With a remorseful gesture, she spread her hands. “I can’t bear that.”
He frowned. “So you’re here as a way of apologizing?”
“Yes. No.” She sucked in an audible breath. “Oh, Charles, will you really make me say it?”
“It depends what you have to say, doesn’t it?” He folded his arms and regarded her with unwavering attention. “We’ve had too many misunderstandings already. It’s time to be frank. What do you want from me, Sally?”
Her shuddering breath threatened to send her bosom overflowing from that daring dress. Then she stiffened her spine, and the nervously twisting hands dropped to her sides.
“You. I want you.”
Another jolt of desire. The words sizzled through him like flame. But he remained chary about seeing only what he wanted to see. He’d done that at Sans Souci and paid an agonizing price.
“Tonight? Or forever?”
She licked her lips, and he fought the urge to grab her and kiss her and have her, whatever her intentions in coming to him tonight. The quiet house around them did nothing to shore up gentlemanly impulses.
“Tonight.” She paused as devastation made his heart slam to a stop. Then she went on in a faint voice. “And forever. If you’ll have me.”
It took him a moment to realize what she’d said. He’d braced for an answer that dashed his dreams all over again.
Still, he didn’t move, although the need to touch her was a fever in his blood. “You’d better mean that, Sally. I’m not going through this again.”
To his surprise, amusement lit her green eyes. “Good God, Charles, this is like negotiating a legal contract.”
He smiled back as certainty, solid as a mountain, settled deep and eternal inside him. “You are, my love. The sort of contract that lasts till death do us part.”
She frowned faintly. “So you still mean marriage?”
“I do,” he said, echoing the vows he soon hoped to speak in front of a vicar. “Do you?”
She raised her chin and regarded him directly. “I do.” Her slender throat worked as she swallowed again. “Now, for pity’s sake, Charles, kiss me.”
A bolt of happiness struck him, made his head reel. “My darling,” he whispered reverently. “You make me the happiest man in England.”
With unsteady hands, he caught her by the waist and dragged her up for a hungry kiss. She sighed in satisfaction and wrapped her arms around him with unconcealed possessiveness.
It felt like an eon since he’d touched her. The heat flaring between them was even more incandescent than he remembered. And in seven sleepless nights, by God, he’d done a lot of remembering.
Her familiar scent, smoky rose, flooded his head. Her salty taste fed his rapacious senses. As if she, too, had starved for this connection, her eager tongue swept into his mouth.
His heart pounding, he edged her back until she met the wall behind her. Greedy hands wrenched her bodice down. They both groaned their pleasure when he cupped her breasts.
Breathlessly, she pulled far away enough to see his face. Joy transfigured her. He’d never seen her look so beautiful, nor so open. At last, she’d stepped beyond that wall of glass that had kept her safe from hurt.
She hadn’t yet spoken her love, but as he met her glowing eyes, he saw what she felt. Poignant emotion mixed with rising desire.
Damn him for a lucky dog. She was a woman in a million.
“Sir Charles, what on earth are you doing?” The mocking smile curling her lips only made his blood beat harder.
He dragged his hands through her hair, sending a hail of pins scattering over the carpet. Dark gold silk tumbled down around her unforgettable face, turning her into a wild creature. “My dear Lady Norwood, I believe the technical term is pouncing.”
* * *
Sally had time for a gasp of laughter, then Charles was kissing her again, with more of that tumultuous passion that she craved. A throbbing, now familiar weight set up in the base of her belly, and she shifted to ease the hungry itch between her legs. He was hard and ready, and excitement fizzed through her as she reached down to shape her hand around the impressive bulge in his trousers.
“Oh, yes,” he hissed, leaning into her in encouragement.