The Wedding Party Collection. Кейт Хьюит

think it’s French.’ It was also something she could sway to—her dancing skills hadn’t exactly improved with age. ‘Bear with me,’ she said as she went to swap the rolls, only now Trig had decided to figure out how pianolas worked too. ‘Focus.’

      ‘I am focused.’

      ‘On me.’

      He poked his head back out of the old machine’s innards. ‘But I can focus on you any time.’

      He looked sincere. He sounded sincere. He set the pianola roll to rolling and the first few notes of gentle piano music flowed into the room.

      ‘Seems a little slow,’ he murmured.

      ‘It’s perfect. Which carpet would you like to dance on?’

      He smiled at that. ‘The blue one by the end of the bed.’

      ‘That’s your favourite? Because I’m thinking of buying one just like it for the farmhouse on the banks of the lazy river.’

      ‘I do like the idea of a farmhouse on the banks of a lazy river,’ he admitted. Moments later he surrendered a wry smile and held out his hand for hers. When they reached the blue carpet he swung her gently around and into his arms and she put her hand to his chest, deeply satisfied when he drew a swift breath. His nipples had tightened and wasn’t that a pretty sight against the cotton of his shirt? She swiped her thumb across one well-defined little bump and he bit back a whimper. ‘You like that?’

      He nodded.

      She pressed a gentle kiss to his jaw next. ‘And that?’

      ‘Not complaining.’

      ‘Not encouraging me either.’

      ‘About that—’

      She kissed his throat next and slid her hands beneath his shirt as he stood there and trembled beneath her touch. Heady business, seducing this husband of hers.

      ‘We should dance,’ he muttered.

      ‘To do that I’m pretty sure someone has to move.’

      So he stepped in closer, wrapped his hands around her waist and began to move. He’d always been athletic. Occasionally, in the midst of one of his teenage growth spurts, he’d get a little clumsy until he figured out the workings of his bigger, broader body.

      He wasn’t clumsy now.

      Lena let her body follow where he led, and revelled in the brush of her chest against his, of her hips against his. Trig’s eyes darkened as he pushed her hair back off her face with his fingertips.

      ‘You do that a lot,’ she murmured.

      ‘Been wanting to do it for years.’

      ‘What stopped you?’

      ‘I wasn’t sure if it was what you wanted. Still not sure.’

      ‘I’m sure,’ she said, but he was already turning away.

      ‘C’mon, let’s finish the feast,’ he said and drew her back towards the table. They finished their main course and then smiling people cleared the table and dessert and coffee arrived.

      Lena looked at the table laden with sweet delicacies and groaned. ‘I can’t.’ There was simply no room left in her stomach.

      Trig grinned and popped a baklava into his mouth.

      ‘Oh, stuff it,’ she said and reached for a baklava too.

      Trig began to laugh, a sound that was front and centre of so many of her memories. He hadn’t laughed much on this trip. For a man on his honeymoon he seemed to have a hell of a lot on his mind.

      ‘Are you really worried about having sex with me?’ she asked and Trig promptly swallowed down hard on his baklava. ‘Because I truly don’t understand why.’

      ‘I just want you to have all your memories back first.’

      ‘I don’t understand that either. What’s wrong with making new memories? I’m loving these new memories.’

      Trig sat back and began to fiddle with the stem of his wine glass. ‘Me too.’

      ‘Is it the room? Is it too weird? Because, I have to say... I really like this place. I could get naked here and my scars wouldn’t look that out of place amongst the freaky furnishings. They fit. I fit. Being here with you in this place, it’s like a gift. Makes me want to check my inhibitions at the door.’

      Trig pinned her with an intent gaze. ‘What inhibitions?’

      ‘Well, there’s the scars... I saw the way people stared at me in the bath house. I know the marks aren’t pretty, they’re never going to be pretty but they’re mine and the getting of them wasn’t without honour. You told me that.’

      ‘Lena—’

      ‘We don’t have to have the lights on. They can be off.’

      ‘I thought you said you were checking your inhibitions at the door?’

      ‘I’m just thinking about ways to make it better for you. You said you had performance pressure. I wondered if maybe you had trouble staying interested because of the scars.’

      ‘I don’t need the lights off,’ he said flatly.

      ‘Because you wouldn’t have to touch them. The scars, I mean. I don’t know what we usually do, but I do know that they wouldn’t be a turn-on for you. You probably just...skim.’

      ‘Lena, you have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said icily. ‘I love you. Every contrary bit of you. Why the hell would I want to skim?’

      He moved fast when he wanted to. He swept her off her feet and the next thing she knew she was on the bed and Trig was sinking down next to her, sending pillows tumbling to the floor. No weight on her at all but for the pressure of his hands curling around her wrists as he pinned her arms above her head.

      ‘I don’t skim,’ he rasped, and dragged his lips from her temple to the edge of her mouth. ‘Not with you. How the hell can you not know that?’

      And then his lips were on hers and she opened for him and tasted champagne and cinnamon and the truth of his desire for her and it lit her blood faster than anything else ever could.

      He didn’t rush. He kissed her for a good long while before moving on to her shoulders and her throat. By the time his lips skated the bodice of her dress, Lena was writhing against him, impatient for more. He found the zipper on her dress and it slid down easy and then his lips were on her again, his tongue curling around her nipple, flicking over it and then sucking softly, testing to see which one she liked best and hands down the sucking won. Hands in his hair she told him that, with her head flung back and her breath gone ragged.

      He began to edge her dress down further but she stopped him with her hands. ‘Lights off,’ she whispered.

      ‘No.’

      He shed his shirt, he got all the way undressed, not a shy bone in his body, and she loved that about him, even as she struggled with shedding her dress. He let her keep her panties on as he pressed open-mouthed kisses to the underside of her breasts and then her ribs and then his fingers touched the scar tissue that ran all the way from hip to groin. He pushed her legs apart and licked a stripe straight up the worst of the scars and she shuddered beneath the onslaught.

      ‘Don’t,’ she whimpered. She didn’t need this. He didn’t need to do this.

      But he pressed soft kisses into the rest of her scars next and then set his mouth to the centre of her panties and started drawing circles with his tongue. Ever smaller circles until she was pushing those panties down herself and the minute she had them off one leg he got one arm beneath her buttocks and set his mouth to her again.

      She couldn’t stop watching him and he kept his eyes on her, right up until his fingers joined the party and exposed her even more.