Susan Johnson - Again and Again

A precaution only. He intended to keep Caro too busy to think about leaving.

A smile slowly formed on his lips as he turned back to the bed, sweet expectation pervading his thoughts. She looked angelic with the covers pulled up over her ears, her tousled curls spread on the pillow, the flush of sleep pinking her cheeks.

He’d have to apologize, of course; he wasn’t usually such a brute. Although, if he needed cause or excuse, Caro had been as difficult and opinionated as ever.

Not that she wasn’t a delightful change from the overly willing women who normally shared his bed.

Picking up a bottle from the table, he moved to a chair near the fire. Dropping into it, he stretched out his legs and slid into a comfortable sprawl. Pulling the loosened cork from the bottle, he poured a long draft into his mouth and savored the taste of a very fine whiskey.

Life was good, he thought.

He was out of the storm, away from London, locked in with one of the most fascinating women he’d ever known.

And she hadn’t had sex for a year.

He grinned. It almost made one believe in God.

Enveloped by a rare contentment, Simon half-dozed by the fire, lassitude seeping into his pores. He hardly noticed the wind rattling the windows or the icy snow pelting the glass. Lost in reverie, the outside world seemed distant from the snug, cozy room. But as the fire burned low, the air cooled, rousing him. He shook himself awake, and came to his feet. After stoking the fire, he stripped off his trousers and moved to the bed. Lifting the covers, he slipped between the sheets and stretched out with a sigh.

He hadn’t slept in days, his departure from London sudden, his journey north in the manner of French leave-accelerated. But he’d found more urgent reason to pause and that reason was sleeping peacefully beside him.

He smiled and closed his eyes.

“You!”

The breathy exclamation brought him awake with a start; he blinked against the dawn light

“What do you think you’re doing?”

That wasn’t a question he could answer honestly when she was staring at him with such rancor. There weren’t any more rooms… with the storm and all,“ he added, hoping his tone was suitably apologetic, and then he offered her a smile that never failed to melt female hearts.

She scowled. “I’m supposed to believe that? And I know that smile, Simon. It’s not going to work.”

He didn’t belabor the point about the rooms when they both knew he could buy the entire inn if he chose. “I’ll be serious then. There actually weren’t any single rooms and I thought-well, you had suggested that we, ah…” He ran his fingers through his hair in a disarmingly shy, boyish gesture, his eyes still half-lidded with sleep.

That damnable winsomeness was capable of charming the birds from the trees, she thought; it almost made her forget he was sleeping with every woman in the world. “Look, you’re not fifteen,” she muttered, her comment eliciting a blank look. “I mean-us… this room-well… whatever I might have said, I didn’t mean it. You’re going to have to leave.”

“Not a chance.”

She should take offense, but his voice was hushed and low, temptation in his gaze and even while she knew better, it seemed as though she’d never been away. But suddenly a door banged downstairs, breaking the spell and she remembered why she despised him. He’d wakened with a woman in his bed too many times-too many to count-and in her saner moments she didn’t want to be added to that tally again. “If you won’t leave, I will.” Lifting the quilt, she began to roll out, squealed as the blood-chilling cold struck her and quickly rolled back.

“I’ll stoke the fire.” He began rising.

Torn between comfort and principle, she struggled with her conscience.

That icy air can leave one speechless, can’t it?“ he murmured with a grin, turning back to tuck the quilt under her chin.

She glared at him.

There are times when men and women aren’t completely equal,“ he said with a touch of irony.

“I’d be a fool to argue with you, wouldn’t I?”

“Perhaps we have areas of agreement after all,” he replied, his gaze amused and with a wink, he rose from the bed. He walked across the room to the fireplace as though he were impervious to the cold. As though his breath wasn’t visible. As though he wore more than his cambric undershorts.

He really was unconscionably gorgeous, she thought, taking in the splendor of his tall, rangy form. She could see the scars from the war, visible now in the rising light of dawn; they’d gone unnoticed in the darkness. He’d always discounted them as “nothing… a little shrapnel” when he’d almost died from loss of blood. They’d faded since she’d seen him last, although the scars still streaked his body. He was leaner than she remembered, breathtaking in his raw virility-his taut, hard musculature honed, no doubt, by his life of excess.

It wasn’t at all fair when she hadn’t had sex for so long, she thought, resentful in a totally illogical way that ignored the circumstances of their lives and society’s disparate sexual standards. She shifted her hips faintly, as though she could repress the shimmering heat turning liquid between her thighs as she gazed at his damnable perfection. “You’re irritating me,” she said, apropos of nothing even remotely reasonable.

“You’ll feel better when you warm up.”

“Simon, listen to me. We have to be rational about this.” Even as she spoke, her body was intent on defying reason, a molten heat beginning to melt through her veins.

“I am.”

“I’m not talking about having tea here,” she said, pettish and much too aroused for her peace of mind.

“I know what you’re talking about. I’ll have this fire going in no time.”

How could he speak so calmly when her emotions were in tumult? Could he really be unaware of how irresistibly male he was squatting on his haunches, his powerful torso twisting and turning as he transferred logs from the wood box to the fire, his muscles rippling and contracting with each unhurried swing.

Licks of flame were beginning to leap from the coals, igniting the kindling. “There. We’ll have a blaze going in no time,” he said as though he were a eunuch, as though they were asexual strangers, as though the pulsing inside her hadn’t accelerated at the thought he might be coming back. Rising to his feet, he brushed off his hands and turned to her. “Are you hungry?”

