Shirtless.
Her mouth dried, and her knees turned into overly boiled potatoes—mushy and crumbling beneath her weight. They demanded she crumple, and she did, right down to the ground, twisting as she went until she sat, back pressed against the wall beneath the window, palm pressed against her chest. Her heart thumped like mad.
All that skin… all that muscle… too much for one woman’s gaze. She needed to wipe the image from her eyeballs or perish. It quite wiped everything else out of her head. No matter how hard she squeezed her eyes shut. No matter that she slapped her hands over her face, blocking out the gray light, the cold raindrops.
No matter.
He remained, shoulders and arms and neck and back, burned into her memory, reigniting the buzzing at the juncture of her legs she’d felt before. Something eager and anxious flipped near her heart.
Surely Richard did not truly look likethat. Her memory tricked her. No man’s shoulders that broad, waist that trim, muscles that well-defined. They shifted beneath smooth skin like rocks beneath water. She’d only seen his back, outlined by the fire he stood before. The fire had magnified his appearance. It had been a quick glance only. And, yes, she’d touched him the other day, felt hard, corded muscle, felt how easily he’d held her upright as he’d pleasured her, but…
He couldnotlook like that. She’d been wrong.
She’d have to take another look. To be sure she’d made a mistake.
Slowly, she twisted and lifted until only her eyes were above the window edge.
Mouth dry again, legs back to being boiled potatoes.
Oh my. She should have known she made no mistake. She’d never possessed much of an imagination. That man, however, possessed a back like a mountain range, plane upon plane of rock-hard muscle. He stood, still, before a small fire, one arm outstretched toward the mantel, his entire body leaning into it as he stared at the crackling flames in the grate.
Then the marble muscles rippled, and he turned.
She ducked down once more, but not before she saw his chest.
And she forgot how to breathe. Just as muscled on the front—great swaths of the stuff at his chest, all of it peppered in hair that gathered near his sternum and traveled down toward his navel, bisecting an abdomen grooved with muscle. That hair continued lower, disappeared past the waistband of his trousers. What happened in obscurity there? Seemed almost unfair to see this much of him but not the rest.
She peeked back through the window again. He’d picked up some tool—flat and flexible, rather like a stiff cloth—and was rubbing along a corner of… what? Rectangular, thin… a frame. Empty, intricately carved. Each movement he made rippled those impossible back muscles beneath skin that would be smooth and warm and?—
She wiped a dribble of drool off her chin. No. She looked up. Not drool. Rain. A steady patter of raindrops beat her shoulders and hair. She should return to the house, abandon Richard Clark, he of the muscles and sharp rejoinders. And most excellent kisses.
She could not leave, no matter how hard the rain beat against her back, because… because… What had brought her here to begin with? She’d almost grasped it, but then he’d begun to move again, shifting about the space with confidence and ease, reaching for a pointy tool as he put away the stiff paper, tilting his head to inspect his work, digging the pointy thing into the wood.
Woodworking was fascinating.
So was seeing the usually uptight and upright Richard Clark undressed and delicious in this space made only for him. Only for him? Or did he bring a mistress here? Her father kept a woman in a small apartment. He did not hide it well, and she’d heard him speak of it to his man of business. Did this cottage serve a dual purpose for Richard? There was no bed for him to tumble a woman into. Only a chair in the corner, a blanket tossed over its back. All that dust… those wood shavings. Tools strewn across every surface. No woman would willingly disrobe here… would they? Only that chair to lounge in, and surelyitwas not possiblethere.
Oh, but why look at the chair, when he was holding up the frame, his forearms flexing beneath the weight. They were bronzed, as if he often revealed them to the sun, and dark hair ranged from wrist to elbow. Thick muscle and popping veins. Sinewy and strong like the rest of him.
Perhaps with such a man, chairs were possible where mistresses were concerned. Perhaps with such a man, mistresses were willing to overlook a bit of dust and chaos.
With Richard… Beatrice would not mind.
And he’d offered. He’d extended an invitation. No, a demand:If you’re looking for a lover, hellcat, a man to make you happy, my door is wide open. I’m yours for the taking.
If he touched her with the same delicacy he did the frame… if he kissed her with such gentle passion as he had in the boat… if he riled her with such cunning as he did every time they spoke… she would gladly undo her tapes and let her gown pool round her feet, grow dusty in the woodchips. She would gladly sit on the chair or in his lap and let him whisper naughty things into her ear, tug her earlobe between his teeth, and nibble on her neck. She would gladly put his hand between her legs where she often touched herself at night.
Be honest, Beatrice.
She touched herself at nightthinking ofRichard.
And had before he’d made her orgasm. Now she merely had the sensory information to make her vague musings much more real, much more arousing. Dangerous.
He set the frame down and crossed the room, viewing it from a distance, hands on hips. And then he dropped into the chair, draping his body into it, muscle and bone as fluid as that blanket.
His eyes closed, and his lips pressed thin, and the vital strength that had burned each of his movements drained out of him. He seemed to break, a fragile, porcelain man, and she cracked open wide, too. Hairline fractures had appeared days ago at the same time as the truth. Now they were wide open and weeping, crumbling like cliffs during a storm.
What if everything between them had been different? What if she’d been here to see this cottage built and to watch the children come to Slopevale one by one? What if she had added children of her own, Lucy’s age, the twins’ age?What if a meeting to learn Spanish in a library had led not to separation and anger but to kisses and more, more and marriage, marriage and children, and…
