Their hands tangled with one another while she reached to unfasten his falls and he tugged at the material of her dress.
They sighed at the same time, when skin touched skin. She lifted herself and hovered. Luke stroked himself at her opening. She was wet, slick. Ready for him. She relaxed her weight and impaled herself on him.
She heard and felt his moan at the same time she released one of her own.
“Luke.” Had he made her feel this whole before? He lifted her slowly and then lowered her again. Her spine turned to jelly as he moved beneath her. And then they were both moving.
“I can’t last long,” he breathed. “You feel too damn good.”
He slowed, staring into her eyes, holding her gaze, hiding nothing of his feelings, pushing up, penetrating her, claiming her.
“I love you.” His voice rasped.
“Love you.” Naomi could barely hold her head up as sensations and emotions overwhelmed every part of her person. “Love you.”
She went to close her eyes, but he stopped her with his voice. “Stay with me.”
He pistoned his hips up and her eyes rolled back. Still, she forced herself to fight the heaviness and meet his gaze. “With you.” She exhaled, gasping as he stroked inside of her.
Tingling spread from her chest to her arms and even her fingertips as she rode him. When she finally closed her eyes, intoxicated by her surge of release, white stars flooded her vision.
Luke thrust deep, deeper, grasping her hips against his, and then with a guttural sound, surrendered to his own release.
Words were not necessary as they clung to one another, catching their breath, listening to the sounds of their heartbeats returning to normal and the thrumming of the waterfall landing in the pool.
“This was the first time with my husband,” Naomi finally murmured, smiling as she rested her cheek against his chest.
“As my wife.” Luke’s voice rumbled beneath her.
“Lady Lucas.” And then she leaned back. “I don’t want to wait. We’ve waited long enough already.” But they could not simply tell the world they were married.
Luke’s gaze met hers. “You are willing to accept possible ridicule?”
Her parents were finally prepared to acknowledge her again. “If they love me, if they wish to know their grandchildren, they will have to make their own decision. We’ve already waited too long, Luke.”
“You are certain?” Brilliant sapphire eyes studied hers.
“I am.”
He slowly stretched his mouth into a grin. “Shall we have the banns read this Sunday then?”
“Yes.” She nodded slowly. “It’s time.”
Epilogue
Barely three weeks later, on a warm October Sunday afternoon, Naomi watched as her husband, Lord Lucas Cockfield, signed their marriage certificate with an unusually elaborate flourish.
The vicar slid the parchment across the smooth table and she glanced over at her husband with a secret smile.
It was not the first time she’d signed such a document, but she intended that it would most definitely be the last.
She signed her legal name, Naomi Catherine Augustine. Following months of waiting, she and Luke could finally, officially, belong to one another.
“Well, Lady Lucas.” Luke removed the pen from her hand and passed it along to the same two witnesses who’d stood up for them last year. Luke took her into his arms. “I hope you have nothing planned for the next fifty or sixty years, because I have grand plans for the three of us.”
“Or four?” she teased.
“Or more,” he agreed.
