Chapter 5 #2
His chuckle pierced the heavy blanket and the pounding in her ears. “It’s fine.” His voice was rough and velvety, abrading before quickly soothing. Like when he used to nip at her bottom lip then kiss it, the pain and pleasure creating a texture of sensation that drove her wild.
But now, she wished for a cavern to form directly below her bed and swallow her whole. “I’m giving you privacy.”
“You’re as full of shite as that wheelbarrow in the stable.”
She bit her tongue to avoid groaning. Whether from humiliation or untapped lust, she couldn’t decide. “Go to bed, Whit.”
Shuffling noises from beside her, then his voice again, lower, gentler. “I wish you’d call me Philip.”
She dragged the covers off her face; her flush was making her overheat, anyway. “Why?”
He was a shadowy figure in the chair, a mere hint of the man she’d once known.
Once loved. His exhalation was rough, as though this admission pained him more than what he’d shared in the stable.
Her throat already ached, and her eyes burned from holding back the flood of contradictory emotions.
She wasn’t certain she could bear hearing more from him.
“Because I was Philip to everyone I met after I left. I’m a new man, and Whit doesn’t fit me now.”
The ring on her finger felt suddenly heavy, and she twisted it with her thumb, a nervous habit she hadn’t been able to quit. “I thought I knew Philip, but I was wrong. I don’t know you anymore. And you don’t know me.”
“I do,” he whispered. “I may not know every detail of how you’ve lived for the past eight years, but I know you, Lily Marshall. I know your heart.”
“You had eight years to know me, and you wasted them.” She hated the tremor in her voice. “I will not give you any more.”
She’d created an existence for herself in the aftermath of his departure, scrabbly, broken weeds blooming in the ashes of a devastating fire.
And what she’d created was strong, resilient, but so damned lonely she worried she’d never be at peace again.
She exhausted herself with her work, filled her days and surrounded herself with people whom she could walk away from without shattering the careful structure around her heart.
But in one evening, Whit was cracking through, breaking apart the foundation. Could she survive Christmas without collapsing?
As she burrowed into the covers and pressed a pillow over her ear, her throat burned. And she wished, like the foolish girl she’d been, she could take her words back.
The list of things Philip missed about his wife had reached seven pages when he left Paris two weeks ago, and had only stayed that length because he’d run out of space, having already filled every margin with his scribbling.
How she snorts when she laughs too hard.
The freckle beneath her left ear.
How the bow of her upper lip is uneven, the right side higher than the left.
The hum she makes when she eats something she likes.
But now he was kicking himself for not thinking about how she slept.
As she’d rightfully pointed out, he’d only had one night to observe her in slumber, and he’d wasted it pining for opium, already wishing to escape the greatest blessing he’d ever received to chase his curse.
The clouds had thinned until a stream of moonlight spilled through a crack in the heavy curtains and over the bed.
The dark plait glinted like gold was spun into her hair, her skin pale and flawless like a holy icon.
He wanted to press his lips against the freckle beneath her ear, to taste the salt and spice of her skin directly from the source.
Despite his exhaustion, the idea of sleep was laughable. He’d been entrusted with her care, and he’d wasted eight years of watching her chest rise and fall. Hearing her soft sighs and watching her eyelashes tremble against her cheeks.
He’d need to find paper soon and commit these details to his memory in case she sent him away, something to keep him company in the endless, lonely days ahead.
Missing Lily had been a blessing, a gift that kept him alive.
He’d watched countless men destroy themselves with their addiction, the vice so powerful they’d forgotten who might be waiting for them, loving them.
Philip never let himself forget her; on those dark nights when the pull of the drug was too strong to resist, it was his longing for his wife that had him fighting to return to her.
Even if she hated him, she felt something for him.
And that would be enough to reach for another day, another moment in her presence.
She rolled onto her side, facing him, and blinked several times until her gaze cleared and sharpened. “You’re awake.” Her voice was rough and low, hazy from sleep.
His lips curled up. “So are you.”
He expected a glare in response, a barb to reinforce the insurmountable gap between them. Instead, she looked away, her throat bobbing.
A broken Lily was far worse than the impenetrable one, and he hated it. Hated that he’d done this to her, that his absence had required her to become a woman with walls.
She rolled away, giving him her back. “I thought you were tired.”
“I am.” He dared to lean forward, propping his elbows on his knees.
A long moment of silence, then, “I told you sleeping in the chair was a bad idea.”
“Better than the floor.”
She huffed, then looked over her shoulder. “Are you planning to stay there all night?”
I’ll stay forever if you let me. “Yes.”
She shuffled, burrowing further into the blankets. “Come to bed.” Her words were barely audible, and he suspected she hoped he wouldn’t hear them.
His spine stiffened, and he battled the need to leap to his feet. “Are you sure?”
“You said you were exhausted, and you won’t sleep in that dratted chair.” She hadn’t emerged from her cocoon of linens, but each word electrified him as if she’d whispered them into his ear.
His back and knees protested when he extricated himself from said dratted chair, and he turned the blankets down, his eyes dancing over the expanse of fabric before reaching her. His wife, in her bed—their bed, if he laid down beside her.
“Are you getting in or not? I’m getting cold.”
The petulance of her words didn’t mask their slight tremor, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap himself around her, to swear he’d never harm her again.
Instead, he slid beneath the covers, keeping his side aligned with the edge of the bed. “Thank you for caring for my sleep,” he breathed.
A shudder ran through her. “Caring for you wasn’t the problem. It was convincing myself I shouldn’t.”