He had great shoulders. Broad. Powerful. And I knew, under all those clothes, exquisitely muscled.
Oh God.
I turned my attention to my sandwich and found after a couple of bites, my dry mouth couldn’t take more. I wrapped it up in the muslin, tossed it in and closed the basket. By this time, Apollo was done with the horses and moving back to the sleigh so I situated myself further across the seat so I wouldn’t be sitting too close to him.
Distance was good. I could get my head sorted if he wasn’t close. Cuddling was bad. I mean, in many circumstances, it was good, way good. But, at this juncture, it was also bad. Way bad.
He got in the sleigh, grabbed the reins and sat, pulling the furs over his lap. He clicked his teeth, snapped the reins and off we went.
Okay, getting my head together…apparently Apollo thought last night we’d broken the seal. So instead of it happening and him being way cool about it and putting it behind us, he thought our relationship had changed.
And I could not say I wasn’t down with that.
In fact, after last night and the way he’d been today, I was so down with that.
But I knew I shouldn’t be.
Things with us were weird and complicated. He told me he’d made love to me last night, not his dead wife, and I believed him. I believed him because the way he said it, the way he was behaving with me made me believe him. But more, I remembered every minute of last night and he’d not once slipped and called me Ilsa or “my beauty.”
He’d only used the names he had for me.
So it was just me for him.
And as for him, not once, not even once did I think of Pol.
So it was just him for me.
But still.
We’d been in each other’s presence—I counted—six times. And if you counted our uncomfortable meal last night, we’d only had one semi-kind-of-date and that date went far from well.
This shift wasn’t right.
Or, if not exactly right, it was too fast.
The sleigh slid over the snow and I worried my lip as it did. Then I pressed my lips together when his arm moved along the back of my seat, curled around me and pulled me across the seat and into him. Without delay, once he got me close, he curved me closer.
Oh boy.
“Apollo?” I called.
“Yes, dove,” he muttered.
God, really, him calling me “dove” was all kinds of lovely.
“Um…are we, have we…”
Just suck it up and talk to him about it, Ils…fuck, Madeleine!
I took in a deep breath and asked, “Has the state of play between us changed?”
His deep voice sounded puzzled when he asked back, “The state of play?”
I pulled up courage and tipped my head back to look at him to see him already looking down at me.
Yes, puzzled.
“You seem, I mean…” I drew in breath. “You’re being very affectionate.”