Free M. Donice Byrd - The Warner Saga by No Unspoken Promises

emotions get involved? Criminy, he was leaving the next day and had made it clear he had no interest in staying or continuing a relationship. Was making love again the best she could hope for before he returned home?
    A faint smile touched her lips as she brushed the wetness from her face. It had been so different from what she expected. She had seen many animals on the farm coupling and had watched with curious repulsion. She thought it would be like that between people, too. How could she have been so wrong, so ignorant, so blind? Part of her wanted him to ask her to leave with him. Not that she would go. But wouldn’t it be nice to think back to the night with the stranger and to know she had changed his mind about leaving alone. She could be happy for years on that memory.
    As a gossamer cloud passed in front of the moon, she reentered the house, threw the wooden bolt to lock the door and returned to the bedside to gaze at Blake’s lean physique. Even at rest , his wiry body looked powerful, the way she imagined a sleeping mountain lion’s body might – as if he could spring up and pounce upon an unsuspecting rabbit as it passed. Musing over the comparison between the lithe cat and Blake, she reached out and lightly touched his chest.
    Suddenly, with an unseen motion, he grabbed her wrist painfully. She gasped, startled and by reflex, jumped back, tugging at his grasp.
    “Meredith?” he rasped sleepily, loosening his grip slightly. “Is something wrong?”
    “I-I couldn’t sleep,” she stammered.
    “Well, come back to bed so I can.” He tugged on her arm, catching her off-balance and easily pulled her into bed. He made no move to release her wrist until she was ensconced in his arms, curled up against his chest and her hand lightly upon his shoulder.
    “You put on your nightgown?”
    “It’s your shirt.”
    There was a moment of silence before he spoke. “Don’t get too attached to it.”
    But Meredith heard only his unspoken words. Don’t become too attached to him. “I thought it was my dress when I picked it up,” she lied. “I intended to remove it before I came back to bed but I didn’t get the chance.”
    “My apologies,” he said in a bantering tone. His hands moved to the shirt’s buttons.  In seconds, it was laid open to his feathery touch. A moment later it was on the floor.
    “I-I don’t understand. Were you a bride by proxy?”
    “I’m not married.”
    “But you said….”
    “I never said I was married. You just assumed it and I thought it offered me a certain protection so I didn’t correct you until you kissed me.”
    “You didn’t correct me,” he said tightly.
    “I said, ‘What husband?’”
    Blake nearly laughed out loud. No woman had ever spoken those words to him and truly meant it. Until now.
    “This doesn’t change anything. I’m not going to marry you. I may not have realized you were chaste when I told you I wasn’t going to take you away from here but you did and you understood that I was making no promises.”
    Meredith thought she might cry that he thought so little of her. “I’m not trying to trick you. You were quite clear. Why do you have to ruin this by acting as if my maidenhead was a curse instead of a gift?”
    “A gift,” he muttered kissing her head. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to understand why you would give yourself to me . I’m a stranger. I’ll be gone as soon as I’ve taken care of my business.”
    “I-I wanted to.”
    How could she explain that there were no prospects for her here? No young man would ever show interest in her after the scandal had turned the whole community against her. She harbored hope when the area began to settle but when she realized her Scandinavian neighbors were being told of what happened when she was fourteen; she found herself intentionally living up to the wild-child mold they cast her in.
    She didn’t want to live her life not knowing what the marital act was like and if she had to marry