Beauden swallowed hard. He was not comfortable speaking words of love. Not since his mother died had he mentioned love to a woman. But how could he fail to speak now? The words wanted to be out, they were threatening to choke him in their eagerness to be heard. His breathing had become more difficult and his corroded heart throbbed within his chest, aching like an open wound. Still, he could not talk to her like this, like a captive bound on a sacrificial altar. He needed to sit with her, take her hand …

“Galena, will you do something for me?”

It seemed as though her words were slow in coming. “Anything.” She stood just inches from the bed. “What do you need?”

“Be careful not to get too close to the bed, but could you turn this off, and undo my straps?”

“But …”

“Please Galena. I will rest later.” When his eyes met hers he could sense her desire and her reluctance. Her feelings as a woman were in conflict with the medical imperative. “Just at this moment I need to look you in the eye and talk to you about what happened this morning.”

He hoped that she had not heard the desperation in his voice. Right now he felt as though he would suffocate if he did not speak.

She managed to gauge the interval between the passage of the arms then reached in and pressed the lever. Instantly the rotations began to slow. In a few seconds they had ground to a halt. The cogs yawned and groaned as she depressed the handle that lowered the bed flat and, when it stopped, reached over to loosen the leather straps at chest and hip.

Beauden sat up. “Will you sit here beside me?”

Galena picked up her muslin skirts and perched on the edge of the bed, then wriggled back. They sat close, almost touching at the hip. The sudden proximity when his mind was so full of her was a trifle overwhelming. His apology and explanation no longer seemed to be most crucial. He found himself drowning in her chocolate gaze. The last vestiges of coherent thought or syllable scattered like hens, faced with a fox. Common sense followed shortly on their heels. He felt himself seared from within, like iron in a forge. His hands rose and touched her shoulder, her chin, her jaw.

“Galena.”

The word was an homage; half purr, half prayer. He leaned forward and met her luscious pink lips with his pale blue ones. They met as ice and fire do, with a sizzle that he had not expected. He was so caught up in the sense of rapture that it was a moment before he realised that she was not passive. Not at all. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted just a fraction to allow him access. The heat in her pulled him in; deeper, hungrier, needier. Her soft sigh against his lips nearly broke him.

At her urging, he deepened the kiss while his hands resisted the delectable bosom pressed against his and instead slid up her lovely neck to cradle her skull. One of her hands caressed the line of his jaw. The other sat on his thigh and slid higher, seeking his waist.

Her lips were a meadow in high summer and he was the bee, dizzy with plunder. He could taste the sweetness of her honey. The skin at her nape was smoothest satin, her hair was silk. He wound an errant curl around an index finger and luxuriated in its tender embrace.

His lips left hers and slid, via her jaw, to the soft hollow below the ear. Galena groaned and her hands tugged his shirt free then slid beneath it. He felt her hands slide across the restrictive corset and his lungs locked. They traveled up to the top of the tight linen sheath and caressed the skin under his shirt, tracing a light pattern over his flesh. The sensation was dizzying and as he met her lips with his again, an urgent intemperate desire surged through him. A strange sensation, one he’d come to know from waking after a sinful dream, overtook him. For a second the desire he felt disappeared in a wave of shame. He moved the hand that had been loving her so gently and dropped it in his lap to hide the evidence of his lust.

“I’m sorry. I should stop.”

She opened her eyes. Somehow she knew that stopping was not his desire. She looked down and lifted his hand from his lap, then laced her fingers through it. “Whatever for?”

He looked at the wall opposite and willed his body to be more discreet. It refused. He felt her lips on his again. This time she led and he would follow her anywhere. He looked into her eyes. He’d never known chocolate could burn. He saw, not the warmth he was accustomed to, but a bonfire of need and hunger that matched his own.

“Don’t stop.” Her head shook just enough to brush her lips over his like a caress. “I’m honoured, if you must know, that you feel this way about me.”

“You are not like most women, darling Galena.”

“You are not like most men, my dear one.”

“No, I am not.” His tone was not pride, but sorrow. “And though I love you desperately, you deserve a man who can offer you a whole body.”

The light in her eyes was fierce. “Your body is whole, my darling, and so is your heart. You are more, so much more, than any man I have ever met, Beauden Somerton.” And she pulled him into a deep current of passion until they were both swept away.  

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