She looked into his eyes, her own clear and unshielded, then she smiled, closed her hands in his jacket and tugged him nearer. “And you.”
He lowered his head and kissed her-she lifted her face and kissed him back, generous, welcoming, infinitely giving.
Releasing her face, he reached for her, closed his arms around her and drew her flush against him. Angled his head, deepened the kiss.
And gave them both what they wanted.
Simply let loose the pent-up passion, the inevitable reaction to those fraught moments on the beach. Suppressed until now, passion became desire, and desire transmuted to need; it swirled up and through him, and flowed into her, welling, swelling, seeking release.
His unqualified surrender let her do the same, let her gift him with her passion, her desire and her need, in response, in reply.
For long moments, nothing else mattered but that simple communion, that long-drawn-out kiss, that recognition, that savoring, that elemental understanding.
They needed this. For much the same reasons, they had to have this-this moment, this time, this reassurance.
This knowing. A primitive acknowledgment that they’d both survived, that both were there, whole and unharmed, triumphant and victorious.
That underneath all, regardless of all, each meant the world to the other.
Need welled, burgeoned, filled them.
Their lips parted; they caught their breaths, lips burning, lids lifting, eyes meeting from only inches apart, and suddenly, desperately, they needed it all.
Had to share all they were. Had to seize all, each heated second, each heartbeat, each touch, each burning caress.
Clothes shed, peeled from damp flesh, then let fall unheeded to the floor to scatter and heap as they would. Getting their wet boots off left them both laughing, an insane moment of indescribable relief before their gazes clashed, and hunger, both familiar and different, somehow edged with something finer, keener, some deeper shade of meaning, flared anew.
Took hold and drove them.
Into each other’s arms.
Into heated nakedness where the only thing that mattered was to feel hot skin against skin, to grasp and caress, to touch, to worship-to possess.
To want.
Beyond words, beyond description.
Gasping, nearly blind, they tumbled onto clean sheets, onto a thick mattress that cushioned and cradled, amid pillows that tumbled around them.
She spread her thighs, clasped his flanks; he rose over her, reached between them and cupped, caressed, and she cried out.
Shifting, he bent his head, captured her lips, took her mouth, then with one powerful thrust joined with her.
Whirled them into the familiar dance.
Familiar, yet different.
Acceptance, a knowing; closeness, a giving. The moments spun out, spiraled, stretched.
Together they strove, together they gloried.
They reached the familiar peak and clung…until ecstasy shattered them, fractured them, fused them-left them floating, drifting as one, exquisite satiation flowing through their veins, the slowing thunder of their pulses a soothing rhythm in their ears.
With love, simple and pure, a shining magnificence filling both their hearts.
Dawn broke; about them, the castle awoke. Slumped amid the tangled covers of his bed, they slept on.
The sun was slanting in through the windows when Gervase awoke.
Even before he opened his eyes, even before his mind engaged, he knew. At some primal level he recognized, not just the warm body lying half over him, her breast pressed to his chest, his arm cradling her, her long legs tangled with his, but what had changed.
What had lent their familiar landscape that gilded edge.
His lips were curving even before he opened his eyes. He glanced at her, at the jumbled tumble of rippling locks that screened her face. Felt her stirring, as if sensing his wakefulness, she was waking, too.
Then awareness reinfused her limbs. Raising a hand, she brushed her hair out of her face and glanced up.
He smiled-at her, into her eyes. He couldn’t recall ever feeling so joyous, let alone letting it so blatantly show.
Puzzled, she searched his eyes. “What?”
His smile only deepened. He looked up at the canopy to hide any smugness in his grin. “You’re going to marry me.”
She didn’t immediately reply. He glanced down-and saw it was taking her a moment to assemble a frown. She managed one, of faint disgruntlement rather than anger, and directed it at him. “Why do you think that? I haven’t agreed to accept any offer, nor have you made one, if you recall.”
His grin returned. “I know. But I will, and you will. You’ve made your decision. You’ve made up your mind.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You can’t know that.”
Holding her gaze, he smiled, a softer gesture. Lifting one hand, he smoothed back her hair, but kept his eyes on hers. “I do know. You’re in my bed. Naked in the Earl of Crowhurst’s bed where only countesses of Crowhurst have ever lain.”
Arching her brows, she struggled up; leaning on his chest, she made a show of looking around the large room.
He laughed, rocking her; he closed his arms loosely around her. “You knew that last night when we came in. You didn’t bother mentioning it because in your mind it no longer mattered.”
When she looked back at him, he tightened his arms in a gentle hug. “And you were right. You belong here. In this room, in this bed, with me. This is where you should-and will-spend your nights for the rest of your life. Here, with me.”
She continued to look at him as if uncertain how to deal with him, with his sudden and absolute knowledge.
He arched a brow and tried for a vulnerable expression and tone-not easy at the best of times. “Am I wrong?”
Entirely unintentionally Madeline laughed. Still trying to narrow her eyes at him, and failing, she pushed back from his chest to flop on her back beside him, so she could stare at the canopy, too. “I do hope this isn’t going to be a habit of yours-being so disgustingly all-knowing.”
He chuckled; finding her hand with one of his, he linked his fingers with hers, raised them to his lips and pressed a lingering kiss to her knuckles. “Only with you.”
She humphed.
After a moment-a moment in which they both, she was sure, looked ahead into the joint future that had, entirely unexpectedly, opened before them-he asked, “What persuaded you? What changed your mind?”
She was silent for a while, thinking back. Eventually, she said, “As you no doubt intended, it’s been made transparently obvious to me over the past several weeks that you are truly in desperate need of a wife, not least to manage all the aspects of your life as earl that you are patently ill-equipped to deal with yourself, and that Sybil, your sisters, Muriel, my brothers and with few if any exceptions the entire local community-and even your ex-colleagues and ex-commander-believe that duty should fall to me.”
“And that convinced you?”
She heard the surprise, nay, skepticism, in his voice and smiled; he did know her well. “No. That only made me more uneasy. Everyone here had viewed me as a lady who didn’t need to marry, who’d been excused from marriage for over a decade, and then, just like that, they changed their minds? They might have been right, but what did they know of me?” She waved dismissively. “I’d never been a young lady looking for marriage-they’d never seen that side of me. I’d never put it on show. They’d seen me only as my brother’s surrogate…what did they know of that other me?”
He waited a heartbeat, then asked, “So what tipped the scales my way?”
She felt her lips curve. “You…and in a strange way, our villain, or rather his machinations and how we dealt with them. You, in that you made the effort to see me, the real me. You never had before, but then you somehow stepped back and gained a different, deeper and truer perspective…and once you had, you didn’t retreat but instead started to deal with me as me, not as who everyone else thought I was. That was strange and unnerving and unsettling at first, but…in some ways it’s been a freedom, a freeing. With you, I can be who I am without any veil or disguise-I can be the me I never thought I’d have a chance to be.”