If he had any honor, he’d take a pistol to his head and end both their torments.

“Leave me,” he mumbled, leaning his head back against the chair and closing his eye.

“What did you say?”

“LEAVE ME,” he said more forcefully, opening his eye just long enough to glare at her.

She studied him for a moment, then leaned forward between his legs until her breasts were pressed against his groin, her fingers trailing down the grapevine of scars that marked the side of his face. “Are you in pain?”

He was surprised to note he had an erection. He had assumed he wasn’t capable of one any longer, but the warmth of her soft breasts pressed against him, coupled with the faint lavender scent that teased his nose and the erotic glide of her fingers down his face, stirred him as nothing had in the past month since the accident.

“No pain,” he answered hoarsely, hope springing to life within him. If he could bed her, at least he would be of some use. He could give her pleasure, give her children, give her something to make up for the hell he had dragged her into.

She was no longer looking at his injuries, now she was looking at his mouth with an avidity that bespoke her own awareness of him. Heat blossomed within him as he leaned forward to capture her mouth, to taste her again, to sink into the warm haven her mouth offered. He slid one arm around her waist, pulling her tight against him, while the other hand ached to cup the back of her head, tipping it backwards, leaving her lips parted, waiting to be plundered…

He stared with humiliation at his right arm. It hung limply at his side, refusing his order to tangle his fingers in Charlotte’s golden curls. He couldn’t even lift the leaden weight of it enough to put his arm around her.

“Dare?”

He let his left arm drop from her waist, slumping back into the chair, closing his eye against the disappointment—and worse, pity—he was sure to see in her eyes.

“Dare? Is something wrong?”

What a wretched end he had come to. Despair wailed within him as he realized that even if he had been able to will his injured arm into working properly, he couldn’t pleasure his wife. No woman in her right mind would want such a pathetic mockery of a man to touch her.

“Husband, I realize you are frustrated because the strength hasn’t returned to your arm, but Dr. Milton did say that he believed exercising it would help you regain the muscle you lost. Would you like to do a few of the exercises now? After you’re done, I would be very happy to sit on your lap and kiss you.”

He was only fooling himself to think it would be otherwise. “Leave me be, Charlotte.”

“But, Dare—”

“Get out, woman! Why must you always be fluttering around me? Can’t you see I don’t want you?”