“I wonder.” She heard a rich, masculine voice coming from behind her and she turned. There was Leon, standing in the door, his dark eyes like black fire. “I wonder how many times I have stood here in this very place and watched you prepare for your bath like this. I have no recollection. This does not make my mind itch in any way.”
Heat scorched her skin, fascination and embarrassment warring for equal place inside of her. He had never seen her naked before. No man ever had. But of course, he didn’t know that. Of course, he wouldn’t have any concept of just what an invasion this was.
That was her own doing. There was no one to blame for that but herself. And she still wasn’t doing anything to correct it.
“An itch in your mind?” She looked around, desperately searching for a towel, something, anything to cover her exposed body.
“That is what it feels like sometimes. When something is familiar but I can’t grab hold of it. As though I have an itch deep in my brain that I can’t quite get to. But this... This is free of all of that. Perhaps because when I look at you it becomes difficult to think at all.”
She swallowed hard. And she forgot to look for a towel. Forgot to be embarrassed. She was completely frozen in her tracks. It would be easy—or it should be—to move her hands strategically and offer herself some modesty. But she felt like she’d been turned into a pillar of salt. Punished for looking at him when she should have turned away.
You don’t want to cover yourself. You want him to keep looking at you.
Yes, she did. As disturbing a realization as that was, she did.
Historically, people were very stupid when it came to sex. She was proving beyond a doubt that she was doomed to repeat history.
“You do say very nice things,” she said, her voice thin, soft.
“Have I always?”
She shook her head. “You don’t say unkind things. But...”
He took a step into the bathroom and her entire body stiffened. “But I do not lavish you with the sort of praise you deserve. I get that sense. I get the feeling that I never adequately appreciated how glorious a sight you were.” He was gazing at her openly, with no shame at all. Like this was the Garden of Eden and nudity was simply right.
“Do you even remember what women look like naked? Perhaps that’s all this is. Perhaps there is a strange amount of novelty that you’re contending with here.” She still hadn’t managed to move at all. She was standing there, completely bare, her heart pounding hard, her limbs trembling. She felt like a frightened squirrel staring down a large predator she had no hope of escaping.
You don’t even want to escape. You want to offer him your neck.
She gritted her teeth, squeezing her knees tightly together, trying to tamp down the restless feeling that was growing between her thighs.
“I do remember what women look like naked. Oddly enough. Not one specific woman, but it is not as mysterious to me as you might think.” He took another step toward her, then another. “I know that you think we should wait. But I want you to listen to me. I feel very much like what we had before this was broken. I said that to you downstairs, and I still mean it. I don’t care what happened. I don’t care where we were. I have a sense that you and I are the right thing. You are the woman I want. The woman I married. Whenever I lost sight of it, why I lost sight of it, it doesn’t matter. If you can forgive me then I want to move forward as husband and wife. And I want to be husband and wife in every sense of the word.” His voice got lower, grew rougher. “And I don’t want to wait for my ribs to heal. I don’t want to wait for a memory that may never come back. My life is a blank, barren field, Rose. I have... I have nothing. I have nothing but this connection to you, this need for you. Give me this. Give me something other than emptiness.”
What he was offering her was a dream come true. All of her girlish fantasies come to life. It was what she had hoped would happen after their wedding two years ago. That wedding night that never actually eventuated.
Two years a wife, and she was still a virgin. Pining after a man who had held her heart as long as she could remember. It was enough to make her want to cry just thinking about it. Enough to make her want to curl up in a ball and wail for just how sorrowful a situation it was. She had wanted him for as long as she could remember, and she had been denied him. She had married him. And she had never once pushed. Not for anything. Even when she had decided that she would divorce him she had immediately rushed to his side the moment she had heard about his injury. Because what else could she do? Leon held all of her heart. There was no denying that.
It was why she had to divorce him even at the expense of the house if she wanted to retain her sanity. Because as long as she lived in hope she would never move on with her life.
And here he was, standing there, offering her hope. Offering her everything she had ever wanted to hear.
She just wasn’t strong enough to say no. She had been strong, for so long, in so many ways. She had done her best to be strong for her father when her mother had died, even if he had done his best to hold it all together for her.
She had stayed strong in the face of his illness, in the face of his impending death. She had stayed strong even as he had asked her to marry Leon, so that he would know that she was protected. Even while the very thought of entering into a loveless union with the man who held every last piece of her soul killed her by inches.
She could not sacrifice anymore. Not for one more moment.
Leon was offering to make this marriage work. He wanted her to be his wife in every way. How could she deny him?
How could she deny herself?
This time, she was the one who took a step forward. Moving toward him. Her heart was in her throat, pounding, making her feel light-headed, dizzy. But even so, she took another step toward him, and then another.
He was the one who closed the distance. He was the one who ran out of patience. He wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her tightly up against his body, a feral growl on his lips. She could feel him. All of him. His heat, his hardness, the intense thrust of his arousal up against her hip.
Oh, how she wanted him. There were no words for the depth of her desire. For the depth of her longing, her need.
It wove itself around her body, like the vines that overtook the Tanner house, creeping ever higher until it threatened to consume her. Need wrapped itself around her throat, made it impossible for her to breathe. Impossible for her to think.
“Are you afraid of me, Rose?” His voice was so soft, so tender and so full of concern, it made her own heart ache in response.
“Of course not.”
“You look at me as though I am a monster of some kind.”
“Not you. This thing between us. All of this. It feels like a monster. Like something that could consume us both.”
He laughed, the sound rusty, hard. “Yes, I agree.” He dragged his thumb along her cheekbone, his gaze filled with wonder. “Has it always been like this?”
“For me,” she said, the word strangled. “For me it has always been like this.”
“I think it has been for me, too.”
She laughed. “You can’t possibly know that.”
“Of course I can. Just as I know I am generous.”
“I already told you we have differing opinions on that.”
“Which leads me to believe that I perhaps demonstrate the things I feel differently than people might usually. But it doesn’t mean I don’t feel them. This is an old feeling, Rose. I know it is. It’s as much a part of me as my blood. There’s nothing foreign about it. Nothing unusual. It simply