His hands gripped her shoulders and waist to lift her so that her head was lying on the pillow near his. The rawness of possession burned in his expression. “I would rather forget that you have had any lover other than me.”
“Perhaps you would, but that isn’t the case.” She wouldn’t let him attempt to erase Phillip from her memory. “He was good to me, Chase, when I needed someone very badly. Phillip was a good husband and a good father to Ty.”
“Yes.” Reluctantly, he smiled in grim resignation. Finding her left hand between them, he lifted it and kissed the gold band around her finger. “I am your husband now and Ty is our son. The papers will be ready next week to petition the court to legally change his name to Calder—with your permission, of course.”
“When did you find that out?” she asked while he continued to keep her hand folded in his.
“Yesterday—at the attorney’s.”
“Is that where you were?” Part of the time, anyway, she thought, and studied his work-roughened hand.
“Yes.” He rubbed his thumb across her fingers. “I seem to spend more time in offices and behind a desk than I do on a horse anymore, but I guess that goes with the territory. After being penned in with those attorneys all those hours, I wasn’t in a very good mood when I came home last night. When I discovered you hadn’t waited up for me or even left a light on, that didn’t improve my disposition. And I hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch, so—”
Her gaze lifted in surprise. His face was so close to hers, it was almost a blur. “Didn’t you have dinner last night?”
“No.”
“But I thought… even Ty said you’d probably stop at—” Maggie didn’t say it because she didn’t want him to know that she had been even briefly jealous. “There was food in the refrigerator. You should have fixed yourself something.” She recentered her gaze on his hand.
“Where did you … and Ty … think I had dinner?” He was already guessing the answer. “You thought I ate at Sally’s.”
“It was a logical place,” she admitted with a show of indifference. “I’ve heard she’s a good cook.”
His low chuckle held the hint of satisfaction. “You didn’t like the idea, did you? So you re-arranged the furniture to set a trap for me.”
“No.” Maggie denied that. “I just thought it would look better if a few things were shifted around.”
“But it bothered you just a little that I might have been with Sally last night,” he said in a mocking tone that insisted she admit it.
“It was possible.” She flashed him a look that dared him to deny it. “After all, it had been a long time since you’d had sex with anyone. I mean, you were here every night.”
“So you thought I went to her because I wasn’t getting it at home.” There were lines slashed in his lean cheeks as he smiled at her. “I admit I was frustrated as hell, Maggie. When I told you I didn’t care whether or not you shared my bed after we were married, I meant it. I wanted Ty, and I would have married the devil’s own daughter to get him. But seeing you every day, the mother of my son, started me wanting. I seem to have an itch that only you know how to scratch. That’s the way it was sixteen years ago, and that’s the way it is now.”
As he moved, she was pulled under him. He was heavy on her, the heat of his body burning her skin. “Scratch me, Maggie.” It was a half-growl against her lips before his mouth crushed them. Her arms went around his broad, muscled back as the bedcovers were kicked aside.
It was nearly noon before either of them was inclined to get out of bed. Chase was the first to get up. Maggie stayed under the sheet and admired the hard, lean flanks of his backside as he pulled on his pants. He glanced over his shoulder. “Hungry?”
“A little.” She swung out of bed on the opposite side and walked to the closet. “Are you?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so.” She slanted him a provocative look over her shoulder. “You have the hungriest eyes.”
A knowing smile touched his mouth at her double meaning, a dark light dancing in his eyes. “Then fix me some food first, woman.”
There was an easy intimacy between them all day, spiced with a running undercurrent of excitement. After lunch, Chase helped her clean up, warning her to take due note of his action, because she may never see him with a dish towel in his hands again. While she moved his clothes to her room, he began repairing the broken door, whistling as he worked.
When the job was finished and the mess cleaned up, he took a shower to freshen up. While he was in the bathroom, Maggie changed the sheets and made the bed.
She heard the shower stop and called, “Would you fill the tub with water for me, Chase? I want to take a bath.”
His muffled response was affirmative, and seconds later she heard water running in the tub. She laid out clothes for each of them on the bed and slipped out of the short, cotton houserobe. When she entered the bathroom, the tub was billowing with scented bubbles and Chase was standing at the sink lathering his face with shaving cream, a towel wrapped around his waist.
His gaze met hers in the mirror. “Do you mind if I shave while you bathe?”
“Of course not.” She tied the mass of black curls atop her head with a strand of red yarn. “I like company.” Turning off the faucets, she immersed herself into the tub, filled with luxuriant bubbles and warm, scented water. “And thanks for drawing my bath—complete with perfumed bubbles.”
Chase paused with the straight-edged razor in his hand and studied the reflection she cast in the mirror as she reclined in the tub. “I remember when I saw you bathing in the river. I don’t know which way is sexier—bathing in style, or bathing in the raw.”