shirt still clinging to his upper arm.
Grace touched the damaged flesh.What in the—
“Wrong place.” His chest rumbled as he spoke. “Wrong time.”
With a gasp, Grace pulled away. He was watching her, his eyes heavily lidded.
“Lincoln, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t…I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay. I should have told you.”
She swallowed hard. “Told me what?”
“I was embedded with military troops in Afghanistan a couple of months ago.” He pushed to a sitting position, adjusting the pillows behind them. “An IED went off, and I got caught in the blast. Broken arm, burns, and shrapnel damage.”
“Oh my god.” She pressed a hand to her ribcage, horrified by the images flashing through her mind. “I had no idea.”
His mouth twisted. “Not many people do. I had surgery and plenty of rehab. I got about eighty percent of the strength back, but sometimes it still gives me trouble. Doctors say it’ll improve with time and conditioning.”
Though his tone was detached, she knew the injury had to have affected him far more deeply than he’d ever let anyone see.
“Don’t look like that.” He wrapped a lock of her hair around his finger. “Compared to what other people have endured, it’s not that bad.”
“Butthisdidn’t happen to other people.” She touched his chest again. “It happened to you.”
He released her hair and slid his hand to her neck. “I didn’t lose a limb or suffer brain damage. I didn’t die. I wish I hadn’t been there, but considering what could have happened…”
He shrugged. Grace’s throat hurt. Some fragmented pieces were struggling to fit together in her mind.
“Is that why you didn’t want to tell me?” She rubbed one of the buttons on his shirt. “Because you didn’t want me to think about what happened or whatcouldhave happened?”
He studied her, his eyes narrowed and his forehead creased. Again she had the sense that he was analyzing or trying to figure out something about her.
But at this point, he really didn’t have to think so hard. All he had to do wasask.
She moved to straddle his thighs and sat facing him. Though the sensation of his powerful body quickened her with fresh need, she tilted his face toward hers. The tape had fallen off the cut on his cheek, leaving a thin, reddish gash underneath his black eye.
“I told you I’ve always known how to be content in life.” She brushed her thumbs across his jaw. “I had everything I needed, and what I didn’t have, I found in books, plays, studying, and teaching. But growing up on a farm, being amilkmaid,” she tapped his nose, “and a cat-owning Shakespeare teacher who likes rhubarb pie, not to mention the virginity issue…none of that means I’m scared of big, painful things. You don’t have to protect me.”
His eyes darkened. “I want to. More than anything.”
Though Grace’s heart softened at the tenderness in his voice, she couldn’t prevent a flicker of unease. She’d always been independent, entirely capable of taking care of herself and others. She had a strong backbone and a sharp mind. She knew how to be assertive and take initiative.
