The Lover by Robin Schone

Author:Robin Schone [Schone, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical
ISBN: 9780758204271
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
Published: 2008-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 10

Layer by layer, Anne dragged free of the suffocating darkness that banded her breasts and anchored her thighs. Hot, prickly heat crowded her neck; it gusted warm, moist air. The rhythmic soughing overrode the distant ring of a handbell.

Memories flitted through her sleep-drugged thoughts, vivid splashes of color overlying the gray light that pierced her eyelids.

Crimson blood. Peacock blue velvet. Darkly veined, plum-tipped flesh. A white, wet feather. Gold-rimmed china. Burgundy red wine…

A vague pounding commenced inside her temples. Hazy, dreamlike images lurked beneath the dull pain.

Michel had teased her with wine…

No. He had teased her with the wine bottle. Cool glass sliding, gliding, penetrating. Filling her with liquid.

It had been cold instead of hot. Thin rather than thick.

He had drunk from her body as if she were the finest of goblets.

Anne suddenly became aware of the stickiness between her thighs.

And knew it had been no dream.

Burgundy wine coated her tongue; heavy, sweet, with an underlying bitterness.

Her eyelids flew open.

An arm tightened about her breasts; at the same time a leg hitched up higher, pressing on her lower abdomen.

She simultaneously became aware that it was Michel who weighted her down, not sleep. And that she had been awakened by the need to relieve herself, not by the ring of her mother's handbell.

Tenderness ripped through her chest—along with a burst of crystal-clear memories, sights and sounds unmarred by wine or sleep.

Anne had tasted this man. Suckled him. Brought him to orgasm.

She whose only accomplishment was nursing.

Now he lay sleeping beside her. On top of her.

And she could not even engage in the luxury of basking in the uniquely intimate experience.

Feeling subtly cheated and slightly disoriented, as if her thoughts and her body were disconnected, she tentatively wriggled out from underneath the heavy weight of his arm and leg, skin and hair sliding on the silk sheet.

How young a woman felt with her hair hanging loose as opposed to having it secured in a tight bun or braided in a single rope, she thought inanely. Freed at last, absurdly bereft at the loss of the bone-melting warmth that had cocooned her, she glanced at Michel.

His shoulder was darkly masculine against the cream-colored silk sheet and leaf green velvet spread. The left side of his face was buried in the pillow; morning stubble shadowed his right cheek. His eyelids remained closed in sleep, lashes a silky black fan.

He looked… vulnerable. Seductive. Everything any woman could possibly desire.

And he was all hers for the next twenty-six days.

A spinster's lover.

Holding her breath for fear of waking him, she curiously touched his cheek.

It was bristly. Endearingly masculine.

Moving her finger up, she lightly skimmed the puckered ridge of scars edging his high cheekbone.

Michel winced.

Lassitude scattering, Anne snatched her hand back.

She didn't want to wake him.

There were other things to do. Other avenues to explore. Fears to conquer that without Michel she would never have had the courage to overcome. She slid out of bed.

Michael clutched the crumpled silk sheet in his hand to stop himself from reaching out and grabbing Anne.

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