"No, but it's quite a commitment. I'm surprised they didn't discuss it first. I'm sure she will be, too."
"I'd say he can handle her."
"It's not a matter of handling, one way or the other. Marriage is a partnership, and decisions require discussion and mutual agreement. And what are
you grinning at?"
"You look cute, sitting there all mussed up from sex and lecturing me on relationship ethics."
"I wasn't lecturing." She took a small, cool sip from her glass. "I was simply stating. Don't you believe in relationship ethics?"
"Yep." His hand wandered up her thigh. "But I figure like in any partnership, sometimes one end makes a decision on its own, and ethics get bent a little. I like this little birthmark way up here." His fingers skimmed high on her thigh over a small crescent shape. "Looks like a moon. Sexier than a tattoo."
"You're trying to distract me."
"Doesn't take much effort." But he trailed his finger back down to her knee. "I don't want to see the guy get popped by his wife. He fell for the horse, and maybe I gave him a little push." He moved his shoulders. "If Kate has a problem, we can lose the deal."
Laura tilted her head. "And then, in your opinion, Kate would be a shrew, and Byron a Milquetoast."
"I was thinking wuss actually." Amused, he straightened her leg so that he could lift her knee and kiss it. "Did you always talk everything over, nice and civilized with Ridgeway?"
"No, that was part of the problem. I did what I was told and behaved like a proper, dutiful, and spineless wife."
"Sorry." Annoyed with himself for the need to pry open that door to her life, he gave her knee a quick squeeze. "Bad question."
"No, it wasn't." She shifted a little, leaning back on the pillows propped on the iron headboard. "I learned from it. I learned I won't ever be spineless again, or ineffectual, or quietly desperate."
She tapped her fingers against the glass as she put into words what had been in her heart. "What he did, I let him do, which makes it as much my fault as his. I'm only sorry it took finding him in bed with another woman to force me to fix my life."
"You're happy now?"
"Yes, and grateful." She smiled again. "Grateful to you, too."
His thumb skimmed around to rub the back of her knee. "For?"
"For helping me realize I have a sex drive."
Appreciating her, he leaned up, nipping her lips with his as he set his glass on the table beside the bed. "You had problems with that?"
"I'm not having them now."
"Maybe I should check, just to be sure." But before she could circle him into her arms, he slipped back. "I think I'll start down here," he murmured, and lifted her foot.
"You're not going to… Oh." Her head fell back as his teeth and tongue went to work. "They do reflexology in the spa at the resort," she murmured as he bombarded all manner of tiny, sensitive nerves. "It never felt like this."
"You're not going to start fantasizing that I'm Viktor the massage boy, are you?"
She laughed, moaned, shuddered. "No. The reality's just—Jesus!" She dropped her glass, splattering wine over herself and the sheets. "Oh, I'm sorry. Let me—"
"No, you don't." He gave her a gentle shove that sent her weakly back onto the pillows. "Just stay where you are until I finish." He scraped his teeth over her ankle. "Things were a little rushed before. I think I skimmed over some of the finer points."
He pressed the heel of his hand lightly against her, had her hips rising. "I suggest you hang on, sugar. I'm going to take you for a long, hard ride."
It was like being assaulted on all sides. Inside and out, mind and body. She could do nothing but absorb, react, experience. He worked his way up, as if she were a meal to be savored, course by course.
The lights he left burning blazed too bright, burned her eyes even when she closed them. The air, breezy through the open windows, was suddenly too thick, so that each breath she took was a gasp. Her skin, no longer cool, pulsed with the beat of blood beneath and with the skim of hands and mouth.
The long muscles in her thighs quivered as he cruised over them, and the sheets rustled at the bunch and flex of her hands.