Part 25 (1/2)
”What?”
”Did I please you?”
He sighed against her hair. ”Any more pleasure and I'd have died of it.”
”So I please you as much as those others did?”
He looked at her and frowned. ”I wish they had never happened so you didn't have to think about it. There's nothing to compare. Those women were years ago and it wasn't anything like this.”
She brushed her fingers over his nipple once. Twice, hoping to distract him from his annoyance.
”I didn't love them, Annie. They didn't love me. Because you love me, what we share is beyond simple physical pleasure. I have never wanted anyone like I want you.”
How she needed those words. ”Still?”
”Always.”
”Did anyone ever watch you shave?”
”Gil. Didn't have the same effect, believe me.”
She laughed and snuggled her face against his chest where she'd wanted to place her cheek ever since she'd first seen him without his s.h.i.+rt.
”Do I know any of them?”
”Who?”
”Those women you made love with years ago.”
”It wasn't love and Lord, no!”
”Well, I wanted to be sure, just in case I was sitting beside someone in church or shopping at the mercantile or perhaps borrowing a book from the library, that I didn't have to wonder if this woman or that woman had seen your chest-and all the other parts of you.”
He was silent a long moment.
”Like that woman who works at the cafe or one of the girls who takes in laundry. Perhaps Mrs. Krenshaw.”
He pulled her head away from his chest and looked her in the eyes, his raised eyebrows creasing his forehead. ”You're teasing me!”
She chuckled at his astonishment and loved that she could make him laugh...and groan...and lose control. Her insides turned to liquid again.
He rolled her to her back and leaned over her to kiss her soundly. ”If you have any more questions, ask them now, 'cause I don't intend for this to be a nightly subject. I barely remember anyway.”
”I think I know enough,” she said, brus.h.i.+ng her finger across his lip.
He loved her with his eyes, surveyed her face, her hair, then reached to pull a pin from the tangled ma.s.s.
”I must look a fright.” Suddenly self-conscious, she reached up to her mangled coiffure and removed the remaining hairpins.
”Oh, yes, a fright. I don't know how I'll stand lookin' at you every morning for the rest of my life.”
She placed her hands on his forearm, found the soft hairs there and rubbed. She'd always admired his face, but he was equally incredible all over. So different from her. And so perfect. ”Looking at you is such a joy. Can you possibly feel that way about me?”
”Looking at you is like feeling the sun on your face on a mild afternoon. It's like sittin' by a fire and enjoying the heat until your skin feels tight, but you don't want to move away because it feels so good.”
She contemplated him in amazement. ”Me? Really, you think those things about me? You speak like a poet, do you know that? If you had never touched me, I would have been seduced by your pretty words.”
”Someday I'll put that to the test.” He ran a finger down her shoulder to the edge of the sheet that covered her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and lazily skimmed it back and forth. ”Right now touching you is much more fun than talkin'.”
”What about the food?”
”Man cannot live by ham and bread alone.”
His words were teasing, but the pa.s.sion in his eyes was real. Annie brushed her fingers along his smoothly shaven jaw, understanding that he'd shaved for her-for this. She caressed his silky thick hair and drew her finger across his brow, down his nose, across his lower lip. ”Loving you this much almost hurts,” she told him, serious now. ”Loving you is fierce and greedy and-and confusing. Sometimes tender, sometimes so desperate I ache inside. I hoped this ache would go away after we were married, but I feel it still.”
Luke kissed her tenderly. ”Just so you feel me lovin' you back. Feel it?”
She closed her eyes, concentrated on her senses and heard his breath, felt the thud of his heart beneath her palm, smelled his salty skin and the musk of their lovemaking. ”I feel it,” she whispered.
Chapter Fourteen.
They awoke early Sunday morning, and Luke boiled coffee. ”I forgot about a teapot and tea,” he apologized.
They sat at the table with the sun streaming through the new panes of window gla.s.s. The smell of the biscuits he'd showed her how to make lingered in the air. Annie wore her wrapper and a pair of Luke's wool socks. ”That's okay,” she a.s.sured him. ”I'll try a cup of your coffee.”
He leaned across the table to set down a cup and fill it, and she admired the hair and muscle visible in the open V of his s.h.i.+rt. Her belly quivered at the memories of their afternoon and night together. Embarra.s.sed, she changed the direction of her thoughts. ”Are we going to church?”
”Do you want to?” He sat across from her. ”Burt is handling the livery today, so I can do anything you'd like.” He sipped his coffee.
Anything she'd like was quite tempting. She smiled to herself. Annie couldn't help imagining facing her parents, friends and townspeople, and having them thinking about Luke and Annie's private moments on their wedding night. ”Let's not go.”
”All right. Guy and Lizzy are bringing our gifts this afternoon. You'll have a lot to do once those things get here. Until then we could make plans. Go over the things we're going to need to make this place a home.”
She glanced over his shoulder at the bare window. ”Fabric for curtains should be on the list.”
Luke got up and found a wrinkled piece of brown paper and a pencil. ”Right. A list.” He touched the tip of the pencil to his tongue and scratched out a word.
Annie thought of the notes he'd sent her and tenderness washed over her. Astonished that he was truly her husband now, she swallowed welling tears. His strength and agility were tempered by tenderness and compa.s.sion. She remembered him walloping Burdy after being provoked, thought of the tasks he performed every day which required power and muscle, and compared that to the poetic words he spoke and the gentle way he touched her.
How had she ever deserved him? What divine quirk of fate had brought this man into her life at an early age and made him fall in love with her?
”Tea. And a kettle,” he added, still absorbed in his list. ”Sorry about the bucket, you'll need a pitcher and bowl for was.h.i.+ng.”
”The bucket gets the job done. Can we afford to pay for these things?”
”We have a bank note for the house, but we're not dest.i.tute,” he a.s.sured her. ”It'll be tight for a while.”