“Matthew-”
“You think you’re the only one who’s ever had a failure in the past, Misha. You’re the only one who passed sentence on yourself, honey. No one else has. No one else could. We’re all in the same boat. All people…trying hard. You want a promise, Misha? All right, then. I promise that you’re going to love me until you’re ninety-four and I’m a hundred and three. And you are never again, never, going to cause me to hold up a plane with two hundred and seventy-four people aboard. I mean that.”
She glanced up. He was furious. Not unsure, not less loving, not less compassionate, but almost angry enough to shake her. Something jelled inside her. All the pain that had ached through her… No, it wasn’t simply going to go away. But love was bursting inside her, completely different from what she’d once thought love felt like. It really wasn’t the same; she had been very stupid to think she was the same young girl she had once been. And suddenly she found it impossible to believe that she wouldn’t love Matthew when she was ninety-four.
“Ready?” he demanded harshly.
“Ready,” she agreed. All her love was in her eyes. And suddenly laughter, too-to match his.
One arm plunged into the deep, sudsy water. Lorna felt fingertips marching down her thighs, over her knees and calves. Finally, they lingered on her toes, and Matthew’s arm came up dripping. “Still cold,” he pronounced.
“Matthew, this water is at cauldron temperature.”
“Your toes were cold.”
Lorna gave in and sank farther down into the luxurious warmth, leaning her turbaned head back against the porcelain tub. Matthew was perched on the edge, wearing a huge white towel, alternately sipping Caribou, a drink that was popular among the Québecois, and checking her body temperature. Since she warmed spontaneously to his touch, there had really been no need for a bath at all, even if they had spent most of the day in subzero temperatures; but there was no telling Matthew that. He was not in a reasonable mood.
He had not really been in a reasonable mood for the past three days. Quebec’s winter festival was different than anything Lorna had experienced. This morning, for example, they’d taken a calèche ride around the city, bundled in fur robes as their carriage toured the old Lower Town. Narrow cobbled streets were lined by century-old houses in the European tradition. Near the Château Frontenac where they were staying, the land plunged more than three hundred feet down to a rolling St. Lawrence River. Lorna, with her love of history and languages, could not have had a better time.
After that they’d watched the ice sculptors, finishing the last of their masterpieces before the contest and parade, working with hatchets and water pails. Ten-foot-deep chunks of snow became massive demons and fairies, animals and children. The sun shone down on a city turned into diamonds, the prisms of ice breathtaking, reflecting one off the other like a million precious stones. The crowds were delighted, sipping Caribou, as Lorna and Matthew were, to warm themselves. There was still time to see a canoe race through a river made dangerous by floating ice, and only when exhausted and freezing did they finally return to the château in the early evening.
And as far as freezing… Lorna really wasn’t cold. Matthew had proved himself unreasonable about keeping her warm over the past few days. The white fur boots had cost him a fortune. Then there had been the outfit to match, then a dress in scarlet cashmere that she didn’t need. The French dressmaker had wooed him from her window… So had a man who did charcoal portraits… So had a young woman who designed jewelry. If Lorna had had any idea before of what a spendthrift Matthew was turning out to be…
And the bath. He’d upended a half bottle of L’air du Temps in the water while she was undressing. Her entire perfume supply for the trip, barring the three vials he’d purchased that were too expensive to use. And until now, Lorna had thought that champagne was strictly for Christmas and weddings. She reached over to pour another glassful from the bottle opened solely for her, then leaned back, regarding Matthew through thick lashes, feeling deliciously decadent and thoroughly aroused.
His dark brown eyes had a sensual snap of fire in them tonight. Three drops of moisture glistened on his brow; a few more were still nestled in the furry mat on his chest from his recent shower. He’d just used a lime-scented shaving cream, and the faint smell lingered in the small, warm room; her fingers longed to test just how soft those cheeks were after shaving. They looked honey-soft. The towel draped around his middle would take less than a small tug to free.
His chest hair intrigued her; the mat was short and oddly bristly, and she couldn’t understand why she found the feel of it so exciting. Perhaps because it was shaped like an arrow, a vertical line of it dividing his ribs, and around his stomach rather feathering out. Definitely an arrow, pointing down…
“Misha.”
She glanced up innocently.
“We’re here to ensure that you get warm. When you came in you were damn well blue.” His stern voice lacked something in the way of authority; his eyes were dancing.
“I’m getting warm, Matthew.” His unreasonable concern touched her, just as all his spoiling had touched her. She knew what he was trying to prove to her. It wasn’t necessary. She lifted her toe to flick open the drain.
“Misha-”
She coiled her legs under her, and in one graceful movement stood up, water shimmering down over the natural hills and valleys of a very definitely feminine form. Lorna’s instinct would have been to reach for a towel. Misha’s was not. Her breasts were absolutely beautiful. Matthew’s eyes told her that. He liked the way they tilted up; he liked their firmness; he liked their small, firm nipples. He liked the slight curve of her stomach, the rounded hips…
He wrapped a towel around her very quickly, not chancing her catching cold. In another way, he guaranteed her not catching cold, because the moment his fingertips touched warm satin flesh, all that formidable control seemed to leave him. She was snatched up to just that warmth she had been impatient for.
The chest hair rubbing against her bare breasts was as exciting as she remembered. Rough and soft, fierce and sweet. Lime and champagne and perfume; she was going to make her first fortune bottling that combination. More compelling yet was Matthew’s own scent, surrounding her just as his arms surrounded her, just as his lips crushed hers, inviting her into their own private cocoon. Inviting? Insisting!
She was dry before he nestled her on top of the comforters and pillows. All her life she would associate the Château Frontenac with pale rose brocade and cream, with a mattress too soft and a comforter of down. So much softness, so much pale romance in the old hotel…while Matthew next to her contrasted to that. No part of him was soft. He was sure and male and vital, a primitive, lusty lover.
He didn’t believe in inhibitions. All her life she believed a woman had a right to a few inhibitions. He was totally unreasonable…
“How I love the feel of you, Misha…”
She shivered violently. The contrast from languid, sensual warm bath to cool silken sheets was a minuscule excuse for that, nothing of any consequence. Matthew was working, very hard, to make sure she became warm again, beginning with the one small nub of a nipple he had between his teeth, dark and smooth, swollen and pouting for him.
He propped himself up long enough to study her breasts in lazy detail. “The other one has been neglected,” he pointed out to her.
She flushed. There really was something disgraceful about the way her body responded to his touch. He worked on the other breast, while she practiced clenching and unclenching her hands on his shoulders. Then she spread her small fingers and stroked in slow circles down his sides to his hips, trying to pull him to her.