How could a single act be so of the body and yet so beyond those bounds, too? It was both the most physical experience of her life and the most elevated—a place where earth and heaven met and combined.
He reached for her. “Here.”
She allowed him to settle her beneath the covers and rest her head on his shoulder. She was a woman of many words, and yet here, now, she found no need to speak them.
“You’re composing poetry in your mind, aren’t you?”
“Perhaps.”
A lazy chuckle rumbled in his chest.
But it wasn’t true.
The poetry had been writ already—his body onto hers, and hers onto his.
Words were rendered unnecessary.
It was the poetry their bodies understood—the only poetry that mattered.
Across dark, silent corridors Rory stepped, a sleeping Juliet in his arms. It was imperative she was returned to her bed before the household awakened. He would have no whispers bandied about her.
For she was his future bride.
Albeit convincing her was another matter entirely.
He could see a few obstacles in his path.
First, there was the matter of Miss Dalhousie.He was up a stump there. Juliet thought him madly, desperately in love with Miss Dalhousie, when nothing could be further from the truth.
It wasn’t Miss Dalhousie he was madly, desperately in love with.
But it was the second obstacle that he saw as the more substantive one. Juliet had it in her head that she wouldn’t marry.
Yet it occurred to him that he might have a weapon at hand.
Her desire.
For him.
He never would’ve thought he had anything to offer Miss Juliet Windermere. But now he saw that he did.
As improbable as that was.
He would convince Juliet to be his by means fair or foul.
The logic was simple.
She wanted him. He wanted her.
He felt no guilt about using her desire against her to get what they both wanted—each other.
Which was why he would continue the ruse that he was still interested in Miss Dalhousie.
To spend time with Juliet.
She was already head over heels in lust with him.
Now to convince her heart to follow her body.
