“In that moment, that role wasn’t yours.” Melissa waited for his gaze to rise and meet hers, then forthrightly declared, “In that moment, it was mine.”
For several steady heartbeats, their gazes remained locked, their senses communing. In that moment, so much hung in the balance. A final acceptance by them both of the true meaning of their love.
An acknowledgement of what, between them, love in all its glory truly meant.
Then he let out a shuddering sigh. His gaze remained leveled on hers as in a hoarse whisper, he admitted, “Yes. It was.”
He looked down, caught her hand, raised her fingers to his lips, and pressed a long, lingering kiss to her fingertips. “Thank you.” The words reached her on a breath. “For saving me. For marrying me. For loving me.”
He lowered her hand, and his eyes rose to meet hers again, and even in the poor light, she could sense the roiling storm within him.
“I need you tonight. Now.”
Her lips faintly curved. “I’m yours. Take me.” A deliberately brazen response, but she wanted him, too. She stepped closer, set her body to his, and raised her hands to his nape to draw him to her. “Hold me.”
She didn’t have to ask twice. The steely bands of his arms cinched about her, and his lips found hers in a searing kiss.
Between them, the flames of desire sparked, ignited, rose, and raged, and the exchange grew ever hotter, ever more fiery. Ever more demanding.
Silk slid andshushedto the floor, and skin met skin and burned.
Breathless, near mindless, she broke from the kiss to exhort, “Love me,” and felt his lips curve as they ruthlessly reclaimed hers.
His hands sculpted, his fingers teased, and finally, he lifted her, and she wrapped her arms and legs around him and welcomed him into her body on a long, shuddering, exultant sigh.
She clamped around him, and he groaned.
He lifted her, and she rose and slid down, and they fell into the age-old dance, one they’d rehearsed and no longer needed to think to perform.
Exquisitely.
Their senses expanded, and they clung, their conscious minds awash in pleasure and delight.
Overwhelmed, overpowered, they gasped and strove and, somehow, found their way to the bed and fell full length upon it.
They came together in passion and in love, with a desperately greedy need to claim the other.
To seize and hold, to demand and surrender, to glory in their burgeoning understanding.
For this was love—the power that rose to their call.
The power that, in extremis, would always rule them. Now and forever.
For them, love had become the determining force in their lives, and together, they embraced it and held on with everything in them.
Never to let go, never to be parted. Through the thundering in their veins and the frantic beat that drove them up to ecstasy’s peak, they opened their hearts and let the glory flood in.
Until they shattered, and the ultimate eruption of mind-numbing brilliance blanked their minds and welded their souls.
All awareness hung suspended in that moment of indescribable joy, that moment of scintillating crystal-clear exultation.
Until ecstasy faded, and with their wits long gone and their senses beyond recall, holding tight to the other, they spiraled together into the soothing satiation of oblivion’s sea.
Chapter 18
They all met about the breakfast table the following morning. Everyone was down punctually, even Veronica and Frederick, whose appearance at that hour underscored the gravity of what was to come.
It wasn’t simply a matter of dealing with Findlay-Wright. The fate of his pawns hung in the balance, and what to do with them wasn’t nearly as clear as deciding what to do about their master.
