He pressed a lingering kiss to her brow. “Forever.”
Outside, the sun slipped fully beyond the horizon, leaving the sky washed in rose and fading gold. Within the quiet chamber, before the last glow of the fire, two souls who had once believed themselves unworthy of love rested secure in the knowledge that they had been wrong all along.
Chapter Nine
Fiona woke to the soft percussion of rain against the windows and the warm weight of an arm draped securely about her waist.
For a moment, she did not stir.
The fire had burned itself low sometime in the night; the last of the embers glowed faintly in the grate. They had never gone down to dinner. At some point—between laughter and whispered vows and the slow unravelling of restraint—time itself had ceased to matter. The world beyond those walls had simply fallen away.
She lay still now, eyes closed, quietly cataloguing the sensations around her: the smooth press of linen against bare skin, the steady rhythm of Christian’s breathing at her back, the languid ache in muscles newly acquainted with pleasure. She was warm. She was safe. She was—perhaps for the first time in her life—precisely where she wished to be.
She opened her eyes.
Grey morning light filtered through the heavy curtains, softening the familiar shapes of his chamber—the great wardrobe, the writing desk by the window, the armchair near the hearth where her gown lay in quiet disarray. Everything looked altered from this vantage. Intimate. Claimed.
The arm around her waist tightened, and she felt Christian stir behind her.
“You are awake,” he murmured, voice thick with sleep, his breath brushing her shoulder. “I can feel you thinking.”
“I am not thinking. I am appreciating.”
“Appreciating what?”
“This.” She turned within his embrace, and her breath caught at the sight of him. Tousled. Bare. The birthmark vivid against sleep-warmed skin. He looked younger in repose, less burdened—stripped of the armour he wore by daylight.
“This?” he echoed, one brow lifting faintly.
“This,” she affirmed, gesturing vaguely at the bed, the tangled sheets, the quiet room that held them both. “I keep expecting to discover it was only a dream.”
“If it is, I refuse to wake.” He drew her closer and pressed a kiss to her brow. “Reality is overrated. It is cold and lonely and does not involve you in my bed.”
“Flatterer.”
“Merely observant.” His finger traced the curve of her jaw, feather-light and devastating. “You cannot imagine what it means to me, having you here.”
His gaze deepened, unguarded now. “I have spent years alone in these rooms, and now—”
Emotion tightened his voice.
She kissed him.
Not out of politeness. Not even out of mere affection.
But because the way he looked at her made something inside her ache—made her chest feel too tight for breath. Because if she did not kiss him, if she did not stop that raw note in his voice, she might have done something far more improper.
He answered at once, a low sound escaping him as his arms tightened around her. One hand slid into her hair, the other down her back, drawing her flush against him. The heat between them rekindled with alarming ease.
She felt the unmistakable evidence of his desire against her hip, firm and immediate, and warmth pooled low within her in answering recognition. The hunger had not dimmed overnight. If anything, it had sharpened.
Her hand drifted lower, curious and emboldened. She traced the length of him through the fabric that separated them, slow and deliberate. His breath fractured; his body responded instinctively to her touch.
“Fiona,” he breathed, half warning, half plea.
She continued, learning the shape of him, delighting in the way restraint abandoned him piece by piece. The expression in his eyes—dark, helpless, undone—sent another rush of heat through her.
They had scarcely slept, yet desire rose anew as though the night had only whetted it.
