Free Different Dreams by Tory Cates

out a cotton dress. “This looks like it would do.”
    Malou was unable to resist the delicate garment. Even its smell was alluring. Rather than the musty odor she’d expected it to exude, the dress was fragrant with the scent of cedar from the trunk lining and the lavender and dried mountain laurel blossoms that had been packed away with the clothes. It had been handmade of a fine, powder blue cotton, its front lovingly worked with an intricate pattern of tucks and embroidery. The embroidery had all been done in ivory, so that the effect was one of understated elegance rather than contrived busyness. The skirt and long sleeves both flared out with an abundance of soft drapes.
    â€œGo ahead, put it on. It’ll be warmer than those damp things you’re wearing,” Cam urged. “Here, I’ll hold up the blanket and you can change in absolute privacy.” He took the quilt from her and held it up with his arms stretched over his head so that his view was entirely blocked. Malou hesitated for a moment.
    â€œHey, I’m not Hercules. I can’t hold up this temple to your modesty all day.”
    Malou shucked off her damp shirt and shorts, relieved to have their clamminess away from her skin.She wondered if she dared remove her bra and panties as well. The warm, dry feel of the fire against her bare skin answered her question, and she stripped them off too. Standing there, naked before the flames, she became acutely aware that only a thin quilt separated her from Cameron Landell. She glanced over. The quilt rose and fell beside her with the deep, steady rhythm of his breathing. Firelight played across the cold-stiffened tips of her breasts, gilding them in gold. The tops of her thighs and the gentle curve of her stomach were also traced in the flickering light. Lost in shadow were the full underslopes of her breasts, the indentation of her navel.
    A disturbing thought made itself known—she wanted Cam to see her. She wanted his gaze, for one brief moment, to travel over her breasts, her waist, her thighs. She wanted the quilt to fall away, and to stand naked before him. Horrified by the blatant sexuality of such impulses, Malou rubbed fiercely at herself with the towel almost as if she were mortifying her traitorous flesh, then swiftly pulled the pale blue dress on over her head. It floated over her body like a cloud grazing a mountaintop. She hurriedly buttoned the tiny carved mother-of-pearl buttons at the wrists and the back of the neck as if she could seal off the frightening desires raised by the man inches away from her.
    â€œI’m through,” she announced, feeling chastely invulnerable now, covered from her neck to below her knees.
    Cam lowered the improvised curtain, and the pang of desire that had attacked him the first moment he’d seen her turned now into an undeniable ache. Silhouetted against the fire, the thin material of the dress might just as well have been a puff of smoke. He was stunned by the womanly fullness of her breasts, the curve of her waist, the flare of her hips where they melted into those impossible legs. His mouth went dry, and a spasm of need twisted within him.
    â€œWell, what do you think?” she chirped. “Are we the Hayseed Couple of the Year?”
    Cam reached out unsteadily, the quilt trembling in his hands. “Here,” he said, wrapping it around her shoulders. “That dress can’t be very warm. You don’t want to catch a chill.” Malou looked up at him, puzzled. Her face sparkled from the cleansing shower of the rain and glowed from the heat of the fire. Her hair, usually blown dry into a straight, elfin cut, had dried naturally into soft blond waves that curled like petals around her face. And some diabolical force had swollen her lips beyond even their usual tantalizing fullness.
    He weighed the urgency driving at the most primitive part of himself against the dangers of involvement. Especially with someone