“Yes.” Her instant reply filled him with satisfaction. “I…I’ll do my best.”
“Which kiss will you tell me about? Our first, best, or worst?” he prompted.
God help him if he’d ever bollixed a kiss. Or anything else. Yet if he had, he wanted to know.
“Since we’ve never had any bad kisses,” she said softly and to his profound relief, “I suppose I could, um, tell you about our first time.”
“I’m all ears, sweetheart,” he said with simmering anticipation.
Each bump and sway of the carriage seemed to add to Gabby’s state of overstimulation. It wasn’t just the kissing, which in and of itself had set her nerve endings afire, but also thetalkingabout the kissing. When Adam had asked her to speak of their past intimacy, she hadn’t known if she could. Never in her life had she spoken of such things. Never had he asked it of her.
Yet the husband with her now was not the same man she’d married. Nor was she the same woman, she realized with a small shock. The years of marriage had changed her, and these past weeks in particular had cracked open her deepest fears: of losing the man she loved, who’d made her feel safe and protected, who’d given her a place to belong.
Walking through fire had made her realize that although her marriage had satisfied the needs of the girl she’d been, the woman she was now yearned for more. Her dreams…they’d somehow changed along the way. She wanted more than security from her husband, wanted things that were risky and terrifying. Wanted these things so badly it hurt.
Despite the crisp chill outside, the inside of the carriage felt steamy. Sitting on her husband’s lap, Gabby was flushed with humid heat as she recounted their first kiss in the gallery after he’d proposed.
“Did you like my kiss?” he murmured.
“It was my first.” Her candor was rewarded by the flare of possessive heat in his gaze. “I didn’t know what to expect. I remember being worried that I might do it wrong…and that I ought to have brushed my teeth after lunch.”
His masculine chuckle eased her embarrassment. “Nothing could detract from your sweetness, love.” He grazed his knuckles against her cheek. “And you’re a natural at kissing. You couldn’t do it incorrectly if you tried.”
“At least I’m good at something,” she said jokingly.
Her reply was met with a curious silence.
“You are good at many things.” His intensity was a bit unnerving. “When it comes to being a wife, mama, and lady, no man could ask for more.”
“That’s ever so kind of you to—”
“Gabby.” The steeliness in his tone cut off her protests. “I’m not being kind; I’m being honest. And I won’t have you discounting my compliments as if they are meaningless.”
“I’m not discounting them…” She trailed off, frowning.Wasshe? Her response had been so habitual that she hadn’t stopped to think aboutwhyshe’d said it.
“Then do you hear what I’m telling you? Do you believe me?”
His eyes bore into her, his keenness thrilling and scary at the same time. There was no escaping him, his words, the force of them deepening the fissure inside her. Self-doubt oozed from the crack, leaving in its wake a relief deeper than pain. More profound than pleasure.
“I believe you,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Good.”
She didn’t know why his firm reply stirred her so. Or why it gave her courage.
“When you kissed me that first time, I knew that you were the husband I always dreamed of,” she admitted softly. “That you would be…my everything.”
I love you. I’ve always loved you. Could you love me back?
His nostrils flared. An instant later, his mouth slammed onto hers. And she returned his kiss with all the desperate hope thrumming in her heart.
21
They reachedthe hunting lodge by midafternoon. It had taken Thompson’s discreet knock to alert Adam to the fact that the carriage had stopped. His wife had proven quite the distraction; the hum of unrequited lust still buzzed pleasantly in his veins as he alighted first, turning to help her down.
As her hand quivered in his, her eyes hazy with feminine need, he knew he’d made the right decision to delay their mutual gratification. Waiting, allowing the anticipation to simmer and build, would make their reunion all the more explosive—and from what he’d sampled in the carriage, Gabby was already the female equivalent of a Roman candle.
Cold-natured, his arse.
