He’d found Rhona. He’d found Patrick. Surely heaven wouldn’t be vicious enough to snatch away this second chance at fulfillment.
Except his trust in heaven’s benevolence had come to a violent end when he was eighteen. He couldn’t accept that now he’d found his beloved and his child, they wouldn’t disappear again. How unbearable to think Rhona might send him back into the cold. In these last years, he’d barely held onto a scrap of humanity. What little remained of the man he’d once been would evaporate if there was to be nothing more between him and Rhona than one short evening of prickly conversation.
She’d answered his curiosity about where she’d been all this time. But his needs stretched far beyond mere curiosity. None of which he could satisfy after midnight in this house where she’d offered him such grudging shelter.
Malcolm punched his pillow and shifted yet again on the soft featherbed. He told himself he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since his darling had been ripped away from him, so what did it matter if he missed out on yet another? But on those frustrating, miserable nights, his love hadn’t been sleeping a few doors along the corridor.
A good portion of his restlessness stemmed from frustrated desire. Over the years, it was inevitable that the Rhona in his mind had lost some of her physical reality. But tonight, seeing her in the flesh – and what glorious flesh it was – reminded him how a glance from those green eyes had once made him as randy as a young bull.
He was no longer a young bull, but, by God, his body didn’t seem to recognize that reality. His body knew that paradise lay closer than it had in half a lifetime, and it was afire to bridge the distance.
Shifting onto his side, he wondered what time Rhona and Patrick got up in the morning. Malcolm might starve to touch her when he was with her, but that was still easier than being locked away without her.
Go to sleep, Malcolm. You can’t go blundering around the house, hunting for her. You don’t even know which room is hers. Not to mention that you want to convince her you’re good husband material. Forcing your way into her room and begging her to take you into her bed won’t make the best impression.
He closed his eyes on another sigh and tried to find a comfortable place in the bed. Although his restiveness had nothing to do with the bed and everything to do with the sexual excitement fizzing in his blood.
When the door opened, he wondered if he had in fact fallen asleep and was caught up in a dream. The flicker of a candle revealed Rhona in a white flannel nightdress, with the plaid shawl flung around her shoulders. Her rich red hair was confined in a single plait that trailed across the lush curve of her bosom.
His pulse racing with wicked anticipation, Malcolm pushed up in the bed. “Rhona?” Then common sense asserted itself. “Is something wrong?”
She shook her head and stepped into the room, shutting the substantial oak door behind her. Malcolm’s heart crashed against his ribs and stole his breath. He’d been alone with her for most of the evening, but there was something particularly evocative about her entering his bedchamber.
“I don’t want Patrick to know I’m here,” she whispered.
“Do you want to talk some more?” He kept his voice to a murmur.
Her gesture expressed an uncharacteristic helplessness. “No.”
He frowned as he worked through the implications of that. “Have you come to throw me out into the snow, now the storm has passed?”
While Malcolm and Rhona hadn’t ended as friends exactly, she’d seemed to accept his presence in the house. But he couldn’t forget the hatred in her eyes when he’d first arrived. Perhaps now she’d had time to reflect on his plan to court her, she’d decided she was better off banishing him from her presence.
She looked shocked. “Of course not.”
Malcolm supposed that was something. He sucked in a relieved breath and recalled that he was naked. When her gaze fastened with unmistakable interest on his bare chest, the candlelight wavered, revealing the tremble of her hand.
Now, that was interesting. Very interesting indeed. “Then what are you doing here?”
She set the candle on top of the chest of drawers, and it was her turn to suck in a deep breath. “Actually I don’t know. It’s not for—”
“Bed sport?”
She avoided his eyes, and he wondered if she was blushing. The light wasn’t bright enough to tell. Young Rhona had gone red as a rowanberry. Tenderness pierced his heart at the thought of this sophisticated woman blushing like the innocent lass she’d once been.
“No.” She paused. “Not with Patrick in the house.”
Malcolm’s heart took off on another of those dizzying leaps. That sounded even more promising. Did that mean that if Patrick wasn’t in the house, she might consent to take him into her body?
She made another of those helpless gestures. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Neither could I.”
“It’s mad, but it felt wrong that you were so far away.”
“It does.”
“So I wondered if I can lie down beside you.” She paused. “Just lie down.”
He summoned a smile, although turbulent emotion churned in his gut. This was the first time she’d admitted that she recognized the bond linking them. “I understand.”
She gave a huff of wry laughter. “I wish to heaven I did.”
“Should I put on some clothes?” He pushed the bedcovers lower. “I’m not wearing anything.”
He bit back a groan as her eyes traced a searing path down his body, revealed now to the base of his belly. As she completed that leisurely inspection, she could have no idea how hunger sharpened her features.
His cock stirred, and he hoped to hell she didn’t guess his disquiet. After all these years without her, if she lay beside him, even without the possibility of congress, it would feel like a gift. He didn’t want his powerful masculine urges to frighten her away.
She blinked and glanced away, as if she realized how her avid curiosity betrayed her. “Perhaps…perhaps that might be a good idea.”
When she turned her back, a sardonic laugh escaped him. “You have seen me naked before.”
“That was another lifetime,” she said, and the sadness in her voice quietened his burgeoning excitement.
“Aye, it was.” He rolled out of bed and with shaking hands tugged on his breeches. “You’re safe to look now.”
She turned to watch him slide back into bed. He held his hand out. “Come here, Rhona.”
After she bent to blow out the candle, the fire provided enough light for him to watch as she unwrapped the shawl from around her and let it fall to the floor. The unselfconscious grace of the movement made the breath catch in his tight throat.
Gingerly, she slipped into the bed and lay flat as he pulled the covers over her. “May I hold you in my arms?”
“You won’t—”
“No, you have my word.” He struggled to explain something he didn’t fully understand himself. “I want you. You must know that.”
“I supposed.”
“But I want more from you than just a quick tumble.”
“It might be easier if that was all you wanted.” Regret weighted her voice.