In His Eyes(87)

He remained frozen in the doorway, unable to look away from the woman that today’s vows had made his wife. The little dragon who was now his to have and to hold. Fire lit in his gut, and he tried to tamp it down but found he could not. Ella put her brush on the table and stood, a floral dressing gown that he recognized had once belonged to his mother falling lightly about her legs. She looked small without all those petticoats around her.

She watched him, yet she did not chastise him for being here. He crossed the threshold.

She was beautiful. He’d noticed it the first day he saw her, but it had intensified with every bout of verbal battling and every time her voice took on that lilt when she baited him with a quip.

Westley took another step into the room, further trespassing where he was entitled to be and yet….wasn’t. He knew that this time he came to this room as a husband came to a wife’s chamber, and that changed things. The other times he had come, it was to comfort.

Ella’s eyes flashed, and he saw that she knew it too. She moved to a few paces away, staring up at him with wide emerald green eyes. What did she expect of him on this night—the night that was supposed to bind man and woman as one flesh?

Questions danced in her eyes, and he wanted to answer them all. He lifted his hand, and after a slight hesitation she placed her small fingers in his. He urged her a bit closer and picked up a lock of hair that fell down over her shoulder.

“It’s soft, just as I imagined it would be,” he said, his voice husky.

“You thought about what my hair would feel like?”

He rubbed the tress between his fingers. “That and more.”

Her eyes widened and she stared at him. “What have you come for?”

A simple question that did not possess an equally simple answer. “I came to see you. I will ride out tomorrow.”

He dropped her hair and took a step closer, the distance between them but a handbreadth. She turned her face up to him, and he remembered the feel of her in his arms earlier today. He had kissed ladies before, and while he had always found a thrill in it, none of them had ever stirred him the way she had. No woman had made him want to give up anything for her. And that terrified him, yet sent a thrill that coursed through his blood like lightning and made him ache to feel the softness of her skin beneath his fingers.

If only for this night, could he forget what he’d said about them being wed in name only and make of her his wife in truth? Ella blinked up at him, desire and fear conflicting in her eyes.

He ran a finger over her lips. “Do you want me, Ella, as I want you?”

She swallowed hard, her green eyes alight. “I know not of what you speak.”

He chuckled. “Do you not? Surely you are aware of the ways of men and women.”

A dark cloud doused the fire in her eyes and she stepped back. “Aye, I’ve seen the ways of men.”

The muscles in his jaw tightened and the bite in her tone clipped his desire. He frowned. “Did someone hurt you?”

She shook her head and stepped away, wrapping her arms around her middle.

“Ella…?”

She lifted her shoulders. “Three men tried, once, but they didn’t make it…all the way.”

Every muscle in his body tensed and he growled. “What do you mean?”

“It’s nothing. I was fine. Bushwhackers.” She barked a humorless laugh that made Westley’s teeth grind. “Lucky for me that cowboy came down the alley shooting at them and they scattered.”

Westley stepped closer and gripped her shoulders. “Did he kill them?”

She shook her head, soft tendrils of hair sweeping against her cheeks. “No, but he scared them away for me.”

Some miscreants had attacked her and had tried to take from her what she would never give them. If he had been there, he would have likely gunned them down and watched them bleed. He never allowed his soldiers to abuse women, enemy or no, and most bushwhackers were the devil’s own spawn.

“Westley!” Ella gasped. “You’re hurting my arms.”

He blinked and dropped his hands, unaware that he had started to squeeze her. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to hurt you. My anger seems to have gotten the better of me.”

Her eyes softened, and he ran a hand through his hair. “The very thought of someone hurting you….”

She laid a hand on his shirtsleeve. “Thank you. It’s been ages since I have known such protection.”

He reached up and cupped her face. “Know that I would never take anything from you that you were not willing to give.”

“Of course,” she said, even as relief flooded her eyes. Did she think that he would ever do such a thing?

He stepped back. He had come to her room when she wore nothing but a dressing gown, his mind filled with things that were not at all in alignment with their agreement that their vows were spoken in name only.

She took a step toward him, and then another. Her eyes burned with questions, but she slipped her hands up his shoulders and back behind his neck. “Westley.”

His name came out more breath than word, and his lips came to hers. She yielded to him, and passion erupted within him. His hands explored the back of her head and tangled in the glory of her hair.

Her fingers slid up the nape of his neck and grabbed at his short tresses, further stoking the passion straining for release. He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her from the floor. She sucked in a breath, but did not remove her lips from his even as he turned her and laid her on the bed.