He was so virile and scarred. She wanted nothing more than to kiss each scar tenderly and take away the pain he was hiding, the pain that was dividing them. He was all sinewy muscle and shadowy dips, except the length of him, which looked surprisingly hard and long between his thighs. She could not draw her gaze away, but finally, she carefully took off her wrap, tugged the coverlet off his bed, and then laid it beside him for her to lie upon. She would only stay for a bit. Just long enough to feel his warmth so near, hear his breath, study the profile she’d spent so many lonely nights recalling.
In the burgeoning light of the oncoming day, she winced at how his lip was even more swollen now, as was his eye. Who had he fought and why? She was amazed he even had the energy after his sennight in bed ill. He stirred restlessly, as if he was dreaming. Her heart ached as she allowed her gaze to fall to his wrist. The scars there were stark reminders of where he had been and the hell he must have endured. Fury coursed through her at what Ross had done to him, as well as fury at herself for being duped by Ross and allowing her loneliness and her misery at losing Callum to persuade her to agree to his marriage proposal.
She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling suddenly exhausted. Warm tears leaked out her eyes and down her checks as she contemplated the past and all she had hoped for them at one time. She wanted Callum to offer his love as he had years before, as she suspected he had been prepared to do when he’d wed her, but what if he couldn’t anymore? What then? It would break her heart anew. How long would she be able to stand having her heart broken by him before she gave up hope completely? That was the real question. But she didn’t have the answer. Not yet.
“Constantine.”
Her eyes flew open, and she looked over at Callum. His lids were still closed in slumber, but he’d turned on his side, one arm resting over his hip and the other draped in front of his chest with his hand fisted. His face was scrunched as if in confusion.
“What are you doing here? Christ. Did Tate and Trask take you, too?” The horror in his voice, and the realization that she perhaps now had the names of two of the men involved in Ross’s plot, caused her to suck in a sharp breath. “Constantine. Constantine.” He gave his head a little shake, almost violently, and then raised his fist. He slammed it down with such force that fear shot through her.
“God, Constantine, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Callum’s voice got louder until he was almost yelling. “I’ll kill Ross. I’ll rip out his damned heart with my bare hands—Don’t touch me!” he roared.
Constantine glanced at her hands, questioning for a moment if she had reached out and touched him without realizing it, but her hands were locked together in front of her. When she looked back up, Callum’s gray gaze was locked on her and burning with rage. Before she could think what to say, he said, “Don’t. Touch. Me.”
Gooseflesh swept over her at the realization that he was still asleep and dreaming. “Callum,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Stop, stop, stop,” he bit out. He jerked as if he was trying to get away but couldn’t move, and then he sprang at her. She gasped, and he was over her and upon her as before, looming above her and trapping her between his thighs. But this time his hand came to her throat, and the pressure cut off her air.
She clawed at his fingers, fright spreading through her in terrifying waves, and she dug in her nails until his grip loosened enough for her to say, “Callum, it’s me. Please.”
He blinked, the haze in his eyes seeming to clear, and then they widened as he looked from her face to his hands upon her neck. But he did not immediately move. He glanced around the room, as if to confirm where he was, and then back down at her, horror settling on his harshly beautiful face. “God. Did I hurt you?” he asked, agony in his voice as he released her neck from his hold and then brought a trembling finger to her skin.
Her heart pounded so hard, she wondered for a moment if she could even form a reply. But then she managed, “No, you frightened me is all. Who are Trask and Tate?”
He looked at her sharply while rolling off her and into a sitting position, his abdominal muscles rippling as he moved. He drew his knees up toward his chest and dragged his hands through his hair in clear misery. After a moment, he looked at her once again, and the horror had now been replaced with anger. “No one of your concern,” he said. “What the bloody hell are you doing in my bedchamber? I told you to go to your own.”
“I was worried about you,” she said, her head screaming at her to tell him the rest, to lay herself before him. She sat up, her night rail slipping off her shoulder. His gaze followed, staying there until she spoke once more. “And…and I wanted to be near you. I’ve missed you.” The momentary unguarded longing she saw in his eyes before he blinked and looked at her dispassionately gave her the little bit of confidence she needed to continue.
“Don’t,” he said, the word so full of torture that she had to swallow back a cry of pain for him.
“Don’t what?” she demanded. “Tell you that I missed you? Tell you—” Her gaze wandered over his scarred body as she remembered so long ago when he had introduced her to pleasure with his mouth on her most private parts. She had dreamed of doing the same for him ever since. “Tell you that I want to touch you and that I long for you to touch me.”
“Stop,” he choked out, his voice breaking.
She didn’t want to push him, given the state he was in, but she was so desperate to be touched by him, even a hand to the cheek would do for now. “I’ve dreamed of doing for you what you did for me that day in the painting studio,” she whispered.
He let out a groan, and then he was before her, kneeling so swiftly that it startled her, but as his heat washed over her, desire flared.
“Lie back,” he said, his voice husky.
She complied immediately, and when he set his hands to her ankles to draw up her night rail, she could not stifle her moan. He slid it all the way up, and together, they pulled it over her head and off. A raw, almost primitive sound came from him, and as he pressed her thighs apart, she prayed he would do the things to her that he’d done those years before. Instead, he leaned between her thighs, his mouth coming to her breast. When he sucked in her nipple, she cried out in pleasure as her entire body went up in flames. It was pure bliss as he suckled her, and an intense pressure started to build within her, making her insides tighten, reminding her of the pleasure she had felt before under his expert ministrations. His fingers parted the curls at the juncture between her thighs, and when one finger slid into her body, she tensed, but then his thumb found the pulsing spot that only he had ever touched. He slowly began to massage it, building her to a near frenzy with strokes that went from gentle and slow to hard and fast.
She felt her body clenching around him, clinging to his finger, and his harsh groan in her ear washed heat over her neck, making her realize he had leaned closer to her. The faster his movements became, the more certain she was that she would come undone, but at the last moment, when her body coiled and she could hear nothing but her own hammering heart and rushing blood in her ears, his fingers disappeared, making her call out a protest. His hands came under her buttocks, lifted her up, and then his lips came to her ears. “It will hurt for a moment,” he whispered. “But if you’re not ready—”
“I’ve been ready for years,” she panted.
“The things you say,” he shook his head “How strong am I to be in the face of those words?”
And with that, before she could decide if he truly wanted an answer, his body was nudging at her, at her core, and then there was a pinch of pain as he slid into her. She gasped, and he stilled, embracing her, cocooning her. She had never felt more protected in her life.
His gaze found hers. “I’ll not move until you say—”
“Move,” she demanded, the pain already receding and her need for him increasing. “I need you to move and give me, give me… I don’t know,” she finished, frustrated. She wanted what she’d felt before, but this was new and very different. “I don’t know what to do,” she cried out.
“Shh.” He kissed her forehead, her lips, her neck as he slowly stretched her and filled her. “I’d rather die than not give you what you need in this moment, and I’ll show you what to do. Your body will tell you,” he said, his gaze pure tenderness.
His fingers came between their closely pressed bodies, and when he touched the throbbing spot there and gently circled the pleasure point as he moved within her, astonishingly, it was exactly as he’d said. Her body seemed to not only accommodate him but know what to do. She met each of his strokes with a tightening of her core that made him growl with pleasure and made her think she was giving to him what he gave to her—bliss.
