“Come to bed with me.”
Her coppery lashes flitted over her eyes. She rubbed her nose along his. Inhaled deeply, as if she wanted to trap his scent in her lungs. “Shelbourne.”
FuckShelbourne.
And fuck formality.
He kissed her again, long, lingering. She kissed him back, her tongue sliding into his mouth. When he pulled away again, he cupped her face. “I am your husband.”
He was saying that as much for his benefit as for hers. It still felt surreal, this union of theirs. Temporary. A dream. But it was forever, what they had done. They were bound to each other.
“Yes,” she whispered. “You are.”
“I want my name on your lips.”
He felt the subtle movement beneath her silken skin as she swallowed. Knew what it meant. She was not any less affected by this bloody attraction between them—which had burned like an inexplicable flame from the first moment—than he was.
“I cannot—”
He cut her off. “Cannot or will not? You have called me Sidney before. I want it again, Julianna. Give it to me.”
And the unspoken:give yourself to me.
She had already done both. But that was not enough. Nothing ever would be. Every woman he had bedded in the past two years had been a pale imitation of her, a lackluster replacement. He had been biding his time. Waiting.
Waiting for her to come back to him.
And she had.
She was here.
She washis.
“Sidney,” she said, giving in. “Sidney, please.”
He liked her begging.Hell, yes.He wanted her desperate. Unraveled. Undone. He also wanted her to have everything she desired. And more. “Tell me what you want.”
The breath fled her in a rush, her lips parted. She was hot, so hot, smoldering. Burning him. Tantalizing.
“I want…you.”
A thrill shot up his spine. Fire and anticipation. Longing and lust and wickedness.
He kissed her, settling his lips in the seam between hers, sucking on that upper lip she loved to worry so much. He kissed her and kissed her, thinking this must be how generals felt on the battlefield in the moment they realized the tide had turned in their favor and their enemies were being vanquished. Not that he was battling her, that she was his enemy, or that he wished supremacy over her, but that their every interaction thus far had been painful, protracted. Bitter and dangerous. He felt as if he had been waging war. But now?
He felt…victorious. Hopeful. Andalive. So very, painfully alive.
Just the way she had always made him feel, only amplified.
Summoning all his restraint, he ended the kiss, breathing harshly as he gazed down at her lovely, upturned face. “I am going to make you come until you cannot move or think. Until the sun comes up. But not in the goddamn library, woman. Come with me?”
Courage, old chap.
He took a step in retreat, putting distance between them. His hands left her. Her arms disengaged from around his neck. If she wanted to deny him, here was her chance. Even if it would bloody well kill him.
Christ, but she was glorious. A goddess in her own right, commanding and elegant, her fiery curls still trapped in an elegant coiffure, her gown modest yet becoming. The only sign she had just been kissed breathless was her swollen mouth and the pink in her cheeks.
For a heartbeat, he was afraid she was not going to answer. Or, worse, that she was going to deny him, deny them both. But then she extended her hand to him. An olive branch, palm up.
