Chapter 25
twenty-five
Anson couldn’t sleep.
He should’ve been thinking about Landry.
About security measures. About how to keep Maggie safe.
Instead, all he could think about was the soft curve of her ass nestled against his cock, her hair tickling under his chin.
Every breath she took flooded his senses with her, and every time she shifted in her sleep, his body responded with a near-painful throb of desire.
He was supposed to be guarding her. Not fighting the urge to wake her with his hands and mouth.
He shifted slightly, trying to put some space between them, but Maggie made a small sound of protest in her sleep and pressed back against him.
Heat surged through his veins, and he bit down on his tongue, the pain momentarily distracting him from the far more pleasant sensations threatening to overwhelm his self-control.
It wasn’t working. Not even close.
Fuck.
He gritted his teeth and tried to think about anything else. Horseshoes that needed shaping. The leak in the forge roof. The pile of leather waiting to be cut for all the various commissions he’d let pile up over the last couple of weeks.
But his mind kept circling back to Maggie. To the warmth of her. To the trust she’d placed in him by asking him to stay.
He should move. Put space between them. Go back to the chair by the window. But the thought of untangling himself from her felt impossible, like cutting off a limb.
Bramble huffed from his position by the door, and Anson envied the dog’s ability to simply lie down and rest, untroubled by the storm of thoughts and desires that kept his own mind racing.
She stirred again, and this time she wasn’t asleep.
Her body tensed slightly against his, and he knew she’d felt his reaction.
Felt his cock against her. There was a moment of stillness between them, heavy with possibility, before she shifted again, more deliberately this time, a slow roll of her hips that sent a jolt of electricity straight through him.
“Maggie,” he whispered, a warning and a plea wrapped into one word.
She turned in his arms to face him, her eyes catching the faint moonlight filtering through the curtains.
“Anson?” Her voice was thick with something more than sleep.
He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. “Sorry.”
“For what?” She pushed up on one elbow, looking down at him in the dim light from the woodstove. Her hair fell around her face, creating shadows that made her eyes seem impossibly deep.
“This isn’t... I didn’t mean to...” He couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t make himself say the words.
She studied him for a long moment, then brushed her fingers across his cheek. “Do you want me to move?”
“No.” The word came out before he could stop it. Honest. Raw.
Something changed in her expression. The wariness melted away, replaced with heat and hunger so clear it stole his breath. She whispered his name again, and the way her lips shaped the sound sent electricity down his spine.
He’d been fighting it for weeks now. Since the first moment he saw her, looking nothing like he’d imagined from her letters but somehow exactly right. He’d been fighting the pull of her, the wanting, the need to touch and taste and claim.
And he was so goddamn tired of fighting.
When she leaned down, he met her halfway. Their lips crashed together, and her mouth opened under his, her tongue sliding against his bottom lip, and he groaned, the sound dragged from somewhere deep in his chest.
He wrapped one arm around her waist and rolled, pulling her on top of him. She gasped against his mouth, then settled her weight across his hips, the pressure against his cock almost unbearable. He gripped her hips, guiding her into a slow rock against him.
Her hands framed his face, thumbs brushing over his beard as she kissed him like she was starving for the taste of him. Then her fingers were in his hair, tugging just enough to send sparks racing down his neck, and he growled against her mouth.
“God, I’ve wanted this,” she murmured against his lips, barely breaking contact. “Wanted you.”
He slid his hands under her shirt, finding the warm skin of her back, tracing the bumps of her spine.
She arched into his touch like a cat, her body responding to him in ways he’d only dreamed about.
When his fingers brushed the side of her breast, she moaned and broke the kiss, sitting up to look down at him.
In the dim light, with her hair wild and her lips swollen from his kisses, she looked unreal. Too perfect. Too good for someone like him.
She reached for the hem of her shirt, tugging it up and over her head in one fluid motion, and rational thought fled. Her breasts spilled free, small and perfect, nipples pebbled from the night air or arousal or both.
“Your turn,” she whispered, tugging at his flannel.
Reality crashed back with the force of a sledgehammer. His scars. The twisted, ruined flesh that covered most of his torso. The physical proof of his worst failure, his biggest shame.
But her hands were already working the buttons of his shirt, and he was frozen, caught between desire and terror. By the time his brain caught up with his body, she had the flannel open and was tugging it free from his shoulders.
He could have stopped her. Should have. But the hunger in her eyes, the way she bit her lip as she looked at the expanse of his chest still hidden by his undershirt—it made him weak. Made him hope that maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t recoil from what lay beneath.
The undershirt was next, and this time he helped her, sitting up slightly to pull it over his head. Then he was bare from the waist up, and the cool air hit his scarred skin, and reality settled cold and heavy in his gut.
