I have ever known?" she replied wickedly, not yet ready to give him more than that. He had too much control in his hands. She would retain what she could.
Tyler grinned and applied his silver tongue where it would do the most good. When Evie finally gasped for air, he relented and returned to resting on one arm while he studied her.
He cupped his hand around her breast as if to test its weight and flicked the rosy tip with his fingers, watching with growing hunger as it responded to his touch. Evie watched him warily through shadowed eyes, however, and he satisfied himself with kissing her there.
"If you're too sore, just tell me, Evie. A man and wife ought to be able to tell each other these things."
She found little relief in his words. How did she tell him she didn't know what she wanted? Yes, she was sore, but that didn't stop her from aching for more now that he'd aroused her again. Biting her tongue, she studied him. The bare arm resting above her was rounded at the top with an alarming amount of muscle. If she'd seen men with their shirts off, she didn't recall them to any extent. But she would remember this one. The hair on Tyler's chest was little more than a light brown fuzz that arrowed down to his narrow waist, but the sheet rested there and she couldn't see farther. She could feel, however. He was as aroused as she was.
Evie wasn't timid by nature. She reached out to scrape her fingers across Tyler's beard, liking the texture. "It's sort of like being handed a box of chocolates and knowing you'll be sick if you eat them all but not knowing when to stop, isn't it?"
Tyler grinned and slid his arms around her and rolled over on his back, pulling Evie with him. Her hair cascaded in a waterfall around them. He pulled the mass over her shoulder. "I've no taste for chocolates before breakfast. A sweet juicy orange is more what I had in mind. I've never got sick on oranges yet."
Evie gasped as Tyler suckled at her breast. She should have known what was coming, but ii hadn't occurred to her that they could do "that" in this position. But he was making it very obvious that they could. One large hand pressed at her hip, guiding her downward, and just the thought of what was waiting there made her ready.
A pounding on the door overrode their sweet murmurs. Evie jumped at the noise, but Tyler wasn't so swift to allow the intrusion. Holding her still, he continued to ply his tongue and teeth in little nips along her throat.
"The whole damned river's coming out of its banks! We've got to get to the horses." Ben's voice was peremptory and accompanied by staccato curses and continued pounding.
Tyler grimaced. "That's what happens when you treat them as equals. No courtesy at all. I expect better from you, woman."
Frightened by Ben's words, frustrated by the interruption, Evie remained frozen until she heard this crack. Tyler's humor belonged on the gallows. Pinching him in a soft place beneath his arm, she slid away, rolling up in the sheet as she did so.
"Expect to be disappointed then." She pulled the sheet defiantly over her breasts. She wasn't about to do what he had in mind with Ben standing outside the door, pounding it like a bass drum.
"I like a little sauce in the mornings." Tyler grinned, grabbed the sheet, and tugged as he swung his legs over the bed. "Ben, stop that infernal pounding before I come out there and throw you over the rail," he shouted at the door. "I'll be there shortly."
Evie scurried for cover as Tyler pulled the sheet around him, leaving her naked, but not before he got a good glimpse of hips and buttocks before she covered herself with a blanket.
"There's no sense in getting dressed," he reminded her as he stepped behind the dressing screen to pull on his pants. "It won't take long to get the horses to high ground. Ben's just an old worry wart. I'll bring up some coffee and biscuits when I come back."
Evie wasn't paying him any mind as she wandered to the window with the blanket around her. She had every intention of going next door to see how Daniel fared. If Tyler Monteigne expected an obedient wife who bowed to his every whim, he'd certainly taken on the wrong woman.
Her