He put the book down and closed his arms around her from behind. “But it returns,” he pointed out, resting his chin on her shoulder.
She smiled, liking his optimistic outlook. She didn’t remind him that one must get through the winter to welcome summer again. She leaned her back against his chest and felt his heart beating against her ribs. She sighed, sounding more like Desdemona when she purred in the sun. “Let’s enjoy the summer while it's here.”
He was quiet for a little while, just sitting with her, holding her. What was he thinking about? Was he as happy and content as she? She covered his hands that were folded on her belly.
“Fable.”
She closed her eyes and drank in the way her name sounded on his lips. “Hmm?”
“Do you intend on returning to your century?”
She opened her eyes. Is this what had made him quiet? He didn’t let her go when she turned to face him. “I don’t intend on it. No.” Looking into his eyes while they searched around in the darkness of–as they say–the windows of his soul, she knew she would be happy to stay with him until her last breath. She hoped he saw it burning like a blazing fire within her. When his features relaxed into a warm smile, she knew he did.
“How come you never ask me about the future…or the man chasing me?”
“You were homeless. The future sounds no different than today. As for the man chasing you, the thought of him enrages me. But I haven’t forgotten him. After years of patrolling, my men know the people of the city, as well as some of the surrounding countryside of Colchester. They are searching for a stranger traveling alone, fitting the description you gave me. The people of the city are also reporting anyone suspicious to my men. Is there anything else you want to tell me about him? You said he appeared out of nowhere? Tell me about that.”
She had to shake her head a little to clear it from the spell he’d put her under with the lull of his deep, soft voice, hislips pouting around some words and dancing over others. His tongue teased, peeking out from in between his pearly teeth and shapely lips. He knew it lured and tempted, and he liked it. She could see it in his eyes. She could see everything in his eyes.
“I…” She pulled herself together and began again. “I had been trying to get some sleep and the street started shaking like an earthquake was happening. Everything looked wavy for a second or two, and then he was there. Just like that.”
“You were trying to sleep on the street?”
“What? Yes, that’s where I slept every night, Ben. Though I believed one day I’d get my own place.”
“A place with fifty-seven rooms,” he said and traced his finger over her temple to her jaw.
“Fifty-seven?” she asked with a quiet laugh. “I didn’t see them all on Stephen’s tour. But besides that, I didn’t mean this house.”
His smile faded. “Why not?”
“What do you mean ‘why not?’ This isn’t my house.”
“If you live here, is it not your house?”
She laughed again and half-turned so that she leaned more into the crook of his left shoulder than against his chest. She did this because she couldn’t think straight while looking at him when he spoke. She wasn’t used to this kind of attention from this kind of man.
“Whether I’m here as a guest or a servant,” she said, snuggling against him, “it doesn’t make this my house.”
“Living here as my wife would.”
Her heart flipped into her throat. She tilted her head and looked at him. “Ben, marriage is pretty serious. We’ve known each other for such a short time–”
“What do I care about time?” He pulled her in to face him again. “You make me forget who I was and question who I want to be. I only know that while I find out, I want you with me, atmy side. You’ve awakened me, Fable. I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you. I’ll never feel it toward anyone else. My heart is lost to you, so what do I care how long I’ve known you? I want to keep knowing you for the rest of my life.”
She didn’t know how to react to those kinds of words. Her eyes burned and she did nothing to stop her tears from forming. “Do you mean that?”
He nodded, staring into her eyes.
“It’s hard for me to believe someone’s words,” she told him. “No matter how nice they are to hear.”
“I know.” He tightened his tender hold and lowered his face to hers. “Believe this.” It was almost a plea as his eyes dipped to her mouth and his lips parted. His kiss was tender, curious, and meaningful enough to make her tears fall. He withdrew, hovering over her and spread his thumbs under her eyes to wipe her tears. He waited until she wrapped her arms around his neck and then he returned to kissing her. The more his lips molded to her, caressed her, the more steamy her thoughts were becoming. Her body responded. Her breasts felt full. Her nipples were tightening, and something burned below her navel and made her want to move her legs.
Her position between his thighs made it easy to feel him getting hard. Her first instinct was to get up and run! She knew about sex and what it entailed. Many nights, as she lay awake in the park with her mother, she heard others doing ‘it’. ‘It’ usually included a drunken guy in a minute round of humping the woman beneath him before he came and it was over. She’d often heard her mother’s girlfriends talking about it. Would it be like that with her duke?
If his long, slow and sensual kisses were any indication, the answer was a resounding no. When he bent over her, arching her back so he could kiss her throat, she was tempted to spreadher legs and climb on him. What would he think of her if she did it?
He kept kissing her, getting harder beneath her. She was glad she’d only worn her nightdress and chemise to bed and moved up over him, fitting him against her warm niche. The instant he felt it, he turned his body over hers, pinning her to the floor. His mouth had grown hungry–or had it always been hungry and he’d contained it, having no time for such trivial things as love?
