Trial by Desire (Carhart #2)

“Well. Then. I’ll try to contain my boredom.”


He met her eyes and nodded once, jerkily. He did not look away from her; instead, he slowly reached out and touched himself again. His hand slid up his member, then down, a curiously staccato movement that sent an unexplainable thrill down her spine.

He made her feel vulnerable in ways that she could not avoid.

The room was silent, except for the slap of his palm against his member; every last stroke seemed a palpable thrill, as if it were she who he touched, instead of his own eager flesh, as if it were her hands that encompassed him, her body that enveloped his waiting erection. She was cold and warm all at once, alone and yet joined with him. She wanted his eagerness, his vivacity, the hard press of his manhood inside of her.

She couldn’t excise him from her life. She couldn’t even set him to one side.

If she’d been vulnerable before this evening, she was achingly exposed now.

These sensations in her veins—they were nothing new. She’d always bottled them up, tamping them down into the farthest recesses of her soul as if they belonged to some wild and dangerous creature. Today, though, she thought of Ned’s hand on his member, that heated slide of flesh on flesh.

It was the height of foolishness to imagine her husband’s body crouching over hers. It was complete idiocy to fantasize about his mouth finding hers. And when she imagined that hot, firm erection she’d watched pushing inside her, filling her up, she should have flinched away.

But she did not. She was more vulnerable than ever—but for the first time, with his eyes on her, she realized that in this, for all of his jokes and casual airs, they were evenly matched. He wanted her. He wanted her so desperately that he feared his own response, so powerfully that he’d fled to China and stayed there for three years.

When he came, she felt it clear to her toes. He met her gaze afterward. They didn’t touch. He stood and walked away to a basin of water that stood on the other side of the room. Slowly, the heat dissipated again, and she was left with nothing but a thin layer of silk and the frigid temperature of the room.

IT HAD BEEN A FEAT of impossible proportions, what Ned had accomplished, knowing that Kate was holding a secret back from him. He had yet to earn her complete trust and so he’d kept himself from the final consummation, no matter what his body had desired. But he had been in charge. He had been in control—not his body, nor his own foolish wants. It had been proof of the sort he’d longed for.

See? I’m not some boy, to be led about by my desires any longer.

He set the towel down and turned back to Kate. As he did so, all his fine self-congratulations faded. She was laid out on his bed, the thin film of her gown displaying rather than hiding the lines of her body—sweet, enticing curves, all the more appealing because he could still feel the echo of her skin against his hands.

She lay on his bed, the embodiment of everything warm and comforting.

There was a reason he hadn’t lit a fire. Some men might relax their guard, might simply forget about their troubles. Ned, however, had learned that there was always danger. He heard a siren song of home and heart, of comfort and no further need for strife. What she didn’t understand was that he could dash himself on the rocks of complacency as easily as on darker shoals.

He knew. He’d done it before.

She smiled at him. “Ned. Are you going to have someone lay a fire?”

He wasn’t quite sure what he’d hoped to accomplish these last few moments, but he suddenly realized what he’d managed to give her. Satiety without satisfaction; the illusion of closeness, without any actual penetration.

And now, when it was over, she was beginning to realize there was nothing left but the cold. It had won out again. In the mirror above the basin, he saw a little shiver go through her.

“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t sleep with a fire.”

She sat up in bed and stared at him. “Some people go without comforts. Usually it is because they cannot afford them.”

True. He couldn’t afford himself too much comfort—any more than he could give up the regimen of physical exercise he engaged in. Comfort was the enemy. Comfort was complacency. Comfort lulled him into believing that he did not need to worry about the future.

She huffed. “You don’t sleep with a fire? Well, I do.”

Her import was obvious. She wanted to stay the night, wanted to lie down next to him in bed and tempt him all night with the brush of her limbs against his, the scent of lilac on her skin. It would be so easy to succumb to her, to wallow in the warmth of her. It would be easy, right up until the moment when it was not.

But it would be weakness to light a fire just because the air was a little cold. Just as it was weakness to indulge in one’s desire for intercourse, merely because a woman was willing.

She looked at him levelly. “You’re not saying anything. Does that mean you want me to go?”