She’d wanted to ask him questions, but he rose and put on his coat.
“Ye’ll oblige me greatly by staying here the night,” he said firmly, still smiling at her. “I’ll find a bed with a friend.” And raising his hat to Roger, he bowed and went out, leaving them to put the children to bed.
Not surprisingly, Mandy had put up a fuss at sleeping in a strange bed in a strange room, complaining that Esmeralda thought the surgery smelled funny and was scared of the big wardrobe because there might be kelpies in it.
“Kelpies only live in water, silly,” Jem had said, but he also looked a little apprehensively at the enormous dark armoire with its cracked door. So they’d all lain down on the narrow bed together, parents comforted as much as children by sheer physical proximity.
Brianna felt the soft warmth and the haze of exhalation blanketing her bodily exhaustion, a pull on her senses beckoning her toward the well of sleep. But not nearly such a strong pull as her sense of Roger.
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees; dress does not hide him . . .
She lay for a moment, hand on Mandy’s back, feeling the slow beating of the child’s heart, watching as Roger scooped Jem into his arms and turned to lay him down on one of the extra quilts McEwan’s landlady had brought up with the soup.
The strong, sweet, supple quality he has, strikes through the cotton and flannel . . .
He was dressed in nothing but shirt and breeks and now paused to shed the homespun breeks, casually scratching his arse in relief, the long linen shirt momentarily rucked up to show the lean curve of a buttock. Then he came to pick up Mandy, smiling over her stertorously breathing body at Bree.
“Leave the bed to the kids, you think? We could make up a pallet with the cloaks—if they’ve dried out a bit—and quilts in the surgery.” He gathered Mandy up like an armful of laundry, and Bree was able to sit up and scoot across the bed, feeling a wonderful movement of air through her perspiration-dampened shift and a brush of soft fabric across her br**sts that made her ni**les rise.
She turned back the bedding; he moved the children back to the bed, and she covered them and kissed their dreaming faces, kissing Esmeralda for good measure before tucking her into Mandy’s arm. Roger turned toward the closed door to the surgery and looked back at Bree over his shoulder, smiling. She could see the shadow of his body through the linen shirt, against the glow of the hearth.
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more . . .
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
“Wilt bed with me, lass?” he said softly, and put out a hand to her.
“Oh, yes,” she said, and came to him.
THE SURGERY WAS cold, after the humid heat of the bedroom, and they came to each other at once, warm limbs and warm lips seeking. The fire in this room had gone out, and they didn’t trouble to rebuild it.
Roger had kissed her the moment he saw her on the ground in the fort, grabbing her and lifting her into an embrace that crushed her ribs and nearly bruised her lips. She’d had no objections whatever. But now his mouth was soft and tender and the scruff of his beard light on her skin.
“Fast?” he murmured against her mouth. “Slow?”
“Horizontal,” she murmured back, clutching his bottom. “Speed irrelevant.” She was standing on one leg, the bad foot elegantly—she hoped—extended behind her. Dr. McEwan’s ministrations had eased the throbbing quite a bit, but she still couldn’t put weight on it for more than the briefest second.
He laughed—quietly, with a guilty look toward the bedroom door—and, bending suddenly, scooped her up and staggered across the room to the coat rack, where she snagged the hanging cloaks and tossed them onto the floor by the table, that being the cleanest open space visible. He squatted, back creaking audibly and manfully suppressing a groan as he lowered her gently onto the heap.
“Be careful!” she whispered, and not jokingly. “You could put your back out, and then what?”
“Then ye’d get to be on top,” he whispered back, and ran a hand up her thigh, her shift rippling up with it. “But I haven’t, so ye don’t.” Then he pulled up his shirt, spread her legs, and came to her with an incoherent noise of deep satisfaction.
“I hope ye meant it about the speed being irrelevant,” he said in her ear, a few minutes later.
“Oh. Yes,” she said vaguely, and wrapped her arms round his body. “You . . . just . . . stay put.” When she could, she let him go, cradling his head and kissing the smooth warm flesh at the side of his neck. She felt the rope scar and gently drew the tip of her tongue along it, making gooseflesh erupt all over his back and shoulders.
“Are you asleep?” he inquired some moments later, suspicious.
She opened one eye halfway. He’d gone back into the bedroom for quilts and was kneeling beside her, spreading one over her. It smelled faintly musty, with a tang of mice, but she didn’t care.
“No,” she said, and rolled onto her back, feeling wonderful, despite the hard floor, her sprained ankle, and the dawning realization that Dr. McEwan must do operations and amputations on the table. There was a dark stain on the underside, above her head. “Just . . . limp.” She stretched out a slow hand to Roger, urging him under the quilt with her. “You?”
“I’m not asleep,” he assured her, sliding down close beside her. “And if ye think I’m going to say ‘limp,’ think again.”
She laughed—quietly, with a glance at the door—rolled over, and rested her forehead against his chest.