Smolder on a Slow Burn

by Lynda J. Cox

  Allison’s heart twisted. She was a fool to ever believe that this man could love anyone again. He had never been anything but honest with her and even if he had proposed in an unorthodox manner, it was because of his sense of honor, to protect her reputation. She was a fool to hope for anything more. And, was she willing to have him if he held his heart from her? Was this the kind of love she had dreamed of while reading all those romances, especially the ones her father never approved of, written by Austen and Bronte?

  As if sensing her thoughts, A.J. reached across the table and caught her hand. “I’m not holding onto a ghost. I spent four years courting Cathy and was married to her for six. She and I had two beautiful daughters, but they’re gone. The last leave I had, we talked about the very real possibility of my death in that war. She promised me if I was killed that she would move on and find another man to spend the rest of her life with. She exacted a similar promise from me.”

  She looked down at their entwined fingers, and blinked away blurring tears.

  “Alli, look at me.”

  Reluctantly she lifted her head. His fingers tightened on hers and the low-pitched lantern light caught in the depths of his eyes. Drawing a long, deep breath, he lifted her hand to his mouth. He pressed a kiss to the back of her hand.

  “I am not holding onto a ghost,” he repeated more forcefully. “You will never have to compete with her memory. Until a few days ago, I didn’t think I would ever have to keep that promise I made to her. And, then you almost missed a train.”

  The memory of running after that train and his grin at her predicament flashed in her consciousness. “You loved her very much if you didn’t think you’d have to keep that promise. I assume that’s why you don’t like to talk about her death.”

  A.J. released her hand and leaned back in his chair. He toyed with the fork next to his plate. The distance that filled his eyes and the pain that lined his expression made Allison regret bringing the subject up. “You don’t have to tell me about it,” she quickly said.

  He didn’t lift his gaze from the fork he twisted on the table. “The simple answer to why I avoid talking about her death is I’m responsible.” He paused. “There was a Union payroll wagon lost less than two miles from Clayborne. I never should have told Oakten about it, but by the time I knew about that wagon, I was willing to do almost anything to avoid his—shall we say—disappointment.”

  He finally lifted his head and met her gaze across the table. Allison’s heart wrenched with the soul-deep pain she saw there. His jaw clenched before he said, “It’s hell to admit to cowardice.”

  “You are not a coward.” She leaned closer to him. He thought that about himself? What in the name of heaven had Oakten done to him that didn’t bear visible scars? “That man brutalized you and you think you’re a coward? I don’t think so. I would say cowardice is the very last thing anyone could ever accuse you of.”

  He drew a deep breath, closed his eyes and bowed his head. “I’ve certainly felt like one for the last thirteen years.”

  “A.J., I know what a coward is. A coward kills children, and burns schools, and intimidates women, and terrorizes those around him who can’t fight back. And he does all this while wearing a white sheet over his head. Or thirteen years ago while hiding behind a superior rank and having others do his dirty work. That’s not you.”

  He lifted his head, eyes dark with self-loathing. Allison firmly repeated, “That’s not you.”

  The darkness faded from the depths of his eyes. “How do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Get me to see things differently, talk to you of things I swore I would never utter a word to a living soul about. You’ve seen me at my worst. I’ve told you things I have never told anyone, things I know I could have never told Cathy. She was everything that was wrong with the Old South: unable and unwilling to see the world had changed around her. She would never have understood or accepted me as I am now, as that prison made me. This broken man just wouldn’t have fit into her genteel worldview.”

  Allison reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “When I broke my wrist as a little girl after I fell out of a tree trying to get apples for our ponies, my father told me when broken bones heal, they’re stronger.”

  Chapter Ten

  She’s beautiful and therefore to be wooed,

  She is a woman, therefore to be won.

