“Yes.”
“Liar.”
She cast him a scornful look, turned, and marched back toward the hotel, her boots clicking on the cobblestones. Helplessly Gideon stared after her. Unless he was very much mistaken, his wife had just declared war.
When he was younger, before Rangapindhi, he’d occasionally imagined taking a bride. The idea had seemed simple, inevitable, uncomplicated.
Hopelessly naïve.
He bit back a curse. He’d known when he came up with this plan to save her, it meant suffering. He’d known it required will and sacrifice.
But until his wife threatened to seduce him, he had no idea what hell awaited.
She was yards away, walking with a natural self-confidence that attracted more than one admiring glance from the few men braving the cold.
Impudent dogs.
Biting down his rage with her, with himself, with the whole damned world, he strode after her. His eyes never wavered from the saucy sway of her hips.
She didn’t look at him when he caught up. For the sake of appearances, he grabbed her arm. Even through his glove and her merino sleeve, he felt the tingling warmth of her skin. The ineffable life force that had set his desire afire when he held her last night.
He wanted that heat and vitality.
Devil take it, he wanted her.
Even as another sizzling bolt of need hit, the old urge to snatch away fought to the surface.
She glanced sideways. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he grated out, trying to control his inevitable shaking. He sucked in a breath and spoke with corrosive bitterness. “This is what you want? You’ve got bats in your belfry.”
She looked straight ahead. “I want you.”
Her voice was firm, sure, determined. And a little sad. Gideon had to remind himself she was a girl and couldn’t know her own mind. After last night, the words rang hollow, false.
“Well, God help you,” he said grimly, and tightened his reluctant hold on her slender arm.
Charis sat up in the bed where last night she’d lost her maidenhead. Rain slammed against the windows, and wind rattled the glass. The wild weather was nothing compared to the confused storm of emotions in her heart.
She’d hated what Gideon had done to her last night. More, she hated that he’d hated it. She was vain enough to want her husband to find pleasure in her.
There had been no pleasure.
Actually, that wasn’t completely true. She’d felt pleasure when he touched her, even with him wearing those wretched gloves. When he’d stroked her bare flesh, a wanton heat had curled in her belly. Her breasts had ached for his caress, and her pulse had kicked into an unsteady race.
At last the body she’d longed to explore had been near enough to touch.
If he’d allowed her to touch him.
He’d been near enough for her to breathe his clean scent and feel the warmth radiating from his skin. She’d seen the hard planes of his chest, felt the brush of his hair against her neck.
All tantalizing hints of what they could find together, if only she could free him from Rangapindhi.
Her belly knotted as she recalled the unbearable intimacy of that moment when he pushed inside her. The pain had been overwhelm
ing, but the act had bound her to him as nothing else could.
They were one flesh.