She nodded, closing her eyes and laying her cheek against his chest. “Aye, it felt like I was living a nightmare. A horrible, terrible nightmare, from which I’d never awaken.”
“But it’s over now, or it will be, as soon as I bring the twins to safety and deliver Montford to the justice he so richly deserves,” Gray promised, holding her to him. “I swear to you, Catherine, you will never be alone again.”
“I love you so much,” she said, clinging to him just as tightly. “God in heaven, can you ever forgive me?”
“’Tis already done.”
She pulled back to meet his gaze, and he smiled, sending another rush of love coursing through her. He brushed away the wetness near her eyes. “I just needed to know that you felt the same that I did. To know that what happened between us these last months was the truth. That it was as real as I’d believed it to be.”
She smiled through her tears as he stroked his fingers across her brow and down her cheek. He slipped his hand gently behind her neck, his touch sacred to her. When he pulled her to him for a kiss, she responded with passion, reveling in the warm, salty taste of him, in the sensation of his arms around her, his heart beating firm and steady against her breast.
“Make love to me, Catherine,” he whispered, “with no more secrets, no more lies between us.”
She glided her hands up his chest and over his shoulders to tangle in his hair. “’Tis what I want, too, more than anything.”
Gray felt a surge of joy at her answer. Kissing her again, he swept her into his arms. He moved to carry her to their bed, then paused, frowning as he looked around them. “I fear that my solar isn’t well equipped for what we intend.”
The beautiful sound of her laughter, low and sweet, sent a tingle of pleasure up his neck. He looked down at her, a smile tugging his lips as well.
“We needed no bed when you brought me out into the woods,” she said.
“Aye, the leaves were better than a bed, if I recall correctly.”
“Your memory has ever astounded me,” she nodded with mock seriousness, dragging her nails lightly down his chest.
He grinned with her, then, a sensuous shudder rippling through him at her touch, driving him past the point of waiting. He wanted to have her for his own, now. To touch her, to taste her…to love her.
With a little growl, he carried her to the hearth and the thick, furred skin that lay in front of it, kneeling there to let her stretch out full before him.
Her hair spread like a fan of chestnut silk on the dark fur, tempting him to bury his hands in its fragrant abundance. Golden firelight wavered over her, swirling across her skin to create tantalizing shadows and hollows he ached to explore anew.
Leaning over, he kissed her, unlacing the top of her chemise to slip his hand inside and stroke the soft fullness of her breast. Her nipple hardened at his touch, and she moaned his name when he tugged it between his thumb and finger.
Pushing the fabric aside, he kissed her neck and across the delicate hollow near her collarbone before trailing his lips down to her breast. He paused over her delicate, pink nipple for a moment, not touching her, just letting the moist warmth of his breath tease her until she whimpered with longing and raised herself to his mouth. Then, with a low growl, he bent his head to suckle her; she gasped with pleasure, her fingers tangling in his hair as he breathed in the sweet scent of her skin and laved his tongue over her.
“God, I love you,” he murmured against her softness, kissing her breasts again before moving back up the silken column of her neck. “So much, Catherine.”
“No more than I love you,” she whispered, arching under him. “Ah, Gray, I never want to be without you.” She stroked her hand across his bare chest as he kissed the tender spot behind her ear, smoothing her fingers over his ribs and up to his shoulders before finally guiding his lips to hers for another kiss.
“I want to be one with you,” she said between kisses, “One in truth—now. I need to feel you inside me, with me…”
“I want you too, love. All of you.” He cupped her face, brushing his lips over her forehead, her cheeks, the crescents of her eyelids with their feathery lashes before nibbling again at the honeyed fullness of her mouth. “But I want to savor you too. Every inch of you, as I’ve dreamed of doing every night since our first together.”
She moaned softly, stroking his arms as he lifted the hem of her chemise; he tugged it off over her head, gliding his hand up the warm length of her thighs. His fingers nestled in the silken curls at their juncture, gently stroking the slick folds there; he reveled in her slippery heat and in the way she spread her thighs to open herself further to his touch. Little jolts of feeling shot from his fingertips up to the rest of his body, darts of sweet, hot pleasure into his groin and the iron-hard stiffness straining against his breeches there.
“’Tis heaven,” he whispered, closing his eyes and suppressing a groan at the incredible sensation of touching her so. She was like an exotic flower opening to him. He wanted to lose himself in her, to breathe in the delicate perfume of her arousal and luxuriate in the lush, wet feel of her forever. Being with her like this was driving him to the edge of ecstasy, to a place of fractured thought and pure feeling.
He continued to stroke her as she moaned again, brushing his thumb over the tiny bud nestled in her folds, until she began to twist beneath him and press into his hand. He shifted, then, tracing a heated path with his kisses; when he reached her most intimate place, he tasted of her, swirling his tongue and lips over that sensitive spot.
She gasped, but he held her firm, relentless in his tender assault. He cupped his hands under her, lifting her, gently spreading, until the swollen silk of her was opened to him. He groaned with the beauty of it, the incredible gift of her, tasting her again and again, hot and tangy sweet, like honeyed apples to his tongue.
Too soon, it seemed, he saw the flat of her belly begin to ripple, tiny shudders that made her thighs tense; then she stiffened, crying his name and clutching his shoulders as her body pulsated with a powerful release.
After a few moments, he lifted himself up to hold her, and she turned her face into his neck while the last delicious shudders of her fulfillment eased away.
“You’re crying,” he murmured, brushing a tear from her cheek with the tip of his finger. “Are you all right? Did I upset you by doing that?”
“Nay,” she said, looking at him. Her lashes clumped in adorable spikes, framing those wide, beautiful eyes that were fixed on him now in wonder. “’Tis just that I never—well, I never knew that such things could be done.”
