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When he didn’t cooperate, she shifted his legs up with no particular gentleness. Bracing her back against the wall, she pulled off his boots. To her astonishment, she was enjoying herself. There was something heady about having this great, handsome galoot under her sway.

He’d gone quiet, and she wondered if he’d fallen asleep. But when she looked up, he was leaning on his elbows and his gaze clung to the jiggle of her bosom under her nightgown.

When he tilted forward and cupped her breasts, a smile of beatific appreciation curved his lips. “Jane, Jane, who has a big brain.”

Her nipples beaded as he squeezed. Even drunk, he remembered how to touch a woman. “That’s not my brain,” she managed to say.

He raised heavy eyes to meet hers. “Give us a kiss, wife,” he said without releasing her.

For a moment, she considered saying yes. But he wasn’t in his right mind—“Jane drives me insane”—and he must be getting cold, sitting half-naked in this icy room.

She managed to extricate herself and stand up. “Tomorrow.”

He groaned and slumped full length onto the bed, prompting another alarming creak. “Jane does refrain.”

“She does.”

At last, she paid attention to what he lay on. She’d never been into this room. If she’d thought about it, she would have assumed his bed was as comfortable as hers. Which turned out to be wrong.

His large feet protruded over the end, and he looked awkward, even as he closed his eyes and settled onto the thin mattress. He fumbled to drag the blankets up, but they hardly covered him. Dear heaven, it was the middle of winter. Over the last three nights, he must have frozen. While next door she’d been cuddled up under goose down quilts.

Guilt assailed her. No wonder he looked tired. She leaned in. “Wake up, Hugh.”

Long dark eyelashes fluttered, and she found herself staring into bleary brown eyes. “Why?”

“You can’t sleep here.”

“Nowhere else to go.” He rolled over and presented her with one shoulder. “Wife won’t have me.”

Jane suffered another twinge of guilt. “You can come back to the bedroom.”

She set one hand on his back, then snatched it away. Perhaps too much touching wasn’t wise. It would be so easy to give in to him, but not now when he was drunk.

He rolled over with a speed that startled her, given his inebriation. The hand that closed around her wrist seemed to belong to a sober man, too. “What did you say?”

Jane licked dry lips and fought to steady her voice. She wondered if he noted her racing pulse. “You can’t be comfortable in here. It’s cold, and the bed’s too short. You can sleep with me.” She paused, although the disappointment in his face told her that he understood what she was offering—and what she wasn’t. “Just sleep.”

He let her go and turned on his side away from her again. “I’d rather stay here.”

“Don’t be a child, Hugh,” she said impatiently.

“You said you wouldn’t nag.”

“I changed my mind.” She caught his hand and tugged with no result. She tugged harder. And again, until she was panting.

Hugh shifted onto his back and surveyed her with weary displeasure. “Don’t be a henwit, Jane. You can’t shift thirteen stone of unwilling man.”

“I can try.” She braced her feet against the floor and tugged again. With as little success.

“You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Or you could cooperate.” She narrowed her eyes. “And you can stop staring at my…bosom.”

His eyebrows arched in a supercilious expression. He looked less drunk by the minute. “When I made that damned fool arrangement with you, I never said I wouldn’t look. Or is this a new rule?”

She flattened her lips and let him go. “I’m trying to be sensible.”

“No, you’re trying to torture me.”


Tags: Anna Campbell Dashing Widows Romance