“Just like that?”
He stroked her face, then slowly slid her glasses off her face. The rest of the world blurred; only his features remained in focus, close enough that she could distinguish them. She liked that—liked it when he commanded her attention so utterly. When they were together, when they were alone, she trusted him enough that she didn’t need the use of her vision.
“Just like that,” he said. “You see, I would very much like you by my side, too.”
“And if I were to choose to visit my father’s estate on occasion?”
“Then I would join you.”
“He will die soon.” She tested the words, trying them on for truth. “I no longer think I care.”
The left-hand side of his mouth curved in her favorite lopsided smile. “I won’t pretend to be saddened by this revelation, except for your sake.”
“I have a new family now. And”—she searched his face for any sign of distress as she ventured a new thought that had been occurring to her of late—“I think it likely that we will shortly have a new family if we continue as we are.”
His eyes flashed with an expression she couldn’t read, and his thumb swiped over her cheek. “Does that alarm you?”
Logically, it ought to have. From what she understood, childbirth was extraordinarily painful, and some women didn’t survive. Medically speaking, it was a risky procedure. And until marrying Hugh, she had been ambivalent about the prospect of children; she had presumed she would be perfectly content without them.
Now, everything was different.
“No,” she said, smiling. “It doesn’t alarm me in the slightest.”
As though her words had snapped his restraint, he brought her to him and kissed her, hard, his fingers fumbling with the buttons at the back of her dress. Need crashed through her, and she clenched around nothing. How long had it been since they had last come together? Only a week, but it felt like a lifetime.
Urgent now, she turned her attention to his clothes. Coat, cravat, waistcoat, shirt, boots, pantaloons. They undressed each other with breathless anticipation, finally standing naked before one another. He had already carefully put her glasses aside, but she still saw him perfectly clearly. Every inch of rough, mottled skin. Coming forward now, she traced her hands across it, kissing his scarred right shoulder.
“I love you,” she said as his hands came to her back—one rough, one smooth. “I hadn’t known how much until I worried I had lost you.”
“Never.” He said the word so firmly, she had no choice but to believe him. He cupped her backside, then dropped his hands to her upper thighs and lifted her so she was hefted in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. Her heart ached, but it was not the ache of heartbreak or pain—it was a yearning to be closer. For the first time, she felt as though her vulnerability were echoed in him. This was not an exercise in curiosity or experimentation, or even lust.
They were here out of need. To seal a contract they had begun with words. Love was desire all of its own, reflected in her hands on his skin, her mouth on his, and the delicious dampness between her legs.
She needed this union like she needed to breathe—to finally, finally, be one with him in a primal, vital way.
And he needed it just as much.
She could tell in the silent promise of his caresses. The tender, gentle way he scraped his teeth across her skin and throbbed, hungry, against her stomach. When he laid her down across the bed, kneeling before her in supplication, she felt as though he had handed her a prize.
The first slide of his tongue against her made her squirm in delight. Made her heart feel as though it would burst through her chest. Pleasure and love mingled until she was alight with sensation. He touched her with his scarred hand, and the scrape of his rough skin against her made her gasp. She arched her back.
He sucked, and she saw stars.
One finger circled her pearl; the other slid inside her. She would pray at the altar of pleasure before this was over. Her body was still a mystery to her because he had licked her before, and it had never, not once, felt like this.
She was bare in more ways than one, lying exposed.
And he took her vulnerability, soothing it, gathering her in his arms.
The vibration of his moan shivered through her. When she glanced down, she saw his dark head between her legs, his hands working her, muscles flexing, and his hips shifting as he pressed himself against the side of the mattress.
She loved him. She did. And she would explode with it. Heat coalesced inside her. Perhaps she would die of pleasure; perhaps they would take each other down in a blaze of light. This was too much—no one could survive it.
“Chris,” he said, soft against her.
She broke.
The agony of bliss came to her wordless, transformative. She fluttered rhythmically around him, and he held her as her body rocked and his name fell from her lips. She pleaded with Hugh and God alike that it would not stop, that she could live in thismoment forever, on the cusp of breaking apart and being made anew.