also didn’t want to walk around the house naked or in nothing but a towel. Wife or not, Tamara didn’t need to see that. She was a virgin, seventeen, sheltered as a nun, and he planned on keeping her that way until she grew up a little.
On his way up to bed, Levi blew out the lantern downstairs and walked upstairs to the blue room.
When he opened the door, he found Tamara under the covers.
“Rotten, didn’t you say you were sleeping in the pink room?”
“I forgot how much I hate pink,” she said from the bed.
“Fine. Good night.”
He turned to leave her, but Tamara said his name again.
When Levi turned back around, Tamara had sat up in bed. The lantern was on the bedside table, and although she’d taken out her braid and her long brick red hair covered her, he could see she was naked.
“Tamara, we’re not doing this,” he said, shaking his head. He should have known.
“Please,” she said. “I want to be your wife.”
“No.”
“You said you wanted to.”
“I said no such thing.”
“You did in the warehouse.”
“That was days ago.”
“Three days.”
“A man says things in an excited state that he repents of in his tranquillity.”
“You’re extra sexy when you use fancy words.”
“Good. Night,” he said again firmly, making two sentences of it. He marched into the pink bedroom. The lantern was still lit. By its light he saw the strawberry sheets on the bed, the pink-and-white-striped quilt, the horse in the window, the children’s books, the pink hat.
Levi turned and strode into the blue room. Tamara was still sitting up in bed, waiting and watching as he came over to her. He touched the waves of her hair loosened from the braid she’d worn all day. With a slow hand he brushed the strands back over her shoulder. Left shoulder, then right shoulder, uncovering her nakedness. She stared straight ahead and breathed quick shallow breaths through her soft parted lips.
“Levi?”
“You’re right. Pink really is an ugly color.”
17
Tamara had opened the window in the blue bedroom. Levi could hear the tinkling of wind chimes and smell clean salt air coming in from the ocean. He was George Maddox’s son. He owned an island. This house was little and beautiful. And he was about to make love to his wife.
One hell of a week.
Tamara rolled back onto the pillows as Levi sat on the bed next to her. He cupped her face, turning her to meet him in a kiss. Her lips trembled under his. He hadn’t expected virginal shyness from Tamara, but he sensed tension in her and vowed to go as slow as possible. His heart battered the inside of his chest, her fear infecting him. Wife or not, he knew he shouldn’t be doing this.
“Tell me to stop if you want to stop,” Levi whispered.
“I don’t want to stop.”
Levi kissed her forehead. Nothing could stop this train tonight. They were on a downhill track with no brakes, and God help anyone who got in their way.
He sat up and pushed the covers off her completely and gazed down the length of her naked body. Her breasts were a good size, a handful for a man with big hands, her nipples pale red, not pink. Her navel was the barest little slit. Her hips weren’t very wide, but her waist was narrow, giving her a slim hourglass frame. Long legs and strong calves and toenails painted purple, not pink. He cupped her between her legs, feeling her soft curls against his palm.
“Scared?” he asked. She wasn’t aroused yet. Spite and gumption alone had gotten her this far; he could see it in the set of her chin and the fire of her eyes.
“No.”
“Yes, you are. You’re allowed to be your first time, you know, Rotten.”
“That’s not why I’m scared.”
“Then why, baby?”
“Because it’s raining.”
It was such an odd thing to say Levi didn’t know how to respond. He glanced out the window to see, yes, it had started raining. He hadn’t noticed, but Tamara had.
“Do you want me to close the window?”
“No,” she said, smiling up at him. “I love the rain.”
He’d learned a long time ago that when the woman in his life was behaving strangely, his best bet was to take his clothes off. Levi stood up and unzipped his jeans. He pushed them to his ankles and kicked them off into the corner of the room. When Tamara raised no protest, he slid onto the bed again, straddling her waist. Her eyes were trained on the