Glancing down, she realised that her hands were lost in the clasp of his and his thumb was stroking her naked ring finger in much the same way as her own had been doing every since she’d taken the ring off.
‘Tigger has it,’ she said.
‘And where is Tigger?’
‘In my dressing room with his friends.’ She went to move. ‘Do you want me to go and—?’
‘No.’ He stopped her. ‘We haven’t finished here yet.’
‘Finished what?’ Foolishly she turned in his arms to face him—foolishly, because she should have guessed what was coming, but didn’t; so his kiss when it arrived took her breath away.
It was fierce and it was greedy. It brought her hands around his neck and placed his hands on her hip-bones so he could pull her close. She came alive for the first time in too many days to dare think about.
He whispered something into her mouth. ‘Marry me,’ he said.
‘I’m not on my knees.’
‘You can go there later. Just say yes.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
Ethan released a soft laugh. ‘Now tell me you love me.’ He was going for broke here.
‘I love you,’ she softly complied.
After that, things moved on a pace. They found the bed, they lost their clothes, Ethan found his little red-painted heart. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this here,’ he thought to remark when it was already way too late. ‘This is your grandfather’s house. It shows a lack of respect.’
‘I don’t recall you being so sensitive when you seduced me in Victor Frayne’s house,’ Eve pointed out.
It more or less put the lid on his conscience so that he could sink himself into what he had started.
Later, much later, they lay in a tangle of satiated limbs. ‘You do know I love you to distraction, don’t you?’ he told her solemnly. ‘Leona was—’ He stopped, then started the same sentence from a different place. ‘I think I only ever loved the idea of loving someone like Leona.’ He thought that said it best. ‘But in Rahman, when I looked at her, I couldn’t even see her face because your beautiful face insisted on imprinting itself over the top of hers. No, don’t cry.’
‘I’m not crying.’ But there were tears in her beautiful eyes, nonetheless. ‘I just needed you to say that.’
It cut him to the quick—which he knew he deserved. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t say it a long time ago.’
She wound her arms around him; he drew her close. They sighed together as their mouths joined. No complicating sex this time, just love and caring and—’
‘Get dressed,’ he decided suddenly.
‘Why?’ she protested. Eve was perfectly happy where she was.
‘We are going to play the rest of this relationship by the book. So we get dressed, then we will go out and find you something amazing to wear in hot-pink for our official betrothal tonight. Then we get married—next week,’ he added as a frowning afterthought. ‘Because I don’t think we can behave ourselves for longer than that.’
‘You won’t last a week,’ Eve informed him a short ten minutes later as they left her room and his hand was already checking out the smooth line of her bottom.
‘I suppose you are going to make it your mission to prove yourself right.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said airily. ‘I love a good challenge.’
She won, but then she usually did. Eve the flirt, Eve the temptress, went to her marriage bed every night that week.
The Arabian Love-Child
By Michelle Reid
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON