“Oh. I . . . y-yes.” Her eyes filled with tears, shaming him.
An ache in his chest briefly overcame the one in his groin. “Ah, love. I’m sorry. Men are beasts when they’re overcome with lust, and I seem to be no exception.” Chastened, he rose to his feet and lifted her from the bed to turn back the sheets. “Here.”
Though he grieved the loss, he covered her naked body in crisp white, then sat on the edge of the bed and let his head fall to his hands.
By God, he might have ruined everything. All her awakening desire and tentative curiosity. What kind of man couldn’t control himself with his own wife? What kind of husband would hope to make her feel dirty?
When Sarah’s hand brushed his back with a butterfly touch, he cringed.
“James,” she breathed. “Are you overcome with lust?”
“I was, but I can control it. You needn’t worry.” Perhaps he should excuse himself to the dressing room and take care of the problem in private.
Her voice interrupted his brooding. “For me?” she asked.
“Hm?”
“You were overcome with lust for me?”
He froze. Her warm hand settled flat against his spine. “Of course for you, Sarah.”
“I . . .” Her fingers curled into his back. “I like that, too.” His heart stopped as her hand stroked down to tease along the waistband of his trousers. “I’m sorry I’m so nervous. I do not mean to be.”
He turned to face her, clasping her hand in his. “No, I’m to blame. There’s no need to rush. We have a lifetime together. Thousands of nights.”
She looked startled for a moment, then her mouth bloomed into a wide smile. “Thousands? My word.”
“Too melodramatic?”
“No, but you remind me that perhaps . . .” Blushing, she hesitated until James arched an eyebrow. “Um, perhaps I should see exactly what it is I’ve committed myself to.”
He frowned in confusion. “But we have already done that. Many times.”
She turned from pink to red in a fascinating suffusion of color. “Yes, but . . .” Clutching the sheet to her breasts, she leaned close. “I have never seen your instrument.”
James suffered a brief, disorienting thought of the violin he kept on the top shelf of his wardrobe, but then her meaning burst over his mind with startling clarity. He should not have laughed, but he did. Thank God, Sarah did not seem to mind, though she put her hands over her eyes and peeked through her fingers.
“I’m sorry,” he chuckled. “Of course you would wish to view the beast that hunts you every night.”
“James!” she scolded, voice full of laughter, then she squeaked when he stood and reached for the buttons of his remaining clothing. But when he slipped off his trousers and unfastened his drawers, Sarah’s hands fell away, and she watched with not a glimmer of humor in her eyes.
CHAPTER 4
The next morning Sarah woke very differently than she had the day before. She remembered everything she’d done immediately. Before the room had even come into focus, the night was acting itself out in her mind in vivid colors. Finally, she’d seen his body . . . nude.
James had blushed a bit. Or perhaps it had only been blood rushing to his skin, because he’d met her gaze unflinchingly as he’d divested himself of every stitch of clothing.
His boldness had sent shivers through her body. Not just over her skin, but everywhere, into her stomach and her sex, even her soul. That shivering had been nothing to do with modesty, so Sarah had let her hands fall from her face and offered the same honesty he was offering her.
His body was so different from hers. The same structure, perhaps, but a different architecture altogether. Straight planes where her body curved, texture where she was smooth. And, of course, his sex . . . proudly exposed while hers hid itself in shyness.
Though, as she’d looked him over from head to toe, her sex had felt decidedly less shy than it had in days past. She’d even dared to run a quizzical finger down his shaft . . . and back up. He had held still, like granite despite the shocking heat that emanated from his flesh. Her courage had seen her through one more touch, a slower slide of her fingers down his length, a quick caress of the tight testicles beneath. Then she’d dropped her hand, nodded, and tossed back the bedsheets to invite him in.
Smiling at the bright morning sunlight that stole over those very sheets, Sarah sighed with joy. A little of the strangeness of her life had washed away during the night. Her husband’s body now seemed a mystery to be explored with enthusiasm. And her own body, too. James had shown her just this morning that she had many things to learn about her own flesh as well.
He’d awakened her with strokes and kisses, then entered her body from behind, like a stallion covering a mare. At the very thought of it, Sarah blushed and hid her smile. The shock of it, along with the attention of James’s gentle fingers, had pushed her to her climax with scandalous speed.
Sarah Rose Hood was definitely in love with her husband.