"DG, stop," Cain whispered, though he made no move to stop her questing fingers.
"I don't want to stop." DG's voice was breathy, but clearly discernable in the midnight hush of his small dark bedroom. She wasn't as concerned about some nosy guard overhearing their encounter as he was.
The princess had slipped into Cain's room in the middle of the night with tear-stained cheeks and eyes puffy and red-rimmed. It wasn't unusual for her to come to him if her nightmares were particularly frightening, and ask to sit with him for a while, if only to avoid the eerie loneliness of her own room. But never before had she climbed into his bed. Never before had she burrowed under his covers and stroked his body with her hands – cold little hands that were now starting to creep down the front of his flannel sleep pants.
With a muffled groan he finally placed his hand over hers, stopping their light caresses. "We can't, this isn't right."
"Please, Mr. Cain." The formality of his name made him feel old and dirty. She was just a kid, twenty years old, sure, but still far too young for him. And in truth he'd never harbored sexual feelings for her before, but it seemed tonight was full of firsts for them both.
Taking his silence for acquiescence, DG pulled her hands from his grasp and continued her exploration of the warm skin of his lower abdomen. She skimmed across his hipbones before hooking her fingers in the waistband of his pants and tugging slowly, gently, downwards.
Cain willed his body to not respond to her touch. Maybe if she thought he was unaffected by her seduction attempt she would stop and they could pretend that this was all a vapor induced hallucination. But instead as she slipped his pants down to his knees she was greeted by the sight of a very aroused Wyatt Cain.
He couldn't help it, he justified to himself, too long without the feel of a woman's body against his own prompted his flesh to naturally respond, whether he wanted to or not. Hastily he pushed aside the unbidden thought that maybe he did want it and maybe this girl made him feel something more than he should, something warm and tingly and other sappy adjectives like that.
As if remembering how wonderful female hands felt wrapped around his hard flesh, his hips surged upwards into DG's feathery light grasp. Choking back a frustrated groan, Cain's eyes slammed shut. When they opened again, she had shifted her position to lean over him with her knees on either side of his hips, and he found himself looking up into her naked face. Her lips held a contented smile, but her eyes were still sad, remnants of salty tears still clinging to her long lashes.
Determined to replace that hauntingly sorrowful dullness in her gaze with pure ecstasy and passion, he smoothly rolled them over so he was on top of her, nestled snugly between her thighs. After a quick jerk of the sash tied neatly at her waist he brushed open her thin robe to find only bare skin beneath.
DG's body was thinner than Adora's had been, her breasts not as full and lush in his hands, but the pale creamy color of her skin was exactly the same. He fought the urge to bite at her and mark all that unblemished flesh as his, and instead touched her as lightly and evenly as she had touched him.
"Are you sure this is what you want, Princess?" Cain demanded gruffly. He knew it wouldn't be easy to tear himself away from her if she said no, but he had to be certain that she was aware of what was about to happen.
"Yes, Cain," she breathed, tilting her head back against his pillow and arching ever so slightly into his hands.
"Wyatt," he corrected as his mouth descended on to hers.
He didn't know if she was here simply for comfort, to wipe the hellish image of a nightmare from her mind or if she truly felt something more than friendship for him. But at that moment, with her lips yielding under his and her soft breasts filling his palms, it didn't seem to matter. DG was a smart girl and she would understand when he told her the next morning that this had simply been two bodies needing release. She wouldn't expect a ring and a promise after one night of mutual pleasure. Then he could pretend as though he hadn't betrayed his wife's memory, that every moment spent in another woman's arms didn't tear a little more at his battered heart.