LITMIR.BIZ

      “Still sleeping,” Maeve mumbled.

      Devlin said nothing. She felt his hum, basso profundo, in the acoustic curve of her neck. It reverberated all the way to her feet.

      She kicked at the cloud of comforter surrounding them. “Tickle.”

      Devlin exhaled audibly.

      “That, too!” Maeve cocked her shoulders toward her ears for protection.

      The flat of his hand crept around her ribs. He pulled her against his body, skin-to-skin, ten degrees warmer and the rock-solid opposite of the pillows, mattress and covers cocooning them against the winter morning. Not exactly what she’d call spooning, though. Dev was too angular. The man was more of a fork. Or knife.

      “One more hour, Dev.” She slit one eye open to confirm her suspicions. “Not even morning, you madman.”

      He didn’t reply. Didn’t move. Didn’t soothe or sigh.

      He just held on.

      That’s what roused her.

      Nightmare. He got them now and then. Vivid, bloody awful things. Unconscious musings on worst-case scenarios portrayed across his mind’s eye in full sensory detail. Sight. Sound. Smell. Every negative possibility his conscious mind would never tolerate. He’d described bits of them to her occasionally after spiking awake, wide-eyed, skin flushed to a deep red and more than usually ready for action.

      Forget flight. Fight or fuck—that was Devlin’s autonomic response.

      Despite their complementary position, he’d cocked his hips away from her. The space created a draft across her bottom. He was holding back. The dream had left him too raw to close that final inch.

      She snuggled backward, connecting them.

      “Christ,” he hissed. “Your ass is like ice.”

      “Helps bring down swelling.”

      He huffed a sound of relief as he pushed against her, pillowing the thick heat of his cock against the cool of her cheeks. “Doesn’t seem to be working.”

      “How odd.” Maeve didn’t wait long before prompting, “Dev?”

      “Shhh.”

      “Tell me about it?”

      He didn’t answer. Against her back, Maeve could feel the rise and fall of his chest. His breath lulled her like waves against the sand.

      Time settled around them, soft as their bed.

      “I’ve a story I could tell.” His voice ran rough over words. He sounded like he’d been shouting. “That do?”

      The cold skimming her skin’s surface settled in her veins.

      She gave his hand a squeeze to distract from her shudder.

      “Lovely.”

      The well water ran to icy. Enough to make a man shudder before it even touched a body. Hale stripped off his shirt and dumped a fresh bucketful over his head.

      He’d crammed half a week’s chores into one infernally long day. Every muscle ached. He’d cleaned stables. Repaired fencing. Stacked wood.

      So much to do. He’d been too long away.

      His breath steamed the air as he scrubbed with the soap cake and rag that Polly had installed by the pump for these occasions. He was in the peak of health. Strong. Capable.

      Helpless.

      He rinsed with another half bucket of icy water. Slicked the hair off his face. Hale could smell the hot supper the old woman must have organized.

      Hard work. A pump bath. A good meal. A soft bed to lie down with his wife.

      A week ago, he’d have counted himself a wealthy man, a lucky man.

      “That you, sir?” But tonight, it wasn’t his wife calling him in for supper. “Mr. Hale?”

      “I’m coming,” he answered.

      His stomach clenched as he passed the kitchen hearth. There was a soup simmering and the faint aroma of yeasted bread, cooling on the sideboard. The comfort of it, the normalcy, made him want to rush back outside into the night.

      “We’re back here, Mr. Hale, in the bedroom.”

      It wasn’t the dark and dreary scene he’d expected. There was firewood on the hearth. The bedclothes had been changed and smoothed. The floor was swept. A posy of autumn leaves and berries were stuffed in a cup. Nan, the only surgeon within a week’s ride, sat in his wife’s rocking chair, hands busy with a needle and thread.

      “No one heals in a muddle,” she explained, then nodded at the bedside table. “Look on the tray there. Took me nearly an hour to remove it all.”

      The monster was large enough Hale could pinch it between two fingers—a thorn, two inches long and black as pitch.

      “Wicked thing, to be sure,” the woman said.

      “She looks…better.”

      His wife lay on the bed, lightly tucked beneath the quilt. Eyes closed. No sign of pain in her expression.

      Polly.

      She might have been merely sleeping.

      Her dark hair was loosely braided, a hair ribbon tied around the end. Her shift was clean, the fine linen one she rarely wore. Too much fuss, his practical wife would say. I can’t pop ’round to the barn for French laundry soap, you know.

      In the candlelight, her skin was milky white, her cheeks faintly pink. Her chapped lips had been treated with ointment. Hale saw the pot on the nightstand. A blend of beeswax and sweet butter, he guessed. It smelled like lemon balm. Her mouth glistened, plump and soft, as if she’d been kissed. As if she’d been kissing him.

      Hale settled on the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb her. One of her hands lay tucked beneath the bedcovers. He lifted the other to his mouth. Her palm was cool and he pressed it to his cheek, instinctively. Warming Polly was one of his regular duties.

      What would he do without her?

      Beneath the quilted counterpane, Polly’s other hand began to move restlessly, rounding over her hip, then sliding up across the flat plane of her stomach, her ribs, until it came to rest over her heart. Her lips parted and she inhaled a tiny sigh.

      “Polly? Are you hurting?”

      Her fingers began to move beneath the blanket. At first, Hale thought she sought to ease an itch, but her steady motion was too deliberate. His mouth went dry, as he watched her thumb the soft weight of her breast. She turned her head toward the pillow, toward the breast being teased by her own hand. The temperature of his skin rose as his body readied to assist.

      “The fever makes her restless,” Nan commented.

      “I see that.”

      Under the bedclothes, Polly’s hand began to travel again. Her chin tilted, exposing the smooth skin of her neck above the flounce of her nightgown.

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