“Aye.” Clay’s fingers had found their way into her carefully wrought coif now, plucking pins and sending heavy curls falling around them like a curtain. “He could disown you. Refuse to speak to you. What would you do then, Ara? I hardly think you would be prepared to lead a simple life, possibly stripped from all friends and family. I will taint you. Ruin you far worse than I already have.”
“You could never ruin me,” she whispered before kissing him as she had been longing from the moment she had walked into his chest earlier. Their mouths clung as if this kiss was their last, but for her it was everything. It was the beginning. She opened for him, surrendering to his tongue, his gentle owning of her lips.
With a growl, he suddenly rolled, until her back was upon the carpet and he straddled her with his thick, muscular thighs. He broke their kiss, staring down at her with so much naked need she lost her breath.
“Then marry me, Ara. Come away with me,” he said. “Will you?”
She did not hesitate. “I love you, Clay, and I would go anywhere as long as I was with you.”
“Bloody hell,” he cursed, merging their lips for another long, heady kiss. It was fiery and raw, tender and sweet. “I do not want to wait any longer, Ara. I will need a day to obtain a license. Two days from now is not soon enough, but it will have to do. Meet me near the north road leading from Kingswood Hall the day after tomorrow. Pack what you can in a small valise. We shall figure out the rest.”
The hope she had ruthlessly tamped down sprang forth once more, filling her with buoyant, radiant light. “I will be there at dawn,” she vowed.
“Yes?” A boyish grin lit his features.
Her arms twined around his neck, guiding him back down to her. “Yes. I will be anywhere you are, whenever you wish me there. Now kiss me, Clay.”
Still smiling, his mouth found hers. Their lips fused. On a liquid sigh of want, she opened for him. His tongue plundered, and he tasted sweet, like sugar. If love had a flavor, it would be this, she thought, it would be him.
She had been sleeping before he came into her world. He woke her heart, her body. He had unleashedthe despicable thing, and now it could not be contained. Through him, she learnedthe despicable thinghad a name.
Desire.
They kissed and kissed. Kissed until she was breathless. Until the pulsing between her legs grew heavy and warm, until need for him transformed her. She knew what the sensations burning through her meant now. She needed him to touch her. They kissed until he rocked against her, and she felt the lengthy protrusion of him through her skirts, so close to where she wanted him most.
Though she had touched him, bare skin to bare skin, he had never made love to her fully. She knew it was what her body longed for, what made her restless and achy. It was what she had imagined so many nights, lying awake alone in her bed in the dark stillness. Wondering where he was. Wondering what it would be like to touch him whenever she chose. To take him inside her. To become his in every way.
“Ara.” Her name was a groan as he tore his mouth away at last, his breathing as ragged as hers. He cupped her face in his big hands, staring down into her eyes with his dark gaze, and there was a rawness she had never before seen in his expression.
An intensity. A tenderness.
He looked at her as if he loved her too. He had yet to say the words. Her heart was strong enough for both of them. Perhaps he was not yet sure how to define what he felt for her. She would wait. She had never been more certain of a decision in all her life.
“I never wanted to feel this way.” He shook his head. “Not for you, and not for anyone. But when you look at me as you do, when you touch me, when I breathe in your scent—bloody hell, even when you are nowhere near me—my chest aches.”
“Clay,” she whispered, her fingers working through his luxurious hair, writing tender patterns of love over his scalp. She could not stop touching him. She never wanted to stop. He washers, this man. And she was his. “You do not need to explain. I feel the same.”
He dipped his head, ran his nose along hers in an unexpected caress, then kissed her tenderly once more before rising to look down at her again. His eyes glittered like the stars that watched over them in their midnight races to be together. “My mother told me love would be like a stream after days of pouring rain, that it would rise and overflow its banks, that something violent and magnificent would replace what had been there before. That one small stream can become a rushing river, transforming everything in its path.”
She stroked the back of his neck. “Your mother sounds like a wise woman.”
His thumb traced her cheek with such slow gentleness she could not look away. Did not even dare breathe for fear she would break the spell that had fallen upon them. “I never understood. Why would she choose to live with a man who could not marry her? Why did she accept less than she deserved? But now I know, Ara. Because she was in love, and I know she was right because I feel it too. I would give anything to be yours. I vow to you I will always love you, Ara. You will have my heart forever and the century next.”
“Oh Clay, my love.” She hauled his mouth back down to hers, and they kissed again. His lips found her neck, open and hungry, feasting on her. His breath was hot and moist, and it sent a fresh pang of need straight to her core.
“Damn it, Ara. I wanted to be a gentleman tonight,” he murmured against her skin.
“I do not want a gentleman.” Her fingers traveled, finding his wide shoulders. Such confined strength. She could feel the ripple and flex of his muscles, but there was too much fabric between them, and if she had to wait two whole days to become his wife, she wanted so much more than passionate kisses. “I need you, Clay. Please.”
“Ara.” He groaned. “We cannot.”
“We can.” Her fingers found buttons, slipping them from their moorings. “We will be married in two days’ time. No one will ever be the wiser.”
“Iwill be, my darling.” He made a suffering sound. “As will you.”
Ever waging war against his interminable sense of honor, her Clay. She moved against him, instinct guiding her. One slow arch of her body into his. Her breasts brushed his chest. The part of him she wanted most pressed against her. It was not enough. Like the fire he had lit in the grate, she was aflame. Burning for him.
“I want to feel you inside me,” she whispered, holding his gaze.