“Meaning what?” She spoke a trifle too breathlessly.

This wouldn’t be the time to make any sudden moves, he understood. “I have food here… that’s all.”

“Please, Simon, for God’s sake, don’t talk to me about food or the weather or the state of the world in that calm voice when I’m ready to scream or hit you or bang my head against the wall.”

She needed sex, he thought, but sensible of his audience, he said, “We’ll talk about something else then. If it’s not too late, I’d like to offer my abject apology for last night.”

“Simon… everything’s too late for us. And you don’t know what abject means.”

He smiled faintly. “Maybe I could learn.”

“And maybe I could sprout wings and fly.”

“Come, darling,” he cajoled, undeterred by her sarcasm. “You have to admit, Lady Luck or fate or some jinn spirits had a hand in our meeting.” He smiled. This is a god-awful place to bump into each other.“

She blew out a breath, her pagan antenna twitching fiercely at the mystical implications of so rare an occurrence, “like ships passing in the night, you mean.”

“In a blizzard, yet” His brows rose. Think about it.“

She pulled the covers over her head. “I don’t want to think about it.”

Her muffled words made him smile. “Would you like to think about it over breakfast? I do have food.”

Flipping the covers back, she gave him a hard, flinty look. “Whatever works? Is that your strategy?”

“Jesus, Caro, I don’t have a strategy. I wish like hell I did and then you wouldn’t be scowling at me. You’d be smiling. I’d be smiling. The world would be sweet-scented and untainted by iniquity.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Speaking of iniquity. Finding you in my bed isn’t very subtle.”

He gave her one of those tolerant looks that parents give to a child who’s being unnecessarily obstinate. “We’ve slept together a thousand times.”

“Don’t remind me. How do you do it, by the way?”

“What?”

“Keep from having an erection?”

She’d noticed. A definite point for his side. “I try to think of something gruesome-like decaying cadavers.” He glanced down. “But right now, it’s colder than hell.” He grinned. “Do you think I could come in and warm up?”

She nodded at his crotch. “Just to warm up. That’s all.”

He roiled his eyes as he walked toward the bed. “Talk about fifteen.”

“Am I making too much of this?”

He shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong person.”

“Because a fuck is a fuck is a fuck.”

“Sometimes.” He lifted the quilt “Not now.”

“How charming.”

“If I wanted to be charming,” he said, sliding into bed, “I’d lie.”

“Because that’s what you do best.”

Lying back on the pillow, he slid his hands under his head and glanced at her. “That’s not what I do best”

She grimaced. “I’m not entirely sure I don’t hate you.”

“For this?”

“For everything.”

He didn’t ask what everything was. He knew. The specter of their parting had haunted every word they’d spoken since they met downstairs. “I’m sorry about that night. I was drunk. I thought it was you.”

“Then you should have come after me and explained.”

“I know.” And if she hadn’t called him every vile name on earth, he might have.

“But you didn’t. You stayed with her all night.”

“I’d been drinking for two days if that’s any excuse. I probably fell asleep.”

“You probably didn’t I know what you probably did.”

“And you ran to Louvois,” he said as bitterly as she.

“Do you blame me?”

He shut his eyes for a moment and then stared at the ceiling as he spoke, his voice constrained. “I don’t want to fight about this. He’s gone; she’s gone. Five years are gone. I missed you. And that’s God’s own truth.”

“Because it’s useful to say that right now.”

He turned his head and looked at her. “Because it’s the truth.”

It took her a very long time to respond.

“Very well, then.”

His gaze narrowed. “What a condescending tone. Are you my mother?”

“I dearly hope not,” she said in an altogether different tone, “considering my carnal interest in you.”

His smile was suddenly sunshine bright “Are you finally sure?”

She nodded.

It was his turn to pause. “Just to be absolutely certain there’s no misunderstanding,” he said, each word measured, “say five years from now or five minutes from now-you have to ask me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She edged away.

“I don’t want any recriminations later about who did what to whom.”

“I’m not asking.”

‘Jesus, Caro, you never had any problem asking before.“

‘That was different. You’re making me say it.“

He took a deep breath. “Fine. We’ll both ask. Would that be better?”

Another long pause and then she nodded.

“Arranging the peace treaty with France was probably less onerous,” he grumbled, sitting up and drawing an imaginary line between them on the bed. Holding out his hand so it rested directly above that designated halfway point, he tipped his head in her direction. “I would very much like to make love to you, Lady Caroline. If you approve of the arrangement, we could shake on it.”

She held up one finger to test the temperature of the air.

“It’s warm,” he said.

“Your warm and my warm are different.”

He grinned. They never used to be.“

“Very funny.” But she rose to a seated position and held out her hand just short of his. “I find myself inclined to make love to you, Your Grace.”

His laughter filled the room and then he grabbed her hand and shook it soundly. “I accept, although I don’t believe I’ve ever been propositioned with less enthusiasm.”

“I’m impelled by circumstances,” she said with restraint.

He grinned. “Me too.”

“You mean you’re next to a woman with a heartbeat.”

“Come, Caro,” he murmured. “Stop sulking. We both want the same thing.” His voice went soft “And it has nothing to do with proximity,” his brows rose faintly, “or at least for me it doesn’t.” He could send for one of the serving maids if he just wanted a woman. He’d received enough sly looks downstairs to know they were interested. “I consider myself the luckiest of men to have been driven off the road by this storm and to have found you.”