Maggie went still above him, hands hovering inches from his chest. Her eyes widened, lips parting on a soft inhale.
They were worse than she’d imagined. He knew that. Puckered and discolored, the skin grafts created a patchwork of textures that looked like melted wax in some places and pulled too tight in others. Evidence of his crime, forever etched into his skin.
“Anson...”
He couldn’t bear to hear the pity in her voice. Couldn’t stand to see her try to hide her disgust. He bucked slightly, dislodging her from his lap, and reached for his shirt.
She caught his wrist. “No, wait.”
“Forget it. This was a mistake.” The words tasted like ash.
“Please.” She didn’t let go of his wrist, her grip firm but gentle. “Look at me.”
He forced himself to meet her gaze, braced for what he’d find there.
But there was no pity in her eyes. No disgust. Just that same hunger, tempered now with something softer. “Can I touch you?”
He didn’t trust himself to speak, just gave a jerky nod, even as everything in him screamed to run, to hide.
She released his wrist and brought her hand to his chest, fingertips barely grazing the worst of the scars—a starburst pattern over his sternum where shrapnel had torn through his body armor. Her touch was light, exploratory, tracing the edges of the damaged skin.
“Does it hurt?”
He shook his head. “Not anymore.” Except that wasn’t entirely true. The physical pain had faded years ago, but the memory of it lived in his bones, flaring with nightmares, with changes in the weather, with moments like this when someone else’s eyes on his scars made them burn all over again.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispered, leaning down to press her lips against the center of his chest.
Something cracked open inside him at her words, at the gentleness of her mouth against his ruined skin. A sound escaped him, half laugh, half sob. “Don’t.”
She looked up, still hovering close enough that he could feel her breath on his skin. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t lie to me. Not you.” Everyone else could lie to him, could pretend he wasn’t broken, wasn’t damaged goods. But not her. Never her.
“I’m not lying.” She straightened, her hands still resting on his chest. “These scars are part of you. I don’t see them as separate.”
“You’re seeing them in the dark.” His voice came out harsher than he’d intended. “In daylight...”
“In daylight, they’d still be part of the man I’ve been in love with for six years.”
He closed his eyes, unable to look at her.
Love.
She might think that’s what she felt, but she didn’t know him. Not really. She knew the letters. The carefully chosen words. Not the broken, fucked-up man beneath them.
“You don’t love me.” He sat up, forcing her to move back. “You love who you think I am.”
“That’s not true.” Her voice hardened, that stubborn streak he’d glimpsed before surfacing. “I’ve seen you with the kittens. With Bramble. With the horses. With everyone at the ranch. I know exactly who you are, Anson.”
“No, you don’t.” He grabbed his undershirt and yanked it on, covering the worst of the scars. “You don’t know what I’ve done. What I’m capable of.”
“I do, though. You told me. In your letters. About the fire. About prison.”
“Not all of it.” He stood, needing distance from her, from the softness in her eyes. “Not the worst parts.”
She scrambled off the bed, still topless. She grabbed his flannel from the floor and pulled it on, not bothering with the buttons. “Then tell me. Tell me the worst parts.”
“No.” He took another step back, feeling the wall at his back. “Not now. Not like this.”
“Then when?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “When will you stop running from me? From us?”
“I’m not running.”
She moved closer, and he had nowhere left to retreat. “That’s exactly what you’re doing. Every time we get close, you pull back. You find a reason to put distance between us.”
She wasn’t wrong.
But he couldn’t seem to stop.
“I should go. Bramble needs out.”
“Bramble is fine.” She pointed to the wolfhound, who had lifted his head at the sound of his name but showed no signs of urgency. “This is about you being scared. Of me. Of whatever’s happening between us.”
“I’m not scared of you.” A horrible, obvious lie.
Of course he was scared of her. Terrified.
Because she had the power to hurt him in ways no one else ever had.
Because she’d worked her way past his defenses with those letters, with her persistence, with the way she looked at him like he was someone worth knowing.
“Then prove it. Stay. Talk to me.”
He shook his head, words failing him as they so often did. “I… can’t…”
“Can’t what?” Her voice softened, the anger draining away. “Can’t be loved? Can’t love back? Can’t trust that I mean it when I say your scars don’t disgust me?”
Yes. All of that. He was broken in ways that went beyond the physical scars. Damaged in places no one could see. The kind of man who’d only drag her down with him.
“You deserve better,” he finally managed.
“Don’t you dare tell me what I deserve.” The fire was back in her voice and blazing in her eyes. “I’m a grown woman who knows her own mind. I choose you, Anson. Scars and all.”
For a moment, he wavered. Tempted by the promise of her words, by the possibility that maybe, just maybe, she was right.
“I’m sorry.” He grabbed his coat and shoved his feet into his boots. “I just... I need some air.”