This. This was bliss. A moment out of time, removed from shame or guilt or fear. A moment when she could believe he lovedher. A moment untouched by grief, purified by their mutual desire.
He murmured something, something she couldn’t quite hear, but it didn’t matter anyway—she rose on her knees, grasped him tightly in her fist, braced her free hand on his shoulder and sank down on him.
His hands curved over her bottom, steadying her, slowing her descent, and it was more difficult than she’d expected it to be, her body unprepared for the invasion of his after seven years of abstinence. His eyes locked onto hers, his face stretched taut with an anguished sort of ecstasy. An eon passed, an eternity in which pleasure and torment collided, until finally, finally, she came to rest, filled and stretched andwhole.
Connection. His chest heaved with unsteady breaths, and his eyes slid closed. His forehead touched hers, cool and misted with sweat.
“Claire,” he said on a ragged breath. “You havegotto marry me.”
Had she the fortitude, she might have smiled. Instead she began the torturous ascent, watched the resolution fade from his face in favor of passion. Her inner muscles clenched around him, unwilling to relinquish that perfect fit of their bodies, but the friction made them both shiver. His left hand guided her into a rhythm as she moved on him. Beneath her, his thighs tensed as he lifted himself with each downward plunge, fitting them as tightly together as they could be.
His right hand curved over her thigh, his thumb dipping between them to stroke her. Each masterful caress swept away her self-discipline, reduced her to a quivering bundle of sensation. She was heat and light, glowing with encroaching rapture. A heartbeat away from bursting into flame, scorching both of them.
She couldn’t scream.She couldn’t scream. Someone was certain to come running. She couldn’t even recall if he’d bothered to lock the door.
With her last conscious thought she clutched at his back, buried her face in the curve of his neck, and muffled her sounds of bliss there. His breath came in laborious pants; she felt the strain in his jaw as he gritted his teeth through the vicious contractions of her body, felt the faltering strength in his arms as he lifted her until he’d left her body, then crushed her to him again. Felt the heat of his seed spilling against the softness of her belly.
Good. At least there wouldn’t be a child.
His arms crushed her, fingers tangling in her hair as he gave a low groan of satisfaction, his muscles trembling with exertion. Gradually the tension faded from him, and his arms loosened to a gentle embrace, holding her with reverential wonder.
She had always liked this part best, liked the way he held her and caressed her, as if she were something precious and fine. Someoneprecious and fine.
“You didn’t refuse me,” he said, his voice warm and slumberous, tinged with lingering pleasure.
She kissed the corner of his mouth, his cheek, his chin in silent appreciation. And said, “No.”
∞∞∞
She should have left. Shecouldhave, certainly. Well, if she could have bestirred herself to gather her scattered pins, her discarded clothing.
Instead she had let him lay her down and draw the bed curtains on all sides except that facing the fire. And she had reclined, limp and sated and so very, very comfortable, and watched through lowered lashes as he slowly, deliberately, removed the rest of his clothing.
She had never watched him do it before. Of course they had been married only a few days, and she had been a silly young girl who, in her shyness, had preferred to tuck herself between the covers and pull them up over her eyes.
She had not been a silly young girl in a very long time. She had learned that time was precious, and there was never enough of it. And she had gathered up so many regrets in the intervening years. She didn’t want this to be one more of them, one more missed opportunity, one more could-have that had slipped through her fingers.
So she turned onto her side and brushed the stray strands of hair over her shoulder and watched as he pried off his boots, cast aside his stockings. As the muscles in his back bunched and flexed when he pulled his shirt over his head. As he peeled off his breeches in their entirety. A memory to store in her heart, to take out and admire from time to time over the rest of her life.
She already had regrets. Not long ago she had told him that knowing was easier, more comforting—but would she ever be comforted by this memory? Or would it have been better, easier somehow, if she had kept her distance?
The firelight flattered him, licked at his skin and cast each band of muscle in sharp relief, painting his flesh in gold and shadow. But just as it highlighted the perfection of his form, it revealed tiny flaws as well.
She brushed her fingertips over a scar that marred his upper arm, one that had not existed seven years ago.
“Fencing accident,” he said, and then paused in reflection. “In retrospect, perhaps not so much an accident. I might have…cast aspersions on the honor of my opponent’s sister.” He heaved a sigh that sounded very nearly repentant. “As a matter of fact, I suppose most of my scars can be attributed to the consequences of my own actions.” He caught her hand in his and drew it along his jaw, sliding her fingers to a small ridge of smooth scar tissue. “Lord Sumner’s signet ring,” he said. “Left a dreadful bruise as well.”
She thought about asking what he had said to merit it, but decided against it. She had no right to make such inquiries of him.
He slid her hand next along his chest, to a narrow scar just beneath his collarbone. “Footpad, outside Covent Garden theatre,” he said. “I’m fairly certain I have Lord Mason to thank for this one. The timing was too convenient. If the ruffian had been only a little less inebriated, he would likely have given me far more than such a trifling scratch.”
Claire pressed her lips together, holding her tongue. He did not want her sympathy. It was apparent from the self-reproach in his eyes, the firm set of his jaw that he viewed these marks not as wrongs done to him, but as punishments he had earned.
A small indentation of puckered skin at his right side drew her attention, the pit left behind by a bullet unmistakable. “A duel,” he said. “Though, to be fair, at least I can lay claim to a scrap of honor there. I deloped.”
Nowshe could not remain silent. “You could have been killed.”
He laughed, a sound devoid of mirth. “I nearly was. Though the wound itself was minor enough, I took an infection that damn near killed me anyway. But who would have missed me? Who would have mourned?”
