He rubbed his thumb across her bottom lip. “Like any young man. A bit wild. A bit randy.”
“Were you ever in love?”
“There were several I made love to. A woman’s kiss—no greater thing of beauty in the world.”
“You had no trouble acquiring them.”
His grin turned cocky as he leaned low, their noses almost touching. “So you must believe me when I say your kisses are the finest of that art form. Clara, I will abide by your wishes, but there’s enough of the young rogue left in me to take something for myself first.” A lock of dark hair fell into his eye. Oh, what a look he wore, sizzling and bright and needy. A wolf’s grin, that. A wolf’s demand, too. “One final kiss, Clara.”
And why not? She’d miss those kisses.
His arms circled her waist, those hands of his settling like perfection at the small of her back. Hard muscle everywhere, holding her tight, his firm mouth slanting across hers, opening to take her bottom lip between his teeth. She opened, too, lust already pooling low in her belly, making her legs weak and shaky.
A kiss that seemed to burn with a slowness that meant the fire between them would last as long as the world did. She could etch a design into wood with a controlled heat, hot and smoldering enough to leave a mark but low enough to keep it whole. She’d never tried it, only seen it done. Until now. Surely he scorched his marks on her skin. Surely she marked him right back.
He was leaving. This kiss changed nothing.
She ripped away from him. Because she wanted him too badly.
“When we stop pretending for your family,” she said, “you should move to a different room. Or, no, I will move. Your pianoforte…” He took off down the path, away from Briarcliff. “Where are you going?” she called after him.
“To work at the dower house.”
“But it’s late. Dark. Atlas, please?—”
“I’m fine. Do not worry for me, and do not wait up for me. You should continue to sleep in our room. I’ll figure out other sleeping arrangements.” Then he disappeared over a rise.
On their first night as man and wife, Atlas had called her a brave sort of mother, a woman who did what she must for her son. If that were true at any time, it would be true now.
But how would she keep pretending with the shards of her heart piercing her so?
The same way she’d survived every other hardship—for Alfie.
Thank God for a full moon. It lit the upstairs chamber he’d been working on in the dower house like a cloudy day. Not entirely well. Shadows shifted about the walls. But it offered more than enough light for Atlas to see the gaping hole in the floor. He’d been ripping the ruined boards up for the past few weeks.
Time to fill them in. Time to finish the job he’d promised to do.
And leave.
He hadn’t spoken aloud about his time in the army in years. Didn’t want anyone to see, to know. But she saw too much. His every flinch of pain or hitch of breath in his sleep. She saw it all. And now she knew, too, because he’d told her, just how broken he was. The only way to sew himself back up was to leave home and find peace.
Hopefully.
That hole in the floor a bit like himself. He raised his face to the dying light and found his tools. Not entirely safe to work in the shadows. But not entirely safe to return and attend dinner and pretend love with a woman who saw more of him thananyone else, to return later to a bedchamber smelling of soap and paint and Clara, to a bed he could no longer share with her.
Their last kiss, their final kiss still echoed on his lips. She brought his youth screaming back to life. He felt more himself than he had in years when she teased the thoughtless rogue he used to be back into existence.
Thoughtless. Still that, apparently.
She was right to warn him.
Why did it hurt him so bad? Why did it feel like he’d been slashed right down the middle, left gaping and lifeless? He’d married the woman to save her. And her son. He’d done that. He admired her beauty. Loved her no more than he loved a beautiful bloom on a sunny day. Loved her as a thing he knew would fade and be replaced by something else. He’d learned the knack of loving dying things.
Losing sunsets, flowers, spring weather, respect for a father… None of that had felt like this before.
Did this hurt worse because he’d done harm this time? He’d been wrong to reach out to Alfie as he had—wanting to make a father’s impression on the boy—when he didn’t plan to be a father. Best to keep things with Alfie light, friendly but distant. He’d only hurt him worse in the end otherwise.
Atlas’s hands became hammers, thick and fisted, and needing something to slam into. For a second only. He forced an exhale, then an inhale, and forced the muscles in his hands, tough as nails, to open.