They came together in a rush of sensation, in a moment of blinding delight, marked by a surge of feelings so intense they lost their breaths and clung, momentarily paralyzed.
Then the spur of instinct pricked and sank in, and they plunged into the dance, and then they were riding hard, striving together, racing to reach the pinnacle of sensation that hovered just out of reach.
Their bodies slick, their skins burning, with shivering gasps and growling groans, they pushed on and on, clinging desperately to each other as sensation spiraled around them, sank into and through them, then closed in, tightened and coalesced, intensifying until…
The peak rose before them, and they gasped and reached, and then they were soaring—soaring—until passion shattered their senses in a firework display of mind-numbing brilliance.
Her climax left her limp beneath him while his left him wracked and shattered. For long moments, he hung over her, struggling to breathe, to find his wits, then she tugged, insistently, and on a last soft groan, he let his body slump to hers.
As oblivion beckoned, he felt her arms slide around him and hold him close.
Home, his brain told him. He’d finally found his home.
* * *
For Diana,the following day passed in a blur of private, necessarily-concealed-from-others delight.
She’d woken to find herself alone, but with pleasurable warmth still coursing beneath her skin. After rising, washing, and dressing, she decided it was a truly wonderful feeling.
She wasn’t sure she managed to hide her secret smiles from Giulia, but as she spent most of her day supervising the children as they played in the rear garden, she was hopeful that no one had guessed that she’d spent the night in Toby’s arms.
Beyond one shared, very direct glance when she’d joined him at the table for breakfast, neither he nor she had alluded to their changed circumstances in any way.
That suited her. The connection was so new, she wanted to keep it to themselves until it grew stronger. It was like a new shoot that needed protection until it developed enough to weather life’s storms.
The day rolled smoothly on in their now-accustomed peace and serenity, yet as the afternoon progressed into evening, she sensed that Toby was growing increasingly tense.
Puzzled and a touch concerned, she went upstairs with the children, and after settling them in their beds and seeing them drift off to sleep, she waited until she heard the others heading for their rooms before she went downstairs again and, as she’d expected given that Toby was usually the last to come upstairs, found him still in the drawing room.
What she hadn’t expected was to discover him pacing before the hearth with barely concealed impatience.
As she walked into the room, he glanced at her, and from his expression, she realized his uncharacteristic restiveness wasn’t due to her.
She went to her usual chair and sank into it. “What’s wrong?”
He looked at her, then grimaced. “This is going to sound ridiculous—I can’t even explain it well to myself—but…” He sighed, halted, and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it thoroughly disarranged. “I thought—had hoped—that taking a step forward with you and placing the relationship I want with you on a more definite footing and knowing that you’re in full agreement would have eased the fixation that’s been welling inside me to rush on and get to England. I thought that you and me being together would allow all of us to enjoy at least a few more days here, where safety is so much more assured, but no.” He shook his head in apparent disgust. “If anything, the opposite is true, and I feel more compelled than ever to pack everyone up and race on.”
He met her gaze. “Even though our relationship makes no material difference to the mission, I now feel it’s even more urgent that we rush to England and safety.”
Again, he shook his head. “I know it’s illogical to imagine that us being intimate and having definitely agreed to marry has somehow put even greater weight in the scale, but that’s how I feel.” He gestured vaguely. “And then there’s the children. We might not be looking forward to surrendering them to Fellows’s aunt, but the longer we put it off, especially by staying here, more or less free of threat and behaving and being regarded as a family, the more difficult the break will be. For all of us.”
She studied his face, etched with the signs of his mental wrestling. After taking a moment to consider her approach, she ventured, “You’re driven by protectiveness. It’s one of your strongest traits.”
He looked at her and didn’t bother denying it.
“That’s what’s pushing you to get us all to absolute safety, which means racing to England, and the more definitely we become ‘yours,’ the more powerful that compulsion will grow. However,” she went on, “such an action will also, inevitably, expose us to danger—me and the children especially.” Tipping her head, she regarded him steadily. “Together, the four of us are your family-for-now, and I’m also a critical part of the family you hope to have in the future. You will always want to protect us from danger—that’s one of your most-dominant instincts—but in this case, protecting us means taking a real risk of exposing us to serious danger. You’re in a cleft stick.”
“Yes! That’s it exactly.” He flung out his arms. “I feel damned if we stay and damned if we go.” He looked at her. “How did you grow to be so wise in my ways?” When she smiled faintly, he arched his brows. “So, which option should we choose? Stay for a while longer or make a run for England?”
She took her time weighing both options. Eventually, she said, “While I own to being reluctant to end our stay in paradise, we have to leave at some point, and I’m not averse to setting out on the journey we need to make to reach the beginning of our future.”
She looked up and found him following her words closely. He nodded, and she went on, “And the point you made about the children and the longer we remain here making the inevitable parting harder on them is a valid one. It’s not going to be easy, and putting it off will make it worse.”
He nodded more definitely. “So we leave and head for England.”
She studied his face; his expression was now focused as he looked ahead. “Do you think that, by now, the Prussians and Heinrik and Eva will have passed us by and gone farther west?”
He arched his brows. “I can’t see why they would still be casting about in Italy. More likely, they’ll have headed for the Channel ports, hoping to intercept us there.”
