“How old were you?”
“Ten and three. Blackheart wasn’t much older, ten and seven, and yet he became an adult that spring, for all intents and purposes. I resented him for it at first. He immersed himself in running the dukedom while I fooled around at school, got into trouble simply because I resented him making decisions for me, decisions my father ought to have made. I didn’t realize his sacrifice until I graduated.” His voice trailed off in self-recrimination.
“Did you like school?”
“I didn’t give myself a chance to. Perhaps I might have if I’d been any good at it.”
Naomi pondered the image of a young man coming of age, not allowed to mourn his parents in any real way, struggling to meet academic expectations of a domineering older brother.
Luke could build almost anything with his hands. He understood military strategy, and he showed compassion and empathy for those who served under him.
He was a doer. Not one who spent hours reading or studying or debating. If he saw a problem, he went right to work fixing it. If Naomi, or even Ester, was in need of anything, he’d set himself immediately to providing it.
He raised one hand to pinch the space between his eyes.
Luke’s brother wasn’t the only person who’d emerged from their parents’ deaths with a heightened sense of responsibility. Luke had become yoked by his brother’s expectations. Knowingly or unknowingly, Blackheart had burdened Luke to fulfill the scholastic endeavors he himself had been denied. When Luke hadn’t excelled there, he’d pursued other jobs at his brother’s suggestions. The church, the military.
This would explain the anxiety that arose whenever the subject of talking to his brother about selling out came up.
Apparently, the Duke of Blackheart hadn’t spent much time with his younger brother over the past decade. Had he done so, he would realize Luke was a man of hidden depths, but also a natural-born manager, gifted in the ability to rebuild and maintain. He’d casually offered several suggestions for the land itself, improvements that could make her property more profitable.
“At some point,” she said gently, “we must shed the expectations of others.”
He didn’t answer but she sensed his reluctance to be consoled. When beliefs, even mistaken ones, entrenched themselves into people’s souls, it was difficult to shed them.
Talking with her wouldn’t automatically erase his worry. Nor was it going to help him fall back to sleep.
Naomi burrowed into Luke’s bare chest, smoothing her hand over his skin, teasing the smattering of hair that circled his taut nipples.
She didn’t want to abandon him yet to the darkness of his dreams. She wanted to provide the comfort he’d so often provided for her.
“You do not sleep in a nightshirt?” She should return to her own chamber. Hadn’t she learned her lesson before? Apparently not, because lying beside him like this, she acknowledged willingly, to herself anyhow, that she was, indeed, something of a wanton. Her fingertips walked a teasing path from his sternum to just above his navel.
And then she swirled gentle circle in the short curling hairs there.
Luke groaned and turned on his side so that they were face to face. “I want everything with you.”
Naomi held herself perfectly still, her senses heightened where he dragged his hand over her shoulder, and then down her side. He lingered in the valley of her waist, but then coasted his palm to lay flat on the swell of her hip.
Not for the first time, she considered that he might be repulsed by her swollen belly.
“You’re so beautiful, Naomi.” He gathered the fabric of her night rail into his fist, drawing the hem up her legs. “Everything.”
When the warmth of his hand skimmed the bare skin of her thigh, sensual heat surged to her core where only a few hours before…
She resisted the urge to raise her knee up onto his hip while he curved his hand around her back and then over her belly. “So precious.”
Resisting her own desires grew more and more difficult.
But he’d told her already that he wanted to wait.
“I want you, sweet girl, so much.” She could hear his breaths now, laboring almost to match her own.
“But you said—”
“I’m an idiot.”
“So…?”
In answer, he lifted his hand and covered her breast. His touch was so much more satisfying than her own had been. Incomparable.
He squeezed with just the right amount of pressure and then tweaked the tip. The combination of this man, the rugged soldier in him but also his dedication to honor and good manners, melted her heart like butter.
Need dissolved into surrender.
His eyes flared, reflecting the moonlight and in an impatient movement, he pushed the counterpane down and then used his feet to free himself from the covers. At the same time, she drew her night rail up and over her head.
She meant to toss it aside but froze at the sight of him.
“Luke.” Her gasp was partly from need and partly in awe.
Watching him, appreciating the filtered light of the moon slanting across his form, she couldn’t move her gaze away from the perfection of this man. Shadows revealed contours she’d only imagined. A short but jagged scar ran down one side of his torso and a second one curved over his shoulder.
This man. He was a soldier, a brother, a friend. She would have him for a lover. Could she have more?
Tears stung the back of her eyes. Was it possible? Were they possible?
When she finally met his eyes again, she recognized the same need. Even as his gaze settled on the bulge of her midsection.
“Does it bother you?” She had to ask. She needed to know. She didn’t want him to make love to her out of pity.
“God, no. Naomi. You’re incredible. Being with you like this is a miracle.” His throat moved as he swallowed hard. “I wish she was mine. I won’t lie. But she is a part of you.”
And Arthur. Would he always be between them?
He countered the question without her having to voice it. “We won’t always be defined by his choices. We will make our own.”
And tonight would be theirs alone.
They would not speak his name again.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” He oh-so-gently drew her against him again and it was he who lifted her knee and settled it onto his hip.
“Touch me,” she begged. She did not need to ask a second time.
He fondled her softly at first, but then slid his fingers along her crease. “You’re so wet for me.” His palm floated up to just below her belly and then down again, around. “You like this.”
“So much,” she moaned.
“And this?” He entered her with one finger, stretching her wider as he added another.
“Mmm...”
Chapter Thirteen
Luke had thought he could wait. It would have been the practical thing to do, the proper thing to do. But love wasn’t practical and the things he wanted to do with her sure as hell weren’t proper.
Upon suffering yet another nightmare, and then waking to find her beside him, all the reasons he’d had for waiting suddenly seemed flimsy at best. Not taking this opportunity when they had it seemed idiotic—possibly tragic.
Because he was going to have to return to his command to lead one more mission. Tomorrow wasn’t a given and that made today all the more precious.