He had to stop himself from imagining too much or he’d never get through this without embarrassing himself.
Unable to resist, he trailed his other hand up her other leg, past her hip bone, past the softer flesh of her belly to cradle the weight of her breast.
She was even wetter now, pulsing beneath his hand. And still, he couldn’t stop watching her expression. With each breathy gasp she made, he learned more of what she wanted. With each moan, he took special note.
“It’s all right. Let go,” he urged her, sensing that she was afraid to give in.
“I don’t know how.” Her eyes squeezed closed, but tears of frustration had escaped, nonetheless.
Jules’ throat thickened and in one quick motion, he scooped her up and carried her to the cot. She kept her eyes pinched together and didn’t open them until he lay down beside her.
“Do you know how beautiful you are?”
The doubt he saw as she stared up at him only made him more determined to convince her. How had he ever imagined he could marry anyone but her?
He threaded his fingers into her hair, carefully removing the few remaining pins. “Look at this. Under the sun, it’s like fire. In the shadows, it’s the color of a sensual dream.” He smoothed some curls on the pillow around her and along her face, hypnotized by the different shades of the strands in the flickering firelight.
“You hated it when you first saw it,” she half-teased; half-accused him. “Do you think I wasn’t aware of your disapproving scowl that first night?”
“You sneaky little minx.” But he continued stroking her hair and explaining the wager he and Stone had made on the moth. The smile on her lips was no longer sad by the time he finished regaling her with that story and some of the other ridiculous antics he and his friends had gotten into. At some point, he’d retrieved the flask and they took turns sipping from it.
Facing each other, lying sideways on top of the thick quilt, she dropped her lashes and studied a thread she’d been worrying. “I didn’t want you to stop, you know, but I didn’t know how to… let go?”
Jules watched her closely. “What was going on in that brain of yours? When I was touching you?”
Her teeth worried her bottom lip. “I thought I ought to be embarrassed. That even though it was one of the most amazing feelings in the world, surely I would do something wrong.”
Jules placed his fingertips on her chin and tilted her face up so she could see him. “Never. If you knew how I felt as I watched you, you’d flush an even deeper rose than normal.” He had her full attention now.
“I couldn’t stop staring at your lips, the flush on your cheeks, your neck. Knowing that you looked like that because of me—because of how I was touching you—” The sound of his heart grew louder in his ears as he remembered. “Even telling you now fuels my desire for you.” He took her hand and placed it over his heart. “Do you feel that?”
“It’s the same as mine,” she whispered.
“But I want you to know, Charley, my sweet little American, that I will never do anything you don’t want me to. I promise you that.”
“I want it,” she said. And then more forcefully. “I want to know all of it.”
In the time he’d come to know her, short though it had been, she’d been true to herself in a way he’d never known in a woman. Honest with herself—and honest with him.
He owed her the same.
“There is no going back after this. You will marry me then?”
Already he was fairly certain their absence had put an end to any doubt that they would marry. It was not the way he’d planned it, but now more than ever, marrying her was exactly what he wanted.
She tilted her head to one side and offered him a sad smile. “How can I ever know your reason? If you did it to fulfill your debt to my father or because you wanted me?”
Did he have an answer for that?
“The wager was the reason I sought you out. And for that reason alone, I cannot regret it.” Honesty. “I don’t know that I would have courted you for marriage so quickly, or so enthusiastically. But it allowed me to end the so-called agreement my family had made with Felicity’s.”
Her throat moved and she nodded, looking away from him. “So, it was the wager…”
Obviously, he wasn’t saying this very well. “No. Yes. No. But it forced me to know you sooner. And as I came to know the woman you are, the more I wanted to knowyou.” He stared down at where she’d twisted the quilt into a wrinkled knot. “I can’t stop thinking about you when I’m awake, I’ve dreamt about you when I’m asleep. It’s right. Whatever this is between you and I.”
Climbing off the bed, he lowered himself to one knee and grasped her hands in both of his. “Charley Jackson, will you make me the happiest of men and consent to be my wife?”
Injecting all the feelings that he couldn’t express with words, he stared into her eyes and willed her to understand.
