and shoulders. He’d made it his mission to kiss every one of them. It’d had taken him an hour, and she’d quivered beneath him, her voice husky with need as she pled for him to take her now.
He’d meant what he’d said to her last night; he did not want her back from pity. And he knew she feared he wanted her solely because of the child—a ridiculous notion—but if he could acknowledge his fears, he’d acknowledge hers too.
It seemed such an easy solution to simply call pax, to say I am sorry, now let’s be done with this. Yet when Win tried to do just that, a wall reared up within, holding him back. He suspected the same wall rose within Poppy too, for shadows inevitably crept into her eyes when they shared unguarded moments. The ugly truth was that, deep down, they still distrusted each other, and he could not figure out how to fix this.
It wasn’t as if he did not want his wife. Sweet Christ he did. Lying next to her now, with the scent of her sleep-warmed body filling the air, and the sight of her long length spilled out before him, was the veriest of tortures. Every nerve ending along his body thrummed with an impatient need to thrust into that snug, wet cove whose embrace he knew so well. He shifted slightly, his hips rocking his cock a little farther into the mattress. A sweet pain bolted through his lower gut at the action.
Poppy was a deep sleeper, which went directly against the alert way in which she conducted her waking hours. Right now, he didn’t know if that was a blessing or a curse, because he could look his fill without her noticing.
She appeared younger in sleep, lying on her side with one arm tucked beneath her pillow and the other resting before her, her hand curled into a loose fist. Her pink lips parted just enough to let a soft breath out. Red rivers of her hair streamed over her shoulders and ran along the small slopes of her breasts.
Breasts that moved with the steady cadence of her breath. Up. Down. And his blasted nightshirt she insisted on wearing hid nothing. The shabby shirt was gossamer thin now. Holes grew along the seam where it buttoned down the front. Those holes held his attention, for each breath she took revealed a tantalizing glimpse of the curve of her breast.
His body grew hard and heavy, a languid sort of ache that had him both wanting to move and to remain utterly still. She moved on a sigh, the sheets rustling as her body canted back just a touch. His breath stilled. The wretched nightshirt had moved too, one of those damnable holes slipping just over the tip of her nipple. For one tight, hot moment, the pink nub was revealed, then a thick lock of copper hair slid over it and clung, hiding his prize.
Win gritted his teeth. His fists curled into his pillow as he willed that tendril of hair to slip away. But it was stubborn, clinging lovingly to the pert tip. In, out, she breathed, her breast moving beneath the thin gown. A strand of hair fell, revealing just a touch of pink. He was going to lose his mind. His cock throbbed against the mattress, and the sunlight burned hot against his bare back. But he remained transfixed. Like a randy schoolboy, he stared. It became essential that the nipple be revealed to him.
Another few strands drifted down. A quarter moon of rosy areola winked at him. He licked his lips, his breath growing ragged. From a nipple. He might have laughed if he wasn’t fighting a groan. Bloody hell, it was only a nipple. He’d seen it a thousand times before. He knew its taste, how it would stiffen against his tongue. Which was the entirely wrong thing to think. His blood thrummed through his veins. He could not stand it any longer.
Heart pounding in his ears and his body wound like a coil, he reached out. His fingers shook. Just one more inch. Her breath remained even, the coy little nipple still hiding from him. The tip of his finger grazed the tenacious tresses, careful not to get too close to his target, lest he be tempted to touch.
The red locks slithered away. Triumph surged though him, base yet undeniably glorious. The sweet pink bud, perfectly framed by the hole in the nightshirt, was his at