“I can’t imagine a life without you.”
Wait. What?
“Do me the honor of becoming—”
“Stop.”
He stilled. Beneath her hands, his arms stiffened.
“Are you proposing?”
He swallowed, clearly nervous. “That was the plan.”
Everything in her went loose and giddy. She had to work to hold back a bubble of highly inappropriate laughter. She pressed her lips together, trying desperately to keep from launching into a response before he’d even had the chance to ask. Her cheeks hurt already. She stepped backward, trying her best to repair the sodden mess of her hair, brushing down rain-soaked skirts as best she could.
Drat.She gave up and clasped her hands in front of her primly and looked back at him. “You may continue.”
“May I?” he said dryly—the only thing about them that was. He dropped to his knee and picked up the glass jar. “I do not have a ring but I had hoped to give you this”—he held up the jar—“to show you I will one day give you the world.” He looked at the empty jar and frowned. “It was supposed to be the essence of the universe, captured for you. We didn’t quite get to that bit.”
“Shhh. You’re spoiling it.”
He chuckled and tossed the jar over his shoulder, before taking her hands in his. “Lady Charlotte Stirling, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
She took a long, deep breath. She’d heard those words many times—thirty-three to be exact—yet it was as though they’d never once been spoken. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I will be your wife.”
The smile on John’s face was wide and boyish, and as he stood, he wrapped one arm below her arse and lifted her against him, his other arm snaking behind her back to keep her secure.
The cold had disappeared. The rain dripping down her face and from the sodden ends of her hair was a mere annoyance. All that mattered was John. She took his face in her hands and kissed him again.
She was to be his wife. They would be happy together forever.
When she was finally forced to break off the kiss so she could breathe, John trailed his tongue down her neck and along her collarbone, sending a different kind of shiver across her, the kind that dipped beneath the skin, resonated through her heart, her stomach, her womanhood.
“We should get out of the rain,” he murmured, his lips rasping against her throat.
“What rain?” She raked her fingers through his hair.
He looked up at her. “Where do I take you?”
She knew what he meant. They would go back through the garden wall and to her home, full of her family and servants, if she wanted. Or they could go inside Harrow House, where this kissing, and everything that came after kissing, could continue.
“Take me to your rooms,” she whispered.
His eyes flared, and his fingers tightened, pressing into her backside. “As you wish.” Without releasing his grip, he carried her inside.
His bedroom was not what she was expecting. Given the chaos of his study, she’d anticipated something similar. Instead, it was bare. There was a dresser with a simple wash basin and mirror. A lone chair stood beside it. The only hint that this was John’s room was the notebook and pencil on the small table by his bed.
His bed. The moment he’d kicked the door shut, he crossed to it and set her down on its edge. Her feet barely grazed the floor. Her body protested at the sudden absence of him, even if he’d only gone as far as the fireplace, where he carefully stacked logs and tossed on some additional kindling. In seconds, the small flame burst to life with a sharppop. A crack of lightning lit the room. A boom of thunder followed.
He turned toward her, both hands pulling through his hair, slicking it back. The fire behind him turned his honey-brown tresses gold. His breeches clung to his legs, dipping and curving around his muscular thighs and calves. The skin at the top of his throat, before it disappeared into folds of fabric, glistened. Raindrops still clung to his eyelashes.
She might not have his perfect memory, but this image would remain in her mind forever.
His breath was heavy; she could hear it, and she could see the swelling of his chest. His nipples peaked beneath the translucent fabric of his shirt. Her fingers itched to touch him there, to feel them beneath her fingertips, to spread her hands across the warmth of his body and feel the beat of his heart.
He wanted her. It was evident in the way his muscles coiled tight and the bulge of his cock below his waistband. Still, he paused, as though waiting for a sign from her, some signal that she knew what would happen if he came closer. That she wanted it.
What she wanted was to be kissed again, down there. She would have let him do that even before he’d proposed to her. Now they were betrothed, that kind of kissing was almost respectable. Notquite. But no one had to know other than her friends who already knew.