  ~William Shakespeare

  A package similar in size to the one he had brought in earlier sat on the middle of the bed, topped with a small, brown slouch hat. In the dimmed down light, all but the sole gas lamp on the other side of the room doused before they had left the room for supper, the package was shrouded in shadows. A.J. crossed to the bed and picked up the hat. Allison stood next to the closed door, nervously chewing on her lower lip. He tossed the hat across the room and it landed on the table near the bathtub. He opened the package, revealing a warm, short coat. “It’s starting to get cold and you’re going to need this,” he said.

  Allison nodded. She couldn’t argue with his logic. She wondered why she had even asked him about Cathy. In spite of what he said, would she have to compete with a ghost, with the memory of a woman that had been his incentive to survive in a hell beyond any imagining? And how in heaven’s name could she compete with that?

  A much smaller package fell onto the bed. A.J. unwrapped it and dropped something into his hand. He stood, seemingly deep in thought, head tilted down to the floor. Still silent, he crossed the room and doused the gaslight. Only the well-banked coals glowing red in the small fireplace cast any light into the room. He toyed with the dark hat on the table, turning it in slow circles.

  Allison still hadn’t moved from the door. “I can sleep on the Chesterfield, A.J. You need a good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed.”

  He jerked his head up as if she had interrupted his train of thought. Whatever he held in his hand, he dropped into his pocket. “You need a good night’s sleep as much as I do.” He pulled one end of the silk string tie and unbuttoned his vest. “We have slept together and that bed looks big enough for the both of us.”

  Allison gaped open-mouthed at him as she struggled to find words. She shot a glance at the massive bed and felt the color heating her face.

  “It’s not the sleeping that gets people into trouble,” he added, opening the first three buttons on the linen shirt. “It’s what happens when they’re awake.”

  A crooked, half-smile tugged up the corner of his mouth. Allison’s heart clenched. He faced her, his shirt partially open, the ends of the tie dangling on either side of the open throat, vest fully opened. Shrouded in shadows and light, that half-smile teasing and vulnerable at the same time, he was everything she had ever envisioned the man she could give her heart to would be. Everything she could ever want, except that she was afraid his heart belonged to a woman long dead and gone.

  “I can sleep on the Chesterfield. I’m smaller than you.”

  “No. You don’t have to. I can make a pallet on the floor.” A spark of anger edged his words. He eased a deep breath in, and slowly let it out. Allison saw the tension leave his frame.

  “This is not how I wanted this conversation to be. I certainly didn’t want to be discussing who will be sleeping where tonight.”

  Before she lost her nerve, Allison blurted out, “Please answer one question for me.”

  He nodded.

  “Do you still love her? Does she still hold your heart?” She had to have the answer. Even though, Allison admitted to herself, she had already surrendered her heart to this man, she had to know. And, she asked herself, what if his answer wasn’t what she was expecting…or even hoping for? What if he said he still loved Cathy and she still held his heart? Then what? Was she willing to compete with a memory, and an idealized memory at that?

  “You have a habit of stating you want an answer to one question and you then ask two…albeit they’re asking the same thing.” A.J. shoved his hands into the pockets of his den
ims. “I want to do this right,” he said, more to himself than to her. He took her hand and led her over to the Chesterfield and guided her to sit. He then lowered himself to one knee, holding a thin gold band up to her. The vulnerability in his expression grabbed Allison’s heart. “Allison Webster, I have nothing to offer you other than myself. I am offering you my whole heart, all my love, and my unswerving loyalty. Will you please do me the honor of being my wife? Will you marry me, grow old with me?”

  She didn’t miss his emphasis on the word “whole”. She caught his extended hand in both of hers, unable to move or speak. He said he had told her things he had never told anyone else. He had opened himself to her, and from what she sensed of this man, that hadn’t been easy for him to do. She had asked herself if she would be willing to have him if he could not give her his whole heart, and yet he had just offered her what she was afraid she could never have. She finally nodded.

  “Say it,” he urged. “Say you’ll marry me.”

  “Yes, I will marry you.”

