‘How can I not?’ Sadie whispered back against his lips. ‘When it’s what I want to do…when I want to feel you and hold you…when I want…’
‘This?’ he suggested, thrusting rawly, rhythmically, faster and deeper, while she clung to him and gave herself up to the pleasure of his possession. His rhythm was taking her, driving her, towards the pinnacle that was now so enticingly within reach.
‘Drax…’ she appealed.
He drove harder, filling her, making her move urgently against him, and she stiffened as the pleasure exploded inside her, surge after surge of it, in waves of exquisite pulsing sensation as her body gripped and caressed his and she felt the liquid warmth of him spilling into her.
‘Drax,’ she whispered, lifting her hand to touch his face.
He captured it, pressing his lips to the palm of her hand and then saying rawly, ‘You are mine now. Mine for ever. My love and soon, I hope, my wife. You will marry me, won’t you, Sadie?’
She was too overwhelmed by her own emotions to do anything more than nod her head and let him hold her close while her body still quivered with small aftershocks of pleasure.
‘Shouldn’t you let Vere know that the storm is over and that you are safe?’ Sadie asked drowsily. ‘He’s bound to be worr
ying.’
‘There’s no mobile signal out here, but don’t worry. Vere will know that we are safe.’
‘Because he’s your twin and he will sense it?’ Sadie asked him
‘Yes.’
‘But that doesn’t mean he’ll know you’ve found me.’
She could hear the love in his voice when he told her softly, ‘Yes, it does. Because I told him when I left that I didn’t intend to return from the desert without you.’
They were married three weeks later—first in a civil ceremony, and then in the traditional manner of Dhurahn’s people, handfasted to one another by the tying of a silk scarf around their wrists as Drax held Sadie’s hand firmly in the grasp of his own, their fingers interlinked.
It was Vere who officiated at the ceremony, as Leader of his people, and Vere too who welcomed Sadie with the kindest of reassuring speeches—a public reiteration of the private assurance he had already given her that he was happy to welcome her as Drax’s wife.
It was a long day, with feasting and traditional dancing and singing, but finally they were alone.
‘I love you,’ Drax whispered as he took her in his arms in the privacy of their own quarters.
Beyond the large window moonlight glinted on the pool from which she had seen him emerging naked and had wanted him so fiercely. She wanted him just as fiercely now. But now she was free to tell him so—and to show him. She looked up at him, her feelings illuminating her expression.
‘When you look at me like that, I know that I am the most fortunate man on earth,’ Drax told her softly. ‘If I have one hope left now it is that Vere will find someone to love and be loved, as I love and am loved by you, Sadie.’
And then there was only silence, punctuated by the softness of Sadie’s long sighs of pleasure as he celebrated with her their commitment to one another.