He cradled her chin, angling and positioning the best route to heaven. He’d learned which way the noses went, straight ahead, so her passions met his strength.
They became a tangle of desire and laughs.
And he loved her all the more.
CHAPTER 44
JEMINA—CRAZYLOVE
Imust seem crazed to Daniel, kissing and keeping him in this big old closet. In here, he wasn’t the man who hid things. He was the man who saved Hope. The hero who made possible a reunion with my child. He kept my daughter safe, and he loved her when I could not.
With my hands to my temples, I stopped all the noise in my head and admired my husband unbuttoning his shirt. The man was finely built, smooth and muscular, sun-warmed brown on a cloudy day.
“Ball it up, Daniel. Drop it to the ground. Be untidy.”
“It will wrinkle.”
“Do it if you can, dearest. Be free and reckless. Or is P. Daniel Thackery unwilling to be wild?”
The hesitation was palatable, but he did it. “If it makes you laugh. Don’t tell my valet.” He neared and slipped the sash away from my robe. “Huzzah. Unwrapping a rare gift done up in this maddening sheer.”
The robe slipped my shoulders and rested in the crook of my arms.
“Will you, Jemina, make a show of casting it to the floor?”
Doubts rushed in and crowded the space between us. I toyed with my cuff.
“No. Don’t, Jemina. It’s too pretty, the way it sculpts you, your hips.” Daniel lifted my chin and filled my emptiness with his kiss. I surrendered to the notion that he was more good than wrong, more understanding than not. I couldn’t hold him to a perfect standard when I was sure I hadn’t been perfect or right.
No more fretting. No more shattering truths meant to divide my scarred heart. I gave in to this yearning and returned his passion. It was freeing.
My fingers slipped to his neck as I cinched my hands about him.
“Love you, Jemina.” Spinning, he lifted me high. We shivered together with the rain streaking the window, hiding our embrace from the grounds below.
His skin heated mine to an inferno. His hands touched my buttons and hooks, unfastening them.
He spun me round and round in his closet. My nightgown fell away as if caught in a cyclone.
My love of him rushed like a hurricane’s wind.
Still twirling, still finding the joy of his lips on my shoulder, I became dizzy.
Blown away, almost breathless, I clung to Daniel. He was solid and whole like the mast of theMinerva.
No letting go.
No letting go.
Bang, his arm hit a shelf.
The tissue separating his colorful waistcoats scattered.
The sound of crinkling paper shifted under his feet.
Then everything slowed.
Caught in the eye of this storm, everything quieted but my heart. Arms locked about my waist, Daniel had me and put my slippers again to the floor.
