No man had ever asked her what she desired; no man had cared to know; no man, likely, had known she even possessed desires of her own.
This man did.
Happiness like soap bubbles popped along her skin, made her giddy, made her tease. “Hmm. Can I have… a room just for sewing?”
“Which one? Doesn’t matter. Take them all.”
“Can I continue making matches?”
“If it is what you wish to do.”
“A puppy?”
“What kind shall we get?”
“Twelve kittens to match our sisters.”
He groaned. “If it pleases you.”
She laughed, inhaled for courage, and nudged him so he faced her, tangled her hands in his shirt. “I wish only to be able to lean on you as often as you lean on me, to keep our sisters safe and happy, and that we will”—heavens, this was bold of her—“never sleep apart once wed.” Falling asleep to the sound of his movements in the room last night had felt a bit like bliss. Knowing he was so nearby, watching, protecting. And that knowing had knit a heavy blanket about her, rocking her into a deep sleep.
She drew a line down the length of his nose, then brushed the pad of her thumb across his lips. “It is silly, but—”
“You have it.Everything, Emma, it is yours. I meant it.”
Her chemise felt frail between her fingers as she pinched the gaping fabric at the bodice above her stays. And her skin beneath, hot and alive as she inhaled the warm air. As much as her soul had needed his gifts, her body needed his touch. She glided her knuckles across her breasts, breathing deeply, then leaping and catching hold of the hem of his shirt.
Ready now. To see a naked man. She almost laughed. But then almost became reality, and he wrapped his arms low around her back to keep her upright. Then she peppered kisses along his jaw and on the tip of his nose, and then finally, she threw up his shirt. He disappeared for a white-linen moment, then reappeared, the cockiest grin slanting crooked across his face.
Men… looked like this? Golden and massive in the leaping shadows of the fire, hard where she was soft, and cut like diamonds where she fluffed out like a pillow. She traced those muscled planes, those cuts, connecting the few small moles dotted across his skin at the collarbone, ribs, and hip. Her fingers traveled a zigzag that made him hiss and made his hands bracketing her hips flex, dig into her flesh.
She brought the storm back to his eyes.
And built a storm inside herself, too. He must have known. Those talented hands at her hips spun her around, made short work of her stays, and soon they dropped, and he spun her again to face her, to hold her gaze as he raked her shift up her body and off, tossing it away. A natural response, her arms flinging slanted across her body, hiding.
An insistent reaction, his eyebrow arching high, his hands peeling her arms away. “What I want, Sweetness, is for you not to hide from me.”
“How will I know what you want? What you need?” Doubt creeping like cold fingers across her skin.
He walked a slow circle around her, connecting the dots strewn across her with his own hungry fingertips—the cloud of freckles across her shoulders, the mole high on her backside. “I’ll tell you, show you. I will not always have to, I think. Since we’ve met, you’ve known me better than anyone, owned a piece of my soul. You’ll know, luv,” he whispered in her ear. “But if I am wrong, and you ever find yourself lost, just do anything.” He stood before her again, his hands settling around her waist, his muscles bunching. “Because it is you, Emma, and everything you do is perfect. For me.” He picked her up, held her high as she braced her hands on his shoulders with a laugh that felt like life. He spun her, grinning up, his joy a light that would break through any storm. When he lowered her, it was to the mattress, and she was open and bare beneath his starving gaze.
He tackled the buttons of his fall. One. By. One. Until his trousers slipped low on his hips. Then fell, pooling in the floor around his feet. He stepped out of them, settled a knee on the mattress next to her thigh, rubbed his hands up and down her arms, her shoulders, her neck, as—what had the book called it?—his man’s yard rose up between them.
Not an actual yard. Thank God. But still significant to her untrained eye. No fear scorched her desire, though. She’d already tamed that beast.
“You smile like you won something grand.”
“I am something grand.” The words ridiculous and conceited, but oh, how he made her feel just that way.
His eyes flashed. “That’s right, Sweetness. You are.” And he tipped her chin up to take her mouth, pushed her shoulder back to crawl over her body, to claim her.
Could he claim something that had already been given?
Semantics. Uninteresting, useless.
Much more fascinating, the way he rocked his body into hers, his shaft pressing into her belly. Much more consuming, the way he cradled her head and kissed her hard and demanding. Much more alluring, the way his skin felt beneath her palms—warm and alive like hers.
The kiss shifted direction like a wind, a gale one moment then a summer breeze, long and sweet and slow the next, making Emma sigh.
