Chapter Twenty-Four #3
She felt wonderfully spent, almost boneless beneath him, her heart still giving the occasional hard thump as her body settled from everything he had awakened in it.
Yet beneath the lingering pleasure was something quieter and infinitely more dangerous, a fullness in her chest that had nothing at all to do with what they’d just done and everything to do with the man still lying in her arms.
Anna closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against his hair.
She had told herself she could do this. That wanting Bram was physical, that attraction did not have to become love, that two people could share a bed simply because they desired each other and allow it to be nothing more than that.
God! How easily she’d lied to herself.
What had just happened had not felt meaningless to her.
It had felt enormous. Beautiful and intimate and frighteningly tender in ways that had very little to do with pleasure, and she knew she would remember it long after she remembered individual kisses or touches.
She would remember the way he had looked at her, the way he’d said her name, the care he’d taken with her even when she’d begged him not to hold back.
She tightened her arms around him when he stirred, unwilling yet to surrender the warmth and weight of him.
Whatever tomorrow brought, whatever explanation Bram might give this or whatever distance he might put between them again, Anna refused to borrow the hurt of it tonight.
She wanted him, had chosen him with her eyes wide open, and for these few precious moments afterward, he was still here in her arms.
And if this was all Bram could ever give her, she would let herself have all of it tonight.
***
Bram had been awake for some time before the first suggestion of dawn lightened the window.
Anastasia remained asleep beside him, turned partly toward him with one hand tucked beneath her cheek and her fair hair scattered across the pillow between them.
At some point in the night she had drawn the coverlet nearly to her chin, though one bare shoulder remained exposed above it, pale in the thin gray light.
Bram had spent an unreasonable length of time looking at that shoulder, and at the soft curve of her cheek, and had discovered that even after a night spent satisfying the want that had plagued him for weeks, he wanted her still.
Indeed, satisfaction appeared to have worsened the condition.
His gaze traveled over her face and lingered upon her mouth.
He knew now precisely how it felt beneath his, knew the sounds she made when he kissed her in certain places and how readily she had curled herself around him afterward, holding him against her long after their breathing had quieted.
He had awakened once during the night to find her still close, her back fitted against his chest and his arm wrapped around her, and instead of leaving the too-small bed and finding his own, he’d pulled her nearer and gone back to sleep.
It was not only her body he wanted.
The admission came as no surprise, truth be told.
He wanted everything with her. He didn’t want her to return to some unfathomable time, not when she so clearly belonged here with him.
Bram knew better than to put a name to any of that.
Beside him, Anastasia stirred.
Her lashes fluttered before her eyes opened, unfocused at first, and then settled upon him. Bram watched recollection arrive almost at once. Her gaze sharpened, color slowly touched her cheeks, and for the first time since he’d known her, Anastasia Ellis appeared to have nothing at all to say.
“Good morn,” he murmured.
“Morning.”
She looked at him for another moment before lowering her gaze to his chest, and Bram waited for her to withdraw.
But no—a small, shy smile touched the corner of her mouth instead, and she shifted nearer beneath the coverlet and laid her hand against his chest.
The fleeting knot in his chest loosened.
“Are you leaving soon?” she asked.
“Soon enough.”
Her fingers moved idly through the hair upon his chest. “Then I’m glad we woke up before you had to go.”
Bram covered her hand with his.
She tipped her face toward him when he bent to her, and the kiss they shared bore little resemblance to the ones that had brought them into this bed.
There was no urgency in it now, only the warm press of her mouth and the lingering stroke of his thumb across her cheek.
When they parted, Anastasia remained close enough that her breath touched his lips.
He would ride within the hour, and there were men below already making ready, saddling horses and gathering provisions, yet he found no great urgency to leave this bed.
Eventually necessity prevailed, and he decided to give her instructions for his absence.
“Ye should remain within the walls while I am gone,” he said, his fingers still moving idly through the loose hair at her shoulder.
“If ye go beyond them, take Etta or one of the house guard with ye. Dinna go into the village alone, and if riders come while I am away, remain inside until Fearchar or my mother kens who they are.”
Anastasia shifted slightly against him but said nothing.
“And dinna ride anywhere without someone accompanying ye.”
“I don’t ride.”
“All the better.”
She made a small sound that might have been amusement.
Bram continued, “If there is aught ye require, tell Fearchar. He has instructions to provide it. Ye neednae ask my mother first, nor trouble yourself over the cost.”
“How generous of you.”
He ignored the faint dryness entering her voice. “And if Etta tries to persuade ye into leaving Craig na Coille for any foolish purpose—”
“Wait a minute.” Anastasia lifted her head from his chest and looked at him. “Has sleeping with me somehow given you the impression that you’re in charge of me now?”
Bram frowned. “I was already in charge.” He reconsidered, in light of her wide eyes. “Of Craig na Coille.”
“And...?”
“And therefore, to some extent, of everyone within it.”
Her mouth twitched, but he saw no humor in her eyes. “Wow. Last night made you even bossier.”
Bram frowned. “Last night changed matters.”
“Nothing has changed.” She sat up, holding the bed linen to her delectable breasts.
Bram sat up as well. “Ye cannae possibly believe that.”
Anna rose from the bed, and he momentarily lost track of his thoughts.
The dawn light fell across her in pale strips through the narrow window, and she was entirely bare, and he found he could not look away from the line of her spine, the curve of her hip, the unhurried way she moved as though she had forgotten, or did not care, that he was watching.
But then she dragged the shift over her head, emerging from it with her hair in considerable disarray.
“Why not?”
“Because we have lain together.”
Her hands paused briefly upon the linen before she began straightening it down her body. “Yes.”