She’d long since known he wanted her. Their days in Jersey had been replete with sensual exploration. But the unfettered desire in his touch now was new. The barriers he’d always raised against her in his heart had dissolved to nothing.
She’d never felt claimed before. She felt claimed now.
And reveled in the possession because she knew he gave himself into her keeping with every touch, every kiss.
Shaking, she ripped at his shirt while he feverishly ran his hands over her body. Her breasts swelled and ached for his touch. She yearned to feel the glide of his skin against hers. She yearned to welcome him inside her in the most intimate touch of all.
Impatience made her clumsy. She ended up tearing the ruined shirt until it fell in shreds from his heaving shoulders.
He tugged her upright and struggled to undress her while she rained kisses across his bare torso. Fresh bruises and abrasions marked his scarred skin. Reminder of what he’d endured for her sake. She bit down delicately on one light brown nipple and felt fierce reaction shiver through him. She did it again, harder this time.
“Devil take it, Charis. I’m filthy. I need a shave.” He clamped one powerful hand in her hair and drew her head back from his chest. His face was vivid with arousal. Color bloomed along his cheekbones and his eyes burned like black fire. “Do you want me like this?”
She laughed low in her throat and tore at his breeches. If he was a new, more dominating lover today, she’d transformed into an utterly shameless hussy. “Yes.”
“So be it.”
His face set with determination. Roughly, he wrenched open the jacket of her riding habit. Buttons flew through the air and bounced across the floor. He tore at the white shirt beneath. Within seconds, skirt, stays, and shift lay on the carpet.
The abrasion of his shadow beard on her naked skin made her cry out in delight. She arched so her breasts jutted forward, demanding attention. She fumbled at her hair, sliding pins free until it fell about her shoulders in an untidy mass.
“I love you,” he groaned, burying his hands in the tumble of hair and bringing her up for a famished kiss. “How I love you.”
“Tell me again,” she said in a vibrating voice.
He did. Repeating the declaration, he pushed her back onto the silk bedcover. He kissed her breasts and belly and dragged boots, drawers, and stockings off until she lay before him bare, open and ready.
Soon he was naked too. He surged above her. No more preliminaries. She didn’t mind. She craved this joining as much as he.
He thrust hard, as if proclaiming her his kingdom.
Then he lifted his head and stared at her with such reverence, her heart cartwheeled. She drew him down for a deeply passionate kiss. Even as her tongue pushed into his mouth, his body moved in hers.
The rhythm, his weig
ht, his spicy scent, the heat of his skin, all were familiar. All were utterly new.
As they spiraled into ecstasy, her soul expanded, took flight. The experience was unlike anything before, for all their desperate passion in St. Helier. It was as if he flung open every gateway and invited her in. And she entered victorious to blaring trumpets and fluttering banners.
The triumphal music reached a dazzling climax. She arched and cried out as her world erupted into blinding light. Bright angels chorused around her, repeating one phrase over and over in harmonies that made her skin sing.
I love you, Gideon. I love you, Gideon.
She quivered with wild delight, lost in the brilliance. She knew Gideon was with her. He’d be with her always.
She opened her eyes to find him raised on his arms above her, watching her intently. His black gaze glittered in unmistakable possession as he looked down at her.
“I’ve never…” Her voice trailed away.
He looked like a man who had conquered the world. He looked like a man who had fallen in love deeply and irrevocably.
“I know.”
She raised one shaking hand to his cheek. His gaze was intent and told her he, like she, had been reborn in fire.
She’d never seen his eyes so clear, so unguarded, so full of love. Her heart overflowed with a happiness more precious because she’d believed it eternally out of reach.
“No shadows,” she whispered, at last recognizing the difference in his face.