Читать книгу The Pirate's Tale - Grace D'Otare - Страница 3

“Hello?” Maeve dropped her bags in the hall. Peering across the foyer, she could just make out her husband’s shape slumped in his favorite old leather chair. She shrugged off her coat and tossed it. It landed over the banister. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

“Why are you so far away?”

Her heels clicked on the parquet. “Bad day, darling?”

Devlin watched her cross the room, swirling his drink.

“You’re wearing those boots again,” he said.

“I am.”

He turned away to concentrate on a long swallow from his glass. “Not all bad, then.”

She smiled at that, and brushed a hand over his hair, feeling his forehead as a nurse might check for fever. He twitched, meaning don’t fuss, and patted his knee.

Maeve arranged herself in his lap, her knees swinging over the rolled arm of the chair, and wondered what to do.

They both had bad days now and then, with all they’d been through. Dev usually went off alone and came back when he’d healed himself. Or close enough to healed himself. Rarely did he let her see the suffering, much less offer what small comfort she could.

He set his glass on the floor. His palm skimmed beneath the hem of her skirt. The skirt was a favorite of Maeve’s, a great sweep of charcoal silk velvet. Despite the steady rise of his hand, the skirt veiled boots, legs and his intent. Beginning at her ankle, he traced the fit of her boot as it climbed her leg.

“Jesus. Where does it stop?”

The smoke of old-oaked whiskey on his breath and leather in the air whetted Maeve’s appetite. Dark and chilly as Dev’s spirits ran tonight, Maeve felt the tingle of warmth they made between them spark, and begin to burn.

“Ahhh, there’s a good man.” She wiggled deliberately, settling more comfortably in his lap, and he pinched the tender skin above the boot’s cuff. “I knew you’d find your way.”

“What’s this you’re barely wearing?” Blunt fingertips tickled the edge of her lacy thong.

“Layers are the secret to a well-dressed woman,” Maeve replied with an invitational tip of her hips.

“Thinly spread layer.”

“Mille Cake,” she teased, hoping for another pinch.

“Naughty girl.”

“Think of it as a visual aid.”

“A visual aid? When you’re hip-high in these…” He whispered across her ear. “…pirate boots,” making her shiver, another little retaliation.

“Pirates. Now, that reminds me of a story.” She shifted her butt in his lap more deliberately, achieving precisely the result she’d hoped for.

“Do tell,” her husband answered, with enough growl in his voice to really make it worth her while.