Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,57
over a woman once before, and once was more than enough.
Sophie lifted her head and pushed the remains of her braid over her shoulder. “I should check on the baby.”
“I’ll do that. I need to tidy up, in any case.”
She frowned at him. “I don’t know what comes now with you. Do we roll over and go to sleep? Will you seek your own bed?”
He could sense her trying to make her brain function on the strength of mental determination, but he could also hear the vulnerability lurking in her question.
“I’ll fetch you a cloth and check on Kit, and then we’ll talk.”
Relief registered in the way her mouth curved up. God in heaven, did she think he’d just wander off down the freezing hall and drift away to sleep when she was here, warm and cozy, his seed still scenting her flesh?
He fished at the foot of the bed for his dressing gown but didn’t belt it, letting the cold air blow some sense into his befogged brain. For a woman intent on casual pleasures, Sophie Windham had a certain artlessness, as if it had been a long time between frolics, or as if her previous liaisons hadn’t done much for her confidence.
He knew from experience all it took was a little bad fortune, and confidence could be hard to restore. Man, woman, old, young, it made no difference. Part of him wanted to ask her about it, and part of him refused to entertain the idea lest she pry reciprocal confidences from him.
He let himself into his room, pleased to find Kit was snoring gently in the cradle.
“A pony it is, then. A fat little piebald who’ll jump anything, provided you’ve set a course for the barn. You shall call him something presuming, Bucephalus, or Orion, but he’ll have a pet name when you’re private.”
Vim tidied himself up in a few brisk movements, lifted the cradle, and returned to Sophie’s room.
He built up her fire, wrung out a flannel, and hung it on the screen to warm while trying not to contemplate what his pet names for Sophie would be.
Love. My love. He’d called her that already. Sweetheart. My dear.
When he parted the bed curtains, he half expected her to be asleep, but she lay on her back, regarding him solemnly in the shifting firelight. Vim moved the covers off her carefully and started swabbing at the stickiness drying on her belly.
“This is intimate.” She spoke quietly, her gaze following the movements of his hand. “But we could have been more intimate, couldn’t we?”
Vim tossed the cloth in the general direction of the privacy screen. “Women are the braver of the two genders.” He climbed under the covers and settled on his back. “They will discuss anything quite openly, while men go to war to avoid the near occasion of these discussions. Come here.”
She cuddled along his side, her head on his shoulder. “Not all men are such cowards.”
“It isn’t cowardice, exactly. We’re just formed differently. It’s manly reserve.”
Her hand drifted over his abdomen, counting his ribs and threatening his manly reserve. There was a quality to Sophie Windham’s touch he hadn’t encountered before, as if her hand were attached to her thinking brain, sending it information in some form other than words and images.
It was a lovely touch—tender, sweet, soothing and arousing at once.
“We did not quite…” She drew in a breath. “You did not want to join with me.”
“For God’s sake.” He buried his lips in her hair, wanting to both laugh and… something else. Throw something breakable, perhaps. Several somethings. “Of course I wanted to. I want to this very moment, but such behavior has consequences, Sophie. Sometimes those consequences are permanent, such as the consequence now slumbering in that cradle by the hearth.”
She was quiet, placated, he hoped, though she was female, and silence could mean all manner of things where they were concerned.
“I care for you, Sophie. I care for you far more than I want a passing moment of oblivion in your arms.” It came out irritably, but he felt her smile against the bare skin at the side of his chest. A peculiar sensation from a surprisingly sensitive place on his body.
Her hand drifted lower, cupping his stones then closing along his length.
“Go to sleep, Sophie Windham.” But he didn’t move her hand.
“We’ve talked, then?”
“I have talked. Bared my damned soul. Don’t suppose there are confessions you’d like share with me?”