She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard him growl. Daisy sat up on her haunches and faced him. His beautiful visage had turned savage.
“Is that what you truly want? To give yourself to me?”
Daisy nodded, her heart, her body throbbing. “If it’s the only decision I will ever make for my own, then this is it. I want to be yours. Tonight. I want that certainty. My heart already belongs to you, Sam.”
His throat moved up and down, his eyes blazed with blue flame. “But you’re still asking for this out of fear. That is where I stumble, Daisy.”
“I want you, Sam. I will do anything to have you. To keep you. To make you mine. Giving you my body is the way I ensure that it only belongs to you. If it is the only power I have, then I will use it.”
He covered his eyes with his hand. Daisy wilted, shifting her legs to sit on her hip and tuck her cold feet under the skirt.
“Ask me again,” he said.
“What?” Daisy refocused on him.
“Ask me again to make love to you.”
Daisy shifted back onto her knees. He watched her, his face tortured. Daisy tugged the shoulders of her dress down, pulling her arms free of the long sleeves. The bodice gathered around her waist, and she went to work on the ribbon on her shift, grateful she hadn’t worn difficult to manage stays. It whispered free and it too fell to collect with her bodice. Her breasts were exposed, her nipples tingling and the cold touch of the air turning them to tight buds. His wandering eyes set fire to her skin.
“I want to be yours, Sam.”
She pushed her dress down over her hips, her heart skipping, her nerves dancing between elation and panic. His gazeconsumed her body as she crawled out of the pool of her clothing to close the distance between them.
“I want to make love with you. I can’t go another day without loving you completely. Make me yours.”
He sucked in a rattling breath as his arms rose to pull her to him. Were his hands shaking? He gathered her close, nuzzling the warm skin of her neck, his hands sliding possessively over her back, down her bottom and between her thighs where he teased the wetness there.
“I will never deny you again,” he said. “If it is me that you want, you have me. You have my heart.”
“And now I’ll take your body.”
He softly groaned. “Now I’ll takeyourbody, and we will be wedded in the most primal of ways. Skin to skin. Your taste, your touch, your cries of ecstasy belonging only to me.”
“For the rest of my life.”
They briefly kissed. “For every day going forward until my last breath,” he promised.
He took her mouth again, one hand spearing into her hair while the other teased the fevered slick skin between her thighs. He bent her back, lowering her to the coverlet and following her down. Daisy straightened her legs and parted them to cradle the hard line of his body, his cock pressing against her core through his breeches. She bucked her hips slowly as he thrust his tongue into her mouth in languid measured strokes.
Daisy pushed at his jacket. Sam pushed up to his knees and wiggled out of it, tearing at his cravat and waistcoat until they were tossed behind him. Daisy tugged his shirt free of his breeches and slipped her hands underneath. He slowly lowered back down, covering her body with his and pressed two fingers into her. She was wet and needy, her body still flushed from the moment in the drawing room. But he had not taken his pleasure, and she could feel his urgency in the hard ridge of his cock.He had intended to leave her tonight, with no satisfaction for himself.
He broke the kiss and dipped his head to take her breast in his mouth. “Mine,” he said into her skin.
“Yours,” Daisy moaned. She pushed his shirt up, and he broke away so he could yank it over his head, freeing all that sculpted skin and muscle she couldn’t wait to get her hands on. His hunting mouth returned to her breast, licking up the valley between them before taking her mouth again. Daisy dragged her nails down his sides and felt him shiver. The pads of her fingers grazed the puffy scar that stretched from his lower rib to his hip. At his waist she teased the edge of his breeches, her courage faltering. She’d never undressed a man. She was brazen enough to beg him to bed her, but it was here, at this last obstacle, that she wavered. His kiss slowed, the starving thrust of his tongue turning to languid tastes of her mouth and he lifted his weight from her with a hand on either side of her head. Did he feel her hesitation?
Daisy cursed herself. “Sam,” she whispered. “Please don’t stop.”
“You stopped first.”
She held his gaze, then dropped her attention to the place where her body cradled his, no longer touching. She could see the harsh outline of his cock and her lower belly fluttered with need. How did her body know exactly what she wanted?
Daisy inhaled, his scent surrounding her, reigniting the wildfire in her blood. She danced her fingers to his navel and his abdomen tensed. Her knuckles brushed the fine trail of gold hair that cascaded down to disappear beneath the waistband. Daisy bit her lip, finding the first button and slipping it free.
“That’s enough of that torture.” He slid off the bed to his feet, stumbling as he kicked off his boots and ripped open hisbreeches, jerking them down his legs and peeling his stockings and breeches over his feet.
Daisy came up on her elbows and bit her bottom lip. He was making quite the racket.
“Shhh, Sam.”
