“Yes. We should… talk about it? That seems like the best choice.”
The whiskey wasn’t any more pleasant on my second drink.
He shrugged. “I’m nervous that you won’t enjoy it, that you’ll decide it’s not everything you hoped for and you will leave me and return to London to marry some pretty, bland debutant and have perfectly gangly children.”
“My children wouldn’t be gangly,” I protested instinctively before the rest of his concerns settled into place. “But you should know, I’ve never, not once since the moment we met, had a desire to marry a pretty, bland debutante and have perfect, not-at-all-gangly children. In fact, you’re the only person I’ve ever wanted to marry.”
He choked on the whiskey and broke into a hacking cough. “What?”
“I know it’s not possible. I’m not— I understand. But if I had my choice… If I could choose anyone in the world, I would choose you.”
Xander surged forward and pressed his lips against mine firmly, immobile, but passionate all the same. When he pulled away, his eyes flicked to mine before dropping to trace the whole of me. With a tiny, almost imperceptible nod, he bent to set the whiskey on the trunk by the door.
“You would marry me,” he repeated in a low grumble.
“Yes.”
Broad hands shoved my coat off my shoulders to pile on the floor, landing as a whispered promise of more to come.
“Over anyone else in the entire world.”
Deft fingers traced my chest to find the topmost button on my waistcoat. It was only a moment before it joined the growing pile.
“Yes.”
Xander’s warm hand cupped my cheek while the other settled above my heart. “Christ, you make me want to be brave. It is by far your most irritating quality, you know. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love. Not ever.Iwas supposed to marry the pretty, bland debutant.Iwas supposed to have children with limbs of a reasonable length. I was supposed to do my duty by my title. And none of those things required love—in fact, they were the antithesis of love.”
The hand on my cheek slipped around to the back of my neck and pulled me into a passionate kiss. I couldn’t think, could hardly move. It was all too heady and before I’d managed to sink into him, Xander pulled back.
“But you,” he continued. “You barge your way into my life with your too-innocent eyes, too-pretty lips, and too-long legs. And somehow, with one teasing smile, you have me tearing down every guard post, burning every fence. Everything I put in place to protect myself, to fulfill my role is in ashes at your feet.”
“Xander…”
His breath was heavy, his chest rising and falling, entirely empty of resistance. “I love you.”
“You do?”
“Yes, and it is entirely your fault. You’ll have to deal with the ramifications of it.”
I felt my lips curve into a closed smile. “And what are those?”
“I am entirely incapable of guile—my face and hands reveal everything. I become easily flustered. I fret about absolutelyeverything. I’m needy, and in the winter my feet are always cold. These are all now your problems to manage.”
I nodded solemnly. “I can do that. Do you know why?”
His lips slid to the left side of his face in his version of an inverted smile. “I do, but I’d like to hear you say it all the same. Because I’m needy.”
“I love you too.” He surged forward, his arms wrapping around my neck as his lips slipped between mine.
Xander kissed away my nerves, and I could sense the moment—in the tightness of his shoulders, in the arch of his spine, in his responsive moans—when I kissed away his.
He broke away, working my shirt over my head even as he urged me back toward the bed. “Did you have thoughts?”
“Not coherent ones.”
His smile was small and easy. “Good to know. About tonight, I meant. Did you want to…”
“Bugger or be buggered?” I supplied in a mocking tone.
