“Listen.” Something touched the top of her head. His cheek? “What do you hear?”
“I can’t hear anything except your heartbeat.”
“Is it beating slow or fast?”
She pressed her ear slightly closer. “Slow.”
He took her hand and placed it on his jaw. “How does it feel?”
With the barest of movements, she explored. “Rough and prickly.”
His chest bounced her cheek on a chuckle. “Guess I’ll be upping my shaving to twice a day.” His hand covered hers and pressed her fingers into his skin. “How do my muscles feel? Hard and tense or relaxed?”
“Relaxed.”
“Exactly.” His hand left hers. She dropped it to his shoulder. This close, she didn’t have anyplace else to put it.
He tipped up her chin with the side of his finger. “I’m not mad.”
“I burned you.”
He’d started shaking his head before she finished speaking. “I startled you and you spilled the coffee. There’s a world of difference between the two.”
She was shocked to her toes that he saw the difference. She was afraid everything she was thinking showed on her face. She tried to duck her head, but his finger under her chin kept her face exposed to his gaze.
“No more hiding.”
Could he read her mind?
“I made you a couple of promises back at the saloon. Do you remember what they were?”
“You’d keep my ranch safe and you’d keep outsiders from hurting me.”
“You married me with that being your understanding?”
From the way his head jerked back, she got the impression that she’d shocked him. Did he think she was so dimwitted she couldn’t remember their deal? “Yes. It was more than I expected.”
“You promised me obedience not thinking that I’d keep my hands off you?”
“It’s not illegal for a husband to hit his wife.” Though it should be.
“Darlin’, little as most women are and as big as most men are, it darn well should be.” It was a shock to hear his words echo her thoughts. He eyed her up and down, seeming to miss nothing in the examination. “If I ever took a notion to whale on you, there wouldn’t be anything left but a greasy spot.”
“I’d survive.”
His finger was no longer required to hold her chin. Pride alone kept her gaze locked with his. He shook his head. No doubt he thought she’d crumble at the first hint of pain. Well, he’d soon find out he had another think coming. Her father had made sure she was strong.
“It never occurred to me that you’ve been waiting for me to sock you one,” he continued. “Heck, no wonder you were so interested in my stepping between the blacksmith and that little boy.”
She took immediate offense. He made it sound like she was some beaten cur, crawling with its tail tucked between its legs. “I haven’t been waiting.”
“It hadn’t occurred to me,” he went on, ignoring the interruption, “because I don’t hit women, I don’t kick dogs, and I don’t beat on little kids.”
Did he think she was going to swallow that line of bull? “Everyone gets mad.”
“Yes. They do. When I get mad, I yell.” He winced. “A lot. When I get so mad I think I’m going to lose it, I slam doors and storm out of the house. I don’t take out my bad humor on things littler than me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You apologizing because my heart’s beating fast and my muscles are tightening up, or because you believe you’ve been insulting me regularly for the last day or so?”
She ducked his gaze, not wanting him to read the truth in hers. “Both.”
“How about we make a deal?”
“What?”
“Bring your gaze back up here, darlin’.”
She figured if she didn’t, he’d be pushing it up with his finger. That and the fact that she didn’t want him thinking she was a coward were the only reasons she met his serious gaze with hers.
“How about we put aside the thought that we’re married and you let me court you with all the courting rules in place?”
“What’s the point in that?”
“The point is that I don’t like having to walk on egg shells, and I don’t imagine you do either. It means that I like the way we worked together in the barn a whole lot more. I’d like to have more of those moments rather than those stiff formal ones I keep running up against. The only way you’re going to be comfortable with me is to get to know me without feeling pressured.”
“Courting couples don’t share a bed.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“But men want,” she paused, decided this wasn’t the time for modesty, and plunged on through her inhibitions. “You’ll want to share a bed.”
He shook his head as if she were dimwitted. “I’m not saying I won’t want to spark, but I got to be honest, darlin’. The next time we go to bed, I’d like to feel I’m making love to my wife and not forcing her.”