“To get to know one another better. You say something you know to be true of me, and I say something I know to be true of you.”
“Very well. You go first.”
He leaned against the bedpost, crossing his arms over his chest, and stretching the linen of his shirt to its limits. “That is not all of it. There are stakes. If I state something that is irrevocably true about you, then you surrender a piece of clothing. And if you state something true about me, then?—”
“You surrender an article of clothing.” The proposition seemed more than a prelude to lovemaking. It seemed a prelude to something deeper, the process of two souls growing to know one another. Not what they’d married for. But then she’d not married him for this, either—tangled limbs and panting breaths.But she could not refuse it now she’d had a taste. Nor could she refuse to play his game. She grinned. “Not much game to play, you rogue. I have but one piece of clothing left—well, other than my stockings—and as far as I can tell, you have at least two, possibly three.” If he wore smalls.
His grin flashed white and wicked. “I’m not above taking clear advantage of a willing woman. And I’ve just one more layer than you.” Shirt. Breeches. No smalls. And wasn’t that tantalizing? “Particularly since I think I’ll keep your stockings in place. I saw them peeking out from beneath your dress at the lake. I’ve been able to think of nothing else all day. Pink, Clara?” He shook his head. “Temptress.”
She wanted to tempt him. And she wanted to win.
“I should begin, then.” She knew exactly what truth she’d put into the air.
He sat on the edge of the bed, and she hinged upright to sit behind him, her legs running the length of the mattress, his bent over its side.
Even in the fire-lit dark, she appreciated the strength of his profile—the strong jaw and broad shoulders, the long nose and thick brow, those shapely lips. Everything about him big and defiant, yet…
“You, sir,” she said, brushing a lock of his hair away from his temple, “are a poet.”
The mattress creaked beneath his shifting weight. “You should have said soldier instead. Or farmer. Or estate manager. I do all those sorts of things here.”
“Yes, but I think it is truer to say you are a poet. And isn’t truth what we are reaching for?”
He laughed. “I don’t know if I agree with you. I don’t think I should surrender my shirt.”
“Surrender your trousers, then.”
“Neither. I’m no Byron. Songwriter would have been more precise.” A grumble. He would not accede. His body beside her rippled warmth, and she shifted her legs closer to him, almost sighed at how delicious this man’s hard warmth could be.
“I’m positive I’m correct,” she said, “but I cannot help it if you disagree.” She huffed. “Very well. Your turn.”
He turned, dragging one knee up onto the bed, his gaze traveling down the length of her body as he rested his hand like a lazy cat’s paw on her thigh. “You’re brave. A good mother.”
Oh. The words gems she did not deserve. She curved her entire body against the headboard to keep from having to accept them. His other hand joined the first on her ankle, and he squeezed. Then his hand settled beneath her chin, lifted it.
“You are, Clara.”
“It took me too long to do what my son needed me to do.”
“It’s hard to know, I think, what it is children need sometimes.”
Clara tried to look at him because something in his voice told her that his face would be the sweetest thing, a healing thing. But even though he tilted her chin up still, his fingers a sparking pressure at the tip of her chin, she looked everywhere but at him. In the dark portal of the window behind the still curtains, into the deep shadows gathering around the pianoforte, into the roaring flames of the fire.
She could not look at him, but she did find her voice. “I cannot agree with your estimation, not entirely. If a parent does not know, it is because they do not care to, because it is easier to tie a bit of linen over the eyes and not see.” She swallowed hard. “I’m afraid you do not win my shift.”
His hand dropped away from her chin. “Imagine that. We both lose the first round. Your turn.” He lifted his hand from her thigh and kicked his knee to the side so it covered her leg, an intimate overlapping of limbs.
“You love your family,” she said without hesitation, “though I think, perhaps, they infuriate you at times.”
“True enough.” He lifted the hem of his shirt, so slowly he must be doing it on purpose, teasing her, until it stretched over his shoulders, hid his head, and he tossed it aside.
Holy Hepplewhite.
Perhaps more accurate to sayholy Atlas. She’d never seen a man shaped likethatbefore. Broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist, not a bit of him soft. That glorious expanse of muscle, though—laced over with silvery scars. A tortured curve at his hip, a screaming knot at his shoulder. A wicked slice along the length of his abdomen. Such beauty. And such pain.
And it roused in her more than aesthetic admiration. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t function in any way properly. Her heart tried to beat a hole through her chest, and that sensitive spot between her legs warmed, tingled. She lifted her hand, and as slowly as he’d taken off his shirt, she reached out to touch the hard ridge of his scarred abdomen. Then, as if shocked by the electric pull of all that muscle, she yanked it back to her much softer belly.
She laughed, a nervous sound. “How?”
