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“I already am. Have been.”

Cradling her head in his hands, he kissed her softly, as if she were made of gossamer and spiderwebs, as if his breath might blow her away. And she let him. She did not rush him or push harder. She let him kiss her like they had all the time to do so.

How long did they kiss? No way to tell, but her body slowly rolled to a boil under his lips, his hands doing little else than soft strokes against her cheek, his hard body lying alongside her own.

The hard stone floor and the threadbare rug between them and it dropped away in that forever place, the sound of the rain, too, and the threat of the growing puddles. Before the fire, a new world was forged just for them, a world of golden shadows and eternal light.

When she sighed into his kiss and wrapped her hands about his neck, though, rubbing her body against him in the slightest of ways, he changed. The slow, methodical scholar gone. Lord Mischief returned in full form. He rolled to his back, taking her with him, and she straddled his hips, cradling the hard length of him against her core. She rubbed against him, and his hands found her hips, marked her skin with digging fingers.

She moaned and rocked against him again and again. Then he surged up, wrapped her in his arms, and stole her breath with lips crushed to lips before running a trail of possession down her chin to her neck, where he suckled at her breasts until she arched and moaned and gripped his hair, needing more. Needing all.

Slowly, she lifted and lowered herself onto him. A greedy grin spilled over his face as his hands took possession of her waist, helping her ride him up and down. His hands moved lower once she found her rhythm, settling at and teasing that bud that came live with just a thought of him, just a look in his laughing eyes. Those eyes closed as she leaned over him, kissing him, making him her own.

“My own, my sun,” she whispered in his ear. Sun and moon, a cycle complete only with each other.

His eyes flew open, and his arms wrapped round her, tighter than tight as the world tilted around her, and she found herself flat on her back, head cradled by his head once more, a hard kissing lifting her head off the ground. She needed that kiss tobreathe. Her heart would stutter to a stop without it.

He drove into her, hard and merciless, and she needed all of it, all of him.

His lips on her ear tightened her core. She grasped at his back. She rocked her hips against him, needing more, needing all, no more walls and thorns between them.

He whispered, “My lady. My love. Mine.”

And her pleasure spiraled out of control, a burst of sunlight flooding her with pure heat as he drove into her harder and harder. They cried out together, locked around each other, and collapsed in a steaming knot of arms and legs and tongues languidly tasting sweat on skin, teeth lazily nipping ownership, and mouths, with all the ferocity of truth, making promises.

She may have fallen asleep. She could not be sure. But when she next opened her eyes, the world had shifted toward sunlight. Though the largest hole in the roof above, the sky glowed pure blue. Not a cloud in sight.

“The storm has passed,” she said.

He rolled onto his back and took her with him, settling them belly to belly, his arms clasped behind his head. “It has.”

She lifted her head and rested her chin on his chest. “You make a lovely mattress.”

“Are you bruised? Was I too hard? There’s rug, but it doesn’t offer much—”

She shook her head. “I would like to do it again.”

He raised a brow. “You would not prefer a comfortable bed?”

“Perhaps. But if a hard floor and a hard you are the only things at my disposal, I’ll not turn them down.”

He laughed and pecked her nose with a kiss. “Well, I’m lying naked on a pile of wet clothes and think perhaps we should dry them out as best as possible, don them, and return home.” One arm snaked from behind his head and wrapped around her waist, cinching her tight to him.

They disentangled themselves and shook out their damp clothes. The heat and friction of their bodies, the heat of the fire beside them, had—a very little bit—drawn the excess moisture from the linens and wools. Once their ruined clothing covered their sated bodies, they stood before the fire, his arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her close, her head leaning on his shoulder.

“To home?” he asked, taking her hand, kissing her knuckles.

She nodded. She had not had a home in quite some time, had thought she never would.

They walked in step together, through the wreckage of the castle, dodging drops of rain from the holes in the roof, and came out into the sunshine arm in arm.

His horse had taken shelter under an awning, and he took the reins, guiding the beast to the road and down it, content to hold hands and walk through the rain-clean sunshine.

“You know,” he said, “I have thought much of the painting you gave me. Of Seastorm. I do not think you should limit yourself to illustrations in scholarly publications. Your paintings would look lovely in children’s books.”

She looked up at him, the idea like a spark inside her. “Do you think so? That would be lovely. Oh!” Remembering, she reached into her pocket, found the letters there, soggy and crushed. She pulled them out and held them up. “Oh no.”

“What are they?”