Honor Bound(61)

He cursed beneath his breath and ran his damp palms up and down his thighs. The camisole was a one-piece affair. Lacy suspenders held up her stockings, which he had supposed were panty hose. Between the top of the stockings and the teddy, her thighs looked as soft and warm as velvet. He imagined himself—

Damn! What was he doing out here lusting after his own wife like some pervert? If he wanted her so badly, and his body was insisting that "badly" didn't even come close to describing how much he wanted her, why didn't he just go in there and take her? She belonged to him, didn't she? They were legally bound and he was entitled to conjugal rights, wasn't he?

So move, damn you. Go in there and take what is yours for the taking.

But he didn't, because he knew it would be too risky. If he could take her dispassionately, then he would use her body to rid his of this raging fever. It would be over and done with and he wouldn't even think about it until the next time he got in this condition.

No, it wouldn't be like that at all. She had bewitched him, that's what she had done. Somehow she had wormed her way into his mind and heart, and what he was thinking and feeling somehow interfered with what his body wanted. His sex couldn't participate without his head getting involved.

He kept remembering that morning on the mountaintop. She had climbed up there to offer him comfort when she sure as hell had had every reason to be fleeing from him. He remembered what her face had looked like as his body moved inside hers.

And at the most inopportune times, when he wanted to feel his bitterest toward her, he thought about her bearing his child and how lovingly she treated Tony. Then, too, there were the generous things she did for him, like keeping the coffee in his cup warm even when he hadn't asked for refills. And the way she was sometimes waiting on the porch for him when he came riding in after working long hours. She always smiled, as though she was glad to see him.

What puzzled him was why she treated him with such consideration and kindness. He couldn't figure out what her motive was. She had every reason to hate him. If she would just demonstrate resentment instead of understanding, then life would be a helluva lot easier. They might even have some rowdy sex every once in a while to let off steam and clear the air. As it was, his blood simmered.

Looking at her through the window now, he felt his blood heating to a full boil. She was no longer standing in full view, but he could tell by watching her shadow on the wall that she was removing her stockings. She lifted one foot to the edge of the bed, unhooked the garter and rolled the stocking over her knee and calf and ankle, peeling it off her foot with studied leisure. She performed the ritual on the other leg.

He stared transfixed when she shrugged the straps of the teddy off her shoulders and shimmied until it slipped down. She stepped out of it gracefully, and when she straightened, her shadow was in profile. Everything was perfectly, painfully silhouetted.

Lucas mouthed a series of scalding obscenities.

Why wouldn't she give him a fight? Huh? Did she feel sorry for him? Was that it? Or did she feel obligated to be an exemplary wife? Well, by God, he didn't need her largess.

He moved then, spinning around on his heels and stalking toward the rear of the house. He slammed through the back door, barely remembering to lock it behind him, before he stamped through the house, viciously turning off lights as he went. By the time he barged through the bedroom door, he was good and mad.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" he roared.

Aislinn looked up at him with innocent, blue-eyed, wide-eyed dismay, which made her look even more guiltless than she already did. She was sitting in the rocking chair. A madonna. Blond hair rippling over her shoulders. One side of her nightgown was open. Tony nursed contentedly at her breast.

"I'm nursing Tony," she answered simply.

Lucas, standing braced in the doorway by his arms, was spoiling for a fight. Shirtless, the recently washed skin on his chest gleamed in the lamplight. The dark hairs were damp and curly. The cross dangling from his neck caught the light and shone almost as brightly as his eyes.

The joke was on him. Feeling like a fool, he dragged his eyes away from his wife and glanced toward the bed. The teddy and stockings lay spread out there like mementos of an indolent afternoon of loving. They enflamed him all over again.

"Next time, you might think twice before parading around half naked in front of an open window with the light on."

"I don't know what you mean, Lucas."

Pointing toward the window with a finger shaking with rage, he blustered, "The window, dammit, the window. Don't undress in front of the window."

"Oh," she said, following the direction of his finger. "I didn't think about it."

"Yeah, well, think about it from now on, okay?"

"But there wasn't anyone out there to see me."

"I was!" he shouted. "I could see you all the way from the barn."

"You could?"

"Hell yes, I could."

"But you're my husband."

There was just a trace of mockery in her voice, but it was so slight that he was afraid to challenge her on it. He was ready for hand-to-hand combat, but he couldn't handle a contest of wits. He had never felt more witless in his life. Nor so out of control. In an entirely different way, she looked just as tempting now as she had a few moments before, doing her guileless striptease in front of the window. Blood pounded in his head and in his sex.