  He extracted his hand and solemnly slid the thin gold band onto her ring finger. Still holding her hand, he used the edge of the seat to pull himself to his feet and sat next to her. He tilted her head to him. “I want you to be certain of what you’re getting. Everything I own is either at the livery or in those saddle bags. I’m a damaged and broken man, not just physically.”

  “I don’t want things. I want you, as broken as you seem to think you are.” She lifted a trembling hand to lightly trace the age-whitened thin scar along his cheek bone and slipped her fingers into his thick black hair. “You frustrating, stubborn, handsome, honorable man…I want you.”

  He caught her hand, pressing a kiss into her wrist. “I’m not sure how honorable I’ll be tonight.”

  A delicious shiver rippled over her. “You were the one who said there is a first time for everything. Try being dishonorable.”

  He brought his hands to either side of her face, splaying his fingers and winding them into her hair as he tilted her head up to him. He lowered his head to hers, whispering, “I fully intend to be exactly that.”

  Allison closed the distance between them, kissing him. On his lips she tasted his after-supper coffee and the peppermint that Helga had given them just before they left the table. She heard his breath catch and then he deepened the kiss, the pressure of his lips on hers coaxing her mouth to open to him.

  His tongue plunged into her mouth, twisting around her tongue. She shifted closer to him, and her arms wound around his back, seemingly of their own accord. Without breaking the joining of their lips, he lifted her to her feet. He pulled his head back, and then caught her up into his arms and cradled her to his chest.

  “Your back…”

  “Is fine.” He lowered her to the mattress. Holding her gaze, he caught her ankle, lifted a foot and unlaced her shoe. He drew one off, then the other.

  Allison’s breath caught when he slid his hands up her leg and slowly rolled one silk stocking off and then the other.

  He lowered himself next to her, pulling her against him. With a slow deliberation, he opened each pearl button on her bodice, brushing the back of his fingers against the swell of her breasts. His dark head bent to her throat, tracing the line of her jaw, the tip of his tongue flicking against her.

  She flung her head back, giving him greater access. A tiny mewling sound broke from her as his lips moved slowly down the column of her throat. She caught his shoulders, another soft mewl sounding as he cupped her breast through the camisole.

  A.J. pulled his head back again. “I want you out of those clothes but I don’t want to rush through anything.”

  Allison pushed him onto his back. “Stay right there,” she said, and shimmied off the bed. Dear heavens, where was this forwardness coming from? Before she lost this new sense of daring, she reached up to the shoulders of the day dress and tugged it off her shoulders. The dress fell to the floor with a whisper. She deliberately drew the camisole over her head.

  A.J. sucked in a quick breath and she saw his compulsive gulp. His breathing quickened. Without taking her gaze from his face, she pulled on the satin ribbon holding her bloomers on her hips. She stepped out of them and crawled onto the bed. “Is this better?”

  “Dear God…” He caught her at the waist and pulled her up his still clad body.

  “I’ll take that to be a yes.”

  He trailed the back of his fingers along her cheek then drew his fingertips along her collarbone. “Remind me, when my brain isn’t totally mush, to tell you how thankful I am that the men in Georgia are damned fools. Dear God, you are more beautiful than I even imagined.”

  He forestalled anything she might have said by claiming her lips again. His hands roamed along her ribs, sweeping along the curve of her hip, down her thigh. Every place he touched her, Allison would swear she was on fire. Her heart pounded and she couldn’t think.

  When he bent his head to her breast, she caught her fingers in his thick hair. His hand slid along her lower belly and that fire became an inferno. He teased her nipple with his tongue, swirling around and around it, ever so gently rasping it between his teeth.

  She plucked at the buttons on his shirt, pushing a shoulder off. He rocked back and quickly worked it off. Allison slipped her hands along the slope of his ribs, her palms smoothing over his chest, to curl her fingers over his shoulders. She brought her lips to the hollow of his throat, kissing him. His breath hissed when she nipped his collarbone.

