Reaching the back door, she slid the twin bolts home; as she led the way on, she pretended not to notice that he checked, then tried, the door.
Her “rounds” done, she parted from him on the first floor and headed upstairs to check on her wards. Logan watched her go, imagined her bending over the small beds, tucking hands beneath covers, dropping kisses on foreheads.
Doing all the little caring things women-mothers-did, even though she wasn’t their mother.
He still wasn’t sure what to think of this household, but the longer he spent within it the more he realized that for all its unconventionality, it worked. It provided those who lived there with all they needed for a full, happy, and contented life.
A safe life, too, as far as Linnet could guarantee.
Reaching her room, he went in. Closing the door, he crossed to the window, and as he’d done the night before, stood looking out. He’d thought, last night, that he’d been drawn to the view because that way lay England, but in reality, it was the sense of peace, even in the face of the strafing winds and beneath the roiling skies, that drew him. Held him.
Outside the window, nature ruled over a raw, rough, elemental landscape, yet people had lived there for centuries-possibly longer than they’d lived in England. The rawness, the roughness, reminded him of Glenluce, yet here the elements were harbingers of excitement, adventure, and exhilaration, lacking the bleakness, the grayness, that characterized Scotland.
This was home yet not, familiar yet different, and somehow more welcoming. Perhaps that was why he felt so intensely about protecting it, defending it, from any threat.
Such a depth of innate protectiveness wasn’t something he’d felt before-not anywhere, not for anyone. His memory might still have holes, but he was indisputably sure of that.
Just as he knew that Linnet herself would deny he had any right to feel so. There was no logic or rationale behind his unbending conviction that he was, somehow, protector and defender of these innocents, of this small realm. As if he’d fallen under some spell-the house’s or hers. Perhaps both.
Regardless, Mon Coeur increasingly felt like the lock his key fitted.
The door opened. He turned his head as Linnet came in.
Locating him, she set the candlestick on the tallboy and walked deliberately, with certain intent, toward him. She was wearing another of her fine woollen gowns, a plain, modest creation in smoky green, yet the sleeves outlined the graceful lines of her arms, the scooped neckline drew his eye to the swells of her breasts, while the clinging skirts flirting about her long legs teased his senses.
Fixing his gaze on her face, he steeled himself to hear her push to continue their “arrangement,” with him repaying his obligation to her by educating her, tutoring her, in the ways of the flesh.
Her flesh, and his.
He didn’t want that-didn’t want to, couldn’t bring himself to, treat her like that, to view her and her body as part of some bartered exchange. He, body, mind, and soul, would be delighted to make love to her if she wanted him-if, freely, she wanted to lie with him, to explore that side of paradise with him without any hint of obligation or coercion.
He wanted to deal with her on a different plane-man to woman, gentleman to lady, lover to lover. He wanted nothing, no other consideration, tainting what they shared, coloring it, corrupting it.
As she halted before him and looked into his eyes, he wanted to tell her, to find the words and rescript their relationship, nudging it onto the simple, direct, conventional path, one he’d followed with no other woman but wanted to follow with her.
He knew what he needed to say, but he didn’t have the words.
Regardless, he couldn’t speak them. Uncertainty, lack of memory, forced him to silence.
He didn’t yet know his recent past-didn’t know if he had a wife waiting for him. He didn’t think he had, yet the possibility was there.
Making love to Linnet at her instigation, more, at her insistence, was one thing-something his honor didn’t approve of but could live with given he had no real choice. That she would leave him no choice. But to speak, and lead her to believe there could be more between them when he didn’t know if that were so, would be the action of a cad.
He looked into her eyes, lucent in the moonlight, and knew he wasn’t going to like where she would lead him. Yet until he knew all about Logan Monteith, the man he was now, the commitments he’d made and had yet to fulfill, he was helpless to, on her own turf, take the reins from her.
Linnet studied his eyes, examined what she could see in his face, in the chiseled angles and planes. “You’re thinking too much.” He was thinking of ways to argue, to discuss their situation. She trapped his dark gaze. “Stop resisting. You know there’s no point. Your obligation to me is mounting, so how are you planning to balance the account?”
She felt utterly brazen-and just a touch guilty-holding to such a line, compelling him in a way she knew he didn’t like, yet that way would keep her firmly in control, dictating their relationship.
Ensuring it remained superficial.
Ensuring she did nothing to encourage him to think it might be more. Could be more. That she might ever wish for more.
His eyes narrowed on hers. “What do you want of me? What lesson am I supposed to teach you tonight?”
His voice had lowered; she hid a smile. He was, it seemed, going to fall into line. “I want to learn more-I want you to show me more beyond what we’ve already shared.”
His lips thinned. “You’ll need to be more specific.”
Her own eyes narrowed. Perhaps she’d been too quick to assume his capitulation. How could she be specific if she didn’t know?… she smiled. Smugly. “I want you to treat me as you would a slave-a pleasure slave.”
His eyes widened.
She let her smile deepen. “As a female given to you to do with as you wish- specifically for you to indulge your most potent desires.” Boldly, utterly brazenly, she arched a brow. “Is that specific enough?”
His lips tightened to a grim line. His eyes were deepest midnight. “You don’t know what you’re asking for. Try again-you don’t want that.”
She raised her brows higher, haughty and assured. “I know what I want-your desires unfettered. I want to know-to experience-what meeting those desires means. What fulfilling your most potent desires feels like.”
Logan stared into her witchy green eyes, took in her prideful, arrogant expression-and felt everything within him quake.
He felt like a predator about to pounce. To be offered such a sexual feast, to have it forced on him… but he shouldn’t. She shouldn’t. Desperately he sought some way to deny her.
She tilted her chin and stared back at him, stubbornness in every line of her face, of her body. “Tonight,” she stated, her tone a ringing challenge, “that’s my price.” Her gaze held his. “And I believe you’re obligated to pay.”
He struggled not to react. All but shook with the impulse to seize her and devour. How had he got into this? Every time he thought he’d be able to control her, she took another step into deeper waters-and effortlessly dragged him with her.
If he did as she asked…
You don’t know what you’re asking for.
Truer words he’d never spoken-he knew to his bones she had no idea. Compared to him, she was an innocent. Why she was pushing him in that particular direction he didn’t know, but given said innocence, if he complied, even half complied… perhaps she wouldn’t push him again. At least not along such a dangerous path.
The last thing he wanted was to see fear in her eyes, yet just a lick, a suggestion, would with luck have her shying from any further dangerous games-not with him or anyone else.