"
"No, I don't want to leave. It shook me for a moment, but it's just as I said before. You get to accept it. I can handle it."
"I shouldn't have left you alone."
"Don't be silly. I don't need to be guarded against grieving ghosts."
But he wanted to guard her. He wished she had called for him. It surprised Mm just how much he wished she had needed him enough to call out for him.
"Next time you want to go in the library, let me know. I'll go with you."
"The house is already changing," she said quietly. "You've done that by caring for it. I like feeling I've had a part in that, too."
"You have." He pressed his lips to her hair.
"When people live in it, make love in it, laugh in it, it'll change again. The house needs people."
She shifted, lifted her mouth to his. "Make love with me."
He cupped her face in his hands, deepened the kiss. When he picked her up, carried her from the room, the scent of roses followed. She looped her arms around him, pressed her lips to his throat. Already her blood was heating, already her pulse was pounding.
"It's like a drug," she murmured.
"I know.'' He stopped at the top of the stairs, found her mouth again.
"I've never been like this before." Swamped with emotions, she turned her face into his shoulder.
Neither had he, he thought.
As he carried her down, neither noticed that the air had remained warm and calm.
He laid her in front of the fire. Levering himself up on his elbow, he traced the shape of her face with a fingertip. Something kindled inside her, simmered with desire and flamed around her heart.
"Rafe."
"Ssh..."
To quiet her, he brushed his lips over her brow. She didn't know what she would have said, was grateful he'd stopped her. The wanting was more than enough. She could be relieved that neither of them needed words.
She should have been relieved.
Her mouth was ready for his, and it warmed beautifully under the pressure of lips and tongue. Though desire remained, poised and trembling, everything in her seemed to soften.
Here was tenderness, so sweet, so unexpected. Her sigh whispered out like a secret.
He felt the change, in her, in himself. Marveled at it. Why had they always been in such a hurry? he wondered. Why had he hesitated to savor, and he savored, when there was so much here?
He loved the flavor of her, that quietly seductive taste that clung to her skin. The feel of her, soft curves, long lines. The smell of her hair, her clothes, her shoulders.
So he savored it now, all of it, with long, slow kisses that clouded his mind and made him forget there was anything beyond this room for either of them.
His hands were careful this time as he drew her sweater off, slipped the trousers down her hips. Rather than touch, rather than take, he kissed her again, drawing out the simple meeting of lips until her body went limp.
"Let me." With a dreamy murmur, she shifted until they were both kneeling. Already clouded, her eyes stayed on his while she unbuttoned his shirt. Trapped in the silky mood, she slipped it away and, with her hands resting lightly on his shoulders, swayed to him.
They held each other, moving only for quiet, sipping tastes, soft, gentle caresses. She smiled when his lips brushed her shoulder, sighed when hers tasted his throat.
When they were naked, he drew her down so that she lay over him, so that her hair fell to curtain them both.