He reached out and caught her hand, his light brown eyes locking with hers.“Please, Valaria.Come into the bed with me.We’re getting married—we have months and months to come where you can tell me all the reasons you have for hesitation.Right now I’d like to just…hold you.Be with you.Have you stay with me today, tonight.”
Her lips parted.“You want me to stay with you?”
He nodded.“Yes.”
She swallowed hard.She’d resisted this man, not physically, but in her heart, because of her fears.But he was offering her something now that was so precious.So lovely.
Her hands shaking, she climbed into the bed beside him, cuddling her head into his shoulder.He wrapped his arms around her, their bodies pressed together as he dropped his lips to her temple.
“This is all I want, Valaria,” he whispered.“This is what I can give you.For the rest of our lives.”
She looked up at him.He looked so serious, so gentle, and so in love with her.He truly did love her.And that swelled up in her with a power unlike anything she’d ever felt before.She didn’t want it to end.Not right now.So she could tell him her secret later.Later she could confess everything and see how it would change them.If it would.
She rested a hand on his chest, measuring the steady thud of his heartbeat against her fingers.“I’ll stay,” she said softly.
He smiled down at her.“I’ll send word for your maid to join you, so she can help you tomorrow morning,” he said.
She flinched at the mention of Fanny.God but she would only be angrier thanks to this.Still, there was no denying where this was going, was there?And one day her maid would understand.
Valaria reached up and cupped his cheek, drawing his mouth toward hers.“Later,” she whispered before she kissed him.
And then she pushed all thoughts aside and drowned in him all over again.
