Patience, he warned himself, even as his desire took command of him and spurred him on.She has been hurt before.
And how terribly.
She had been lied to. Deceived. She had been manipulated. Used.
No longer.
He was her husband now, and he intended to show her how very worthy she was. How very wanted she was. How verylovedshe was. But not yet with words. He would save those. Tonight was all about deeds. About an official consummation of their vows on a bed, rather than fully clothed, on a blanket atop the grass beneath the stars.
Roland would not change what had happened the night before, but he could not deny that having her here in his bed chamber felt perfectly right. Except for the damned night rail keeping him from paradise. He wanted her naked on his bed. His in every way, just as she should have been all this time.
“Take off your gown for me, Sunshine.” He was not certain if he was begging or commanding. All he knew was that he wanted her desperately. Desire had turned his voice into little more than a rasp, and he had to keep his hands occupied by clenching his fists in the robe to keep from tearing the night rail away himself.
Her terms, he reminded himself.This must be on her terms. Control yourself.
He wanted—nay,needed—Pippa to know that this marriage was nothing like her last had been. He would not manipulate her. Nor would he rush her, deceive her, or in any way mistreat her. She was his equal, his wife, his woman, his love.
Pippa caught the gown and pulled it over her head, stealing his capacity to think for a moment.
She was naked.
Completely, perfectly bare.
Creamy skin, petite legs, breasts that were the perfect handful tipped with hard, pink nipples that begged to be sucked again. Her hair was unbound, a chestnut curtain around her shoulders, framing her heart-shaped face. Histehotikalá·luhe?, his goddess.
She held her hand out to him. “Come.”
He could not tear his dressing gown off fast enough. His fingers, ordinarily so adept at any task he expected of them, seemed three sizes too large. He fumbled at the knot on his belt but only made the damned thing tighter.
Where was a knife when he needed one? Roland would not have shied away from cutting the belt to shreds if he had a nearby blade. However, he did not. There he stood, the woman he had loved for years awaiting him nude on his bed—his at last—and he could not tear open a simple knot.
“Let me,” she said.
And he found himself moving toward her, moth to flame. The body that had always served him well, which he had honed and made strong and agile—the hunter’s body he was meant to have—was suddenly graceless. He joined her on the bed, curiously aware of everything about himself in relation to her. The bed creaked. He was large. Too large? She was small. Could he make love to her without crushing her beneath his massive form? What if she always needed to ride him as she had done last night?
The questions were many.
His desire, intense.
His mind, scattered. Somehow, he was on his knees on the bed, and she rose to hers as well. Her hands, so soft and smooth, dipped inside his robe to stroke over his bare chest. One of them stopped above his heart.
He pressed his own atop hers, their skin separated by the silk of the robe. “Feel it?”
“Your heart races so fast,” she said, wonder in her voice, her hazel stare meeting his.
“For you. It races for you, only.”
Her lips parted, and Lord but he wanted to take them with his. To kiss her senseless and mindless. The taste of her was still on his tongue, sinfully sweet. The way she had come apart for him, giving in to her desire with such unabashed frenzy…
“What do you mean?” she asked, searching his gaze, looking for answers he was not sure he was ready to give.
What if he scared her away? What if it was too much, too soon? They had spent years apart, only to be reunited out of necessity, with the awful deeds Shaw had committed reluctantly uniting them. And with the criminals returning to haunt her and hurt her. But he would not think of Shaw now. Nor of the danger.
Tonight was the beginning of the rest of their lives together. He wanted the evening to be one of love only. No pain, no hate, no anger.
Time to tell her.
“My heart belongs to you, Sunshine,” he said. “It is yours. It has belonged to you since Oxfordshire. It has belonged to you in all the years of your absence from my life. And it still belongs to you now. If you want it, that is.”
