Ginny, seated in a chair near the window, who caught my attention and made me forget for one blessed moment everything that was wrong in our world. She looked angelic as she hummed softly to our child, her dress tugged down her right shoulder, her breast gleaming in the fading light while she nursed. Angelic. Stunning. Ethereal. I couldn’t move.
I’d never seen something so intimate, so incredibly sexual, yet pure at the same time. It left me feeling highly aroused, completely confused, and incredibly unworthy. My body went rock-hard, tensing, as if sensing her nearness. My cock strained against my trousers.
I’d never known a nursing woman could be so appealing. A mother, for God’s sake. But my attraction hadn’t diminished. This unlawful desire. Time had not lessened my need. Nor had the fact that she’d given birth. I wanted her even more since she’d had my child. Wanted her with a desperation that could not be controlled. A desperation that should have worried me.
I knew in that moment that I would have given up everything I owned, merely to stand there and watch her for the rest of my days. I’d hid my past from the world. I’d hid the truth from my parents. But I could not hide my feelings for her.
We belonged together.
She shifted, lifting her arm and looking directly at me. “Leave.”
It took a moment for me to realize that she held a pistol.
****
Ginny
He stared hard at the pistol for one long moment. Just when I thought I’d go mad from the silence, he shifted his gaze to me. I’d expected a glare. I’d expected to see anger, at the least, frustration. I hadn’t expected to see the burn of attraction in his eyes.
I tried not to tremble, but failed. A swirling warmth of heat swept through my body, betraying me. A heat I recognized all too well.
There was no look of success in his eyes, no look of hatred, only a hard gleam that made me highly aware that my breast was exposed. The same hard, heated gleam I’d seen that year ago when he’d taken my virginity.
I tilted my chin, narrowing my eyes. I would not fall for him again. Not ever. “I was a stupid, stupid girl when I met you Gabe. But I’ve grown in the last year. I said leave. You are not welcome here. Ever.”
A stiff evening breeze rattled the windows. The coals in the grate of the fire place hissed and popped. If I hadn’t been holding a pistol, if he wasn’t here staring at me as if he wanted to do things that no genteel woman would ever even dare imagine, it would have been like any other cozy night.
“Despite what you may believe, I have no sinister motive,” he said.
As it was, there was nothing lovely or cozy about this night. The tension was too thick. The energy in the air crackled like the coals in the fire. Almost a year had gone by, but it was as if no time had faded at all. The attraction between us still sizzled.
He took a step toward me, the floorboards underfoot creaking. “You won’t shoot me, Ginny. We both know that.”
My entire body trembled. He didn’t look in the least afraid. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
He moved so very sure, so very confident, that I hated him for it. I hated him even as I wanted to touch him. To run my hands down his chest and see if it was as muscled as I remembered. To breathe in that scent I recalled only too well. Damnation, why did I still want him?
“If you shoot me,” he said, continuing toward me. “You could injure the baby, and you love her too much to put her in jeopardy.”
Damn him.
He paused in front of me, his scent erotic and heady. Drugging. Drowning. I was drowning in his presence. I’d learned nothing from the last year. That connection between us had not diminished. Hell, it hadn’t even frayed. I wanted him. Even now almost a year later, I wanted him. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around my wrist. Gently, he pried the gun from my hand. “It’s not loaded, is it?”
I flushed. My entire body felt afire, whether from embarrassment or attraction, I wasn’t sure. Blast, but my skin felt itchy, my body tight, and that thrumming ache in the pit of my belly could not be ignored. He was here…in my bedchamber, and it was only the two of us.