Page 43 of Once Charmed, Twice Cursed
I glance around. A sodden sleeping pallet lies nearby, along with a few scattered clothes, no more than wet, dark puddles amid other wet, dark puddles. A collection of pine boughs creates a lean-to against the tree trunk, but the branches slump, their integrity clearly having given way at some point in the last few hours.
Just his luck.
I turn back to him. “You can’t stay out here. You’re freezing.”
“I’m f-f-fine.” Tremors wrack his frame.
Fortuna’s blessings. This stubborn ass.
“You’re definitely not.” I crawl over to the pallet and hunt around until I come up with his gloves. They’re sopping wet, the cotton lining so waterlogged I can barely jam my fingers in, but I manage. I grab his arm and haul him upright with a strength borne of determination. “You need to come warm up by the fire.”
He resists. “I c-can’t.... The duke’s m-m-men...”
“Won’t be out in this storm. And I won’t let you catch your death out here.”
He hesitates, but another full-body shudder saps him of the will to protest. I haul on his arm, and we stagger through the downpour together, back to the welcoming light of the cabin.
Inside, I steer him to the armchair by the now-roaring fire. He collapses into it, dripping everywhere, quaking with cold.
“Take off your clothes,” I order.
Thatsnaps him out of his hypothermic daze. Gold sparks fly in his eyes, though he refuses to look at me. “What? N-no.”
“Yes. You’re never going to warm up with all that wet fabric sticking to you.”
His brows snap low, and the sight of his familiar indignation swims through my veins like warm syrup. He’s going to be okay. I just have to get him out of those damn clothes.
“It’s not like I haven’t seen a naked man before,” I say. “Or have you forgotten?”
He leans away, his nostrils flaring. “Forgotten? No. I’ve t-tried. And tried. It d-doesn’t seem to have worked.”
I pause, already regretting bringing up Theodore. Then again... “Well, I don’t exactly love knowing you’ve been with a whole bunch of women, either, but we’ll both survive.Ifwe can get you dry.”
His jaw hardens, muting the clatter of his teeth. “There weren’tthatmany. W-women. And they all looked like you. Every single one.”
Whatever response I might have given to that lodges in my throat. I’m not sure I wanted to know that, backhanded compliment that it is.
“Sorry.” His voice is still unsteady, but gaining strength as warmth seeps into him. “I didn’t need to share that.”
“No. You didn’t. Now take your clothes off.”
Thank the goddess, he doesn’t argue this time. He curls forward and works his sodden shirt over his head before throwing it aside. It hits the floorboards with a wet squish. Then he’s rising from the chair, unbuttoning his breeches with stiff fingers and stepping free. He tosses those away, too.
He straightens. He’s left his underwear on, but I barely register that fact, because my whole body has been reduced to a hungry ache.
Fortuna help me. He’s excruciatingly, glaringly beautiful. Even stippled in goosebumps, he makes my eyes hurt and my mouth go dry.
The funny thing is, I’ve seen it all before. I’ve memorized the exact curve of his triceps, how the muscle flexes and contracts when he lashes out with a right hook. I know the precise breadth of his shoulders, the angle at which they join his neck. I’m familiar with the rise of his collarbones and theserrated grooves overlying his ribcage, the vee of muscle that leads downward into his sodden shorts. Even the corded length of his thighs ceased to be a mystery to me long ago.
But I’ve only ever seen those things in flashes before, and in the company of a crowd. Not laid out in cohesive splendor like this. Not lit by private firelight, in a room that suddenly feels much too small, nestled within a forest that now feels much too large.
I look. And look. A low, liquid flutter beats in my belly.
Weston glares at the floor, apparently ignorant to the silent, irreparable toppling of every daydream I’ve ever entertained. Because I’ve thought about him so many times, at night in my bedroom. I’ve reconstructed what I’ve seen in the ring so endlessly, inside the privacy of my own head.
But this... This is better.
He finally glances up. His hair curves over his forehead, a perfect crescent.
