Page 146 of Outcast’s Vow

My husband smiles.

“Only once. Only this time. Don’t get used to it.”

“I’ll let it slip,” I reply. “I love you, Baptiste Tremblay.”

The man lets go of my hand and gently pulls my hair back behind my ear.

“Come here, Highness.”

Baptiste guides my chin toward him with the tips of his fingers.

I let him. My choice.

And then, he kisses me.

And I let him do that also.

For the first time in what seems like an eternity, I dare to dream of a future again. A future with this man at the center of it.

57

SYLVIE

My husband kisses me. I kiss him back.

I need to lay a hand on that incredible muscular body of his, scrape my fingers across his firmness as if to remind myself why I impossibly fell for him in the first place. I need him as an anchor. I need his quiet assurance. I need his heat and his desire.

I need to be treated by this man as his wife. As his queen. As his Highness.

“Sylvie,” he rasps. “You’re clawing at me as if I might evaporate.”

I gulp. My fingers pause. My kisses stop.

“Because I’m afraid that if I let you go,” I reply, “then you'll go.”

He takes my hand gently, raising my fingers to his lips.

“I’m here, wife. I’m not going. I’m never leaving. Not again.”

And then he kisses my hand. It’s tender at first, but then he sucks my fingers. One by one.

“I would’ve died for you,” he mutters between fingers.

“You really would have?”

“Let me take care of you now. You and me. Just us. Here.”

“Reconnecting?”

“Yes,” Baptiste replies quietly. “Let me show you what you mean to me. Let me fall in love with you all over again.”

I gulp again. And then I tear my hand away from his lips.

And I reach down, take his head between my fingers, and kiss him like my life depends on it.

“I thought I lost you.”

“Let me show you why you haven’t.”