He nodded as the terror was chased away entirely by elation. The words, the sentiment, the woman before him…it all felt right. “I love you.”
Her smile was stunning. “Are you awake?”
Morgan chuckled. “Yes.”
“Am I awake?” she asked next.
“I believe so.” He could not resist closing the distance between their mouths, taking hers in a long and slow kiss before pulling his lips free. “It would seem you are.”
“Yes,” she agreed, her voice hushed. Her hands caressed his. “It would seem I am. But, this sudden change, Morgan…what brought it on? What altered between last night and this morning?”
“Nothing altered that quickly.” His response was effortless. “Rather, it has occurred slowly, over time, within the last month.”
Since they had been wed, he meant, and he watched as comprehension dawned on her lovely features. “Oh, Morgan. Do you mean it?”
“I have never meant anything more,” he said, and he spoke the avowal with all his heart, with every conviction he had, so deep and so strong his voice shook. “I am sorry it took me this long to realize what has been before me, what has been happening every minute of each day I have spent as your husband. I could have spared you so much hurt, Leonie.”
This time, it was Leonie who initiated their kiss, tugging his head back down to hers and sealing their mouths. This meeting of lips was more ravenous than the last. Tongues and teeth clashed. He bit into the plush fullness of her lower lip. They kissed longer and deeper, and this kiss was different than the rest. Different because it signified the beginning, the true beginning of their union.
Their hands moved over each other’s bodies, her palms skimming over his shoulders, down the plane of his back, tightening over his buttocks. His fingers sank into her hair, trailed over the ripeness of her breasts, the hardness of her pebbled nipples still concealed beneath the nightdress. And then his hands found the generous flare of her hips, worshiping her by feel.
He rolled them as one, so that she was flat on her back beneath him, the hem of her nightdress riding high on her thighs as he parted her limbs and settled himself between them. Tearing his lips from hers, he rocked against her, his rigid length probing her wet heat through the barrier between them.
Bracing himself over her, he met her gaze. “I will not fight the duel with Rayne.”
“Do you promise?” she whispered, looking thoroughly kissed and thoroughly delectable.
He wanted to devour her. Need for her raged within him, drowning out everything else. “I promise, Leonie. I am so sorry, so damned sorry for what I have done. Sorry for deceiving you, for lying to you. Sorry for ever being the cause of your pain. If you cannot forgive me for my sins, I do not blame you. I was wrong. I thought making Rayne pay for what I endured would soothe the demons within me until I met my own fate. But the truth is, you are what soothes my demons. You are what can heal me. Only you.”
Tears welled in her eyes, then slid down her cheeks. “I love you, Morgan.”
“And I love you.” He kissed her again. “Let me show you how much.”
“Yes.” She kissed his lips, the corner of his mouth, his chin.
Once she started, it seemed she could not stop, and she kissed him everywhere, upon his jaw, his ear, his neck. Her tongue flicked over his skin, soft and slick, leaving a trail of fire wherever she tasted him.
Together, they divested her of her nightgown, and then no more barriers remained between them. He worshiped his way up and down her body, stopping only when he could not bear to prolong the pleasure another moment.
“Look at me,” he commanded her as he stilled, on the brink of claiming her.
Her lashes lifted, and he fell into twin pools of blue as he slid inside her in one hard thrust. They were one. He took her hands in his, entwining their fingers as he began to move.
“I love you, Leonie.” His mouth was upon hers once more.
He kissed her lingeringly, making love to those pretty pink lips, licking and biting and savoring as he made love to her body the same way. Slow and steady. Deep and gorgeous. The ache inside him built, his ballocks tightening, and when she cried out her second release, trembling beneath him, he could not hold himself back any longer.
A pinnacle of need and white-hot release bathed him in sensation, filling him with not just love but rightness. With the sure, unshakeable knowledge he was where he was meant to be, and that if anyone could help him to heal, it would be her, his angel.
He kissed her cheek then, her nose, any part of her his mouth could find. “I was right, darling. You do feel at home in my arms. But not just for last night. For every night that comes after, and every day, too.”
And he knew precisely what he needed to do next.
Chapter Seventeen
The conveyance carryingLeonora and Morgan arrived at Riverford House the following morning. As the phaeton came to a stop, she could not help but marvel how strange it was to return to her old home with her husband at her side. They were presenting a united front in their first visit to Alessandro since the duel had been called off, she could not help but to feel as if a massive weight had been removed from her chest.
She and Morgan had spent much of the previous day in each other’s respective bedchambers, alternately making love, talking, and laughing like young sweethearts after Morgan had sent word to his cousin, the Duke of Montrose, that the duel would no longer be happening. As Morgan’s second, the formal arrangements of the duel occurred between Montrose and Rayne’s second, his old friend Viscount Hampstead. The moment Leonora had watched Morgan close the missive bearing his bold scrawl, her heart had sung.
