“Yes, you do. Say it, Lola, say it.”
“All right, yes, I want you,” she gasped, jerking her hips, trying to urge him on. “I want you.”
He pulled his hand back a bit, until only the tip of his finger touched her. Gently, he caressed her, circling her clitoris with the tip of his finger, then drawing back. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she panted. “Yes, yes. Come inside me. Now, Denys, now. I want you so much, I can’t bear it.”
He shook his head, holding back, for even her desire was not enough. To get what he really wanted, he had to bring her to the very edge. Drawing a deep breath, he pulled back so that he could look into her face. “I love you,” he said, sliding the tip of his finger inside her. “Do you love me?”
She didn’t answer, and he pulled back, causing her to moan in protest. Her hips lifted as she tried to follow his hand, but he didn’t let her have that scrap of satisfaction. “Do you love me?”
She was panting, desperate, her eyes closed. She nodded.
“Not good enough. You have to say it.” He teased again, caressing, pulling back. “Do you love me?”
She was whimpering now, desperate, mewling sounds of need, but he did not relent. “Do you, Lola? Love me?”
“Yes,” she cried on a sob. “I love you, Denys. I’ve always loved you.”
That was everything he needed to hear. He kissed her hard, withdrew his hand, and entered her fully. “Love you,” he told her, thrusting deep. “Now, and always.”
She cried out, clenching tight around him, pushing with her hips, urging him on, but he wasn’t about to let her set the pace. He fought to hold back, making each thrust just a bit deeper than the one before, building the pleasure, until at last, she came.
He was right behind her, climaxing in a white-hot rush of pleasure so intense, it seemed as if his entire body were on fire. The shudders rocked him, again and again, until at last, they subsided, and he stilled, his body easing down on hers, his breathing hard, mingling with hers in the hush of afternoon.
At last, he lifted his head. “There now,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her mouth, “was that so hard?”
He eased back, curling his arms beneath her, his weight on his elbows, but when he looked at her, his throat went dry, and his heart hurt, because she had never looked more beautiful than she did right now.
In the crack of sunlight that filtered between the closed drapes, her skin was flushed a delicate pink, the locks of her hair were like tongues of fire against the white sheets, and on her lips was the drowsy hint of a smile.
“So, now that we’ve both admitted the truth,” he murmured, pushing a tendril of hair back from her cheek, “what shall we do about it?”
Chapter21
Denys knew he’d be sailing close to the wind with this moment, but she was silent so long, he feared he’d just crashed on the rocks.
Still, there was no drawing back. “My opinion is we should marry,” he said, striving to seem matter-of-fact about it all when he was actually nervous as hell. He rolled to his side, propped his weight on his elbow and his cheek in his hand. “It’s the usual thing when people love each other.”
Instead of answering, she sat up, pulling bed linens up from the side of the bed and wrapping them around her, covering herself. It seemed an odd thing for her to do after the passionate lovemaking in which they’d just engaged, and he felt his nervousness deepening.
“Do you remember my first day of rehearsal?” she asked. “That night when you came by with sandwiches and I told you about the sort of dancing I used to do?”
“Of course.”
“You asked me how I ended up in that situation. I didn’t tell you everything.”
“No?”
“No.” She looked down at her hands in her lap. “There was a man I met there. He saw me dance. He wasn’t the usual sort who came to the dockside taverns, so I noticed him right away. He was very elegant, very handsome, and very rich. His name was Robert Delacourt. A few nights later, he came back, and he asked me to have a drink with him. As you might guess, I did. I mean, he wasn’t at all the sort of male attention I’d been accustomed to. I fell for him like a ton of bricks. We became lovers.”
Denys had the feeling this was the man who’d been her only other lover, and he really wanted to stop this conversation, but he couldn’t.
“I thought it was all very romantic. He was a railway tycoon. New money, you call it. I didn’t care. I thought he was wonderful. He bought me gifts, flowers, dinners.”
This was sounding far too familiar, far too much like his own seduction of her, and to the man he was now, it all seemed so shallow, and so unsavory. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Go on.”
“We were together for several weeks, and then, one night, Robert told me he was having dinner with a very important man. A senator visiting from Washington. Robert wanted me to come to dinner with them, explaining that he’d told the senator about me, and the senator very much wanted to meet me.”