  He suddenly sat up, tugging at his boots. Allison couldn’t stop touching him, needed to feel his warm skin under her hands, against her. She spread her hands along the width of his back and trailed her mouth partially down his spine. She was rewarded with a full-bodied shaking from him. Her exploration continued and her fingers brushed against several knotted, narrow bands of scarring that stretched the width and breadth of his back just above his waist to nearly his shoulders.

  A.J. froze, barely breathing and his distress was palpable. She didn’t have to ask what the scarring was from, nor did she wonder about the sudden tension she felt in him. Allison lightly sketched their length. The rigidness in his posture increased with her light touch and Allison instinctively knew she had to address this. She leaned to press herself along his spine. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she dropped her chin to his shoulder. “You honorable, brave, devastatingly handsome man…you will never be damaged or broken in my sight, A.J.”

  A long, shuddering breath escaped him with the tension leaving his frame. He twisted around to her and lowered his mouth to hers. Her lips parted and his kiss deepened. His tongue darted and caressed. He kissed her temple, her cheek, her chin. He nibbled at the corners of her mouth, his assault calculated Allison was certain to the cadence of the ragged gasps escaping her.

  She collapsed backwards, A.J. following her. His mouth branded every inch of her and where he touched her, she was on fire. Where he didn’t she was smoldering with need. She had to touch him, had to feel him, had to have the sensation of his warm, hard flesh under her fingertips, her palms. And, to have him make the relentless ache in her find relief.

  His hand skimmed from her breast to her belly and then lower. Her soft cry resounded in the dimly lit room when A.J. slid his fingers into her. The contact jolted her, forcing another broken cry from her. He used his mouth, his hands, his fingers to intensify that ache, until she was writhing, her hips rising and falling in a matching rhythm to his thrusting fingers.

  He pulled his mouth from hers, trailed it down her throat, through the valley between her breasts. Allison’s breath left her in tiny, panting gasps as his dark head travelled down her belly. She arched fully into his mouth when his tongue parted her and circled around the small nub and his fingers still feathered in her.

  He lifted her bottom more to him. Allison heard herself gasping his name as that ache grew, intensified, until it was focused under his tongue and in his plunging fingers. She couldn’t stop the burning…couldn’t breathe…co
uldn’t do anything but feel.

  She didn’t know when she slowly returned to her senses, but he was stretched out next to her, head propped on his hand, gently brushing her sweat soaked hair from her cheek. A shiver passed over her. Without a word, he pulled the coverlet around her.

  Allison reached for him, brushing her fingertips along his collarbone. “No wonder the French call that ‘la petite mort,’” she whispered.

  His brow quirked up in surprise and then a smile tugged at his mouth. “Even for a woman who admits her father insisted she have a very broad education, that’s a term I wouldn’t have expected you to know.”

  “As long as it was in French or Italian, Father never investigated what I was reading. Alice once tried to read one of my French romances and said she was going to tell Father. I begged her not to.” Her breath caught when he shifted slightly, sliding his leg between hers. When had he shed his trousers?

  “Did she?” His hand slid up her ribs, until he cupped a breast. The pad of his thumb skimmed over her nipple, jolting renewed sensations through her.

  “Did she what?” She couldn’t think.

  His lips were nearly on hers. “Tell your father?” He pulled her fully against him. The proof of his arousal pressed against her belly, hot, firm, and throbbing. Renewed need clenched deep in her core.

  “I…I…don’t think so.”

  He cupped her face and drew her lips the last fractions to his. Allison tasted herself on his lips, in a deep kiss that seared into her soul. His tongue filled her, then retreated, filled her, inviting her to follow. A low groan broke from him when she thrust into him.

  His arm encircled her waist, pulling her in closer, closer than she thought any person could ever be held. Allison felt the tautness in his body and the enormity of his arousal nudging against her. It was the heat in his body that she marveled at most as he eased over her and then with an infinite deliberation into her. She should be burning. Instead, she was melting around him, sheathing him fully in her.