‘I don’t…I don’t think…’
‘You don’t need to think. Leave thinking for the morning, sweetheart,’ he told her. ‘You’re done.’
‘I am.’ She hesitated. ‘Hoppy’s asleep on the bed.’
‘So he is. You want me to shift him to the settee?’
‘I…No. It seems a shame to shift him.’
Right. Rose’s suite was the same as his. A living room with fire. Bedroom through the farther door. From where he stood her bed looked vast. Far too big for one. There was plenty of room for Rose to sleep and not disturb the dog. But…
‘Nick?’
‘Mmm?’
‘You wouldn’t like to share the settee with me?’
There was a moment’s pause while he thought about it. Her heartbeat was synchronised with his, he thought, and it felt fine. It felt right.
Share the settee. To sleep. But the way he was thinking of her…‘If we did that,’ he said cautiously, ‘we might just…’
‘Yes,’ she said, and it was an answer to a question he hadn’t asked.
‘Yes?’
‘Yes,’ she said again, and she smiled.
He put her at arm’s length, searching her face in the moonlight. Astounded. ‘Rose, are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you were so sure we shouldn’t.’
‘Yes, but things have changed,’ she whispered. ‘For tonight, it’s not the same. I don’t want to be an adventurer for tonight. What I’d really like is to be a wife.’
‘You are my wife,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re sure?’
‘Yes.’ And she smiled again.
He kissed her then, softly, sweetly. Wonderously. She melted into his kiss, and her arms wound round his neck and held.
‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘Nick, I need you. Please, I need you in my bed. You’re my husband, Nick, and I want to be your wife.’
And then, suddenly, before any more of these stupid scruples could get in the way, she tugged her chemise over her head. Underneath she was wearing scant lacy knickers. Nothing more. With her eyes not leaving his face, she slipped them down and let them fall, stepping out of them and taking a step back.
Standing before him in the firelight. Gloriously naked.
His wife.
Her auburn curls, loose and floating round her shoulders, almost seemed to be dancing in the firelight. Her eyes were too big in her too-pale face. Yet she smiled, tremulously, as if she wasn’t sure what she was offering was wanted.
How could she doubt that?
He caught her hands and held her out from him, glorying in her nakedness. Glorying in the fact that this could be happening. That such a woman could want him.
That such a woman could be his wife.
The words he’d spoken this afternoon came back to him, and they seemed so right. How could he ever have thought he’d never marry? He hadn’t understood until tonight what it was. Marriage. The joining of man and woman, making one.
But he needed to be sure. He wouldn’t take this woman unless she understood…
‘Rose, there’s the contraceptive thing.’
‘There’s condoms in my toiletries bag,’ she told him, and he almost gasped.
‘But you said…’
‘I know what I said,’ she told him. ‘But I was coming here to be married to the world’s sexiest man, and a girl would have to be crazy not to plan for all eventualities.’
The world’s sexiest man…
He needed to put that aside. ‘But if there’s a baby?’
‘There won’t be.’
‘Rose…’
‘Okay, there might be,’ she said. ‘Slight chance. I’m risking it.’
‘Earlier tonight you wouldn’t.’
‘Earlier tonight I was ten years younger than I am now. Nick, I need you. Are you saying no?’
‘Not just for sex, Rose.’ He shook his head, confused, but at some deep level understanding that he was in uncharted territory. This was important. A voice in the back of his head was hammering with dogged insistence,
He’d never felt like this about a woman, and he wouldn’t mess with it for want of patience, or for want of restraint, no matter how much that restraint might cost. He wouldn’t risk her waking in the morning and reacting with horror at what they’d done. ‘This needs to be an act of love,’ he said, and as he said it he knew that it was right. Something was changing inside him. Something he hadn’t been aware could be changed.
She was smiling in the firelight, standing on tiptoes so she could kiss him. His hands dropped to her waist, and the feel of her silk-smooth skin…
If she was to move away she had to do it now, he thought, and his thoughts were getting a little blurred. He was offering her the chance to change her mind, but a man was only human. If she said no now…
She did no such thing.
She lifted one of his hands from her waist, lifting it high so the back of his hand was against her cheek. So she could feel the roughness of his skin against her. Then she moved his hand slowly down, gently guiding it so the palm of his hand was cupping her breast.
It seemed she had no doubts. For this night, she was his wife. For this night, their vows would hold.
The terrors of the night, overwhelming, appalling, out of their world, were slipping away now as if they’d been a bad dream. This was the reality, and only this. She put her hands up and touched his face gently, tenderly, never letting her eyes move from his.
‘Nick.’
He bent and he kissed her.
And in that instant, her world readjusted. The awful tilting somehow righted itself. For this wondrous moment, the horrors of the night and the bleakness of the past few years made way for…
For Nick. For loving. For wonder. Nick’s mouth was on hers, and he tasted wonderful. His hands were on her waist, tugging her against him. His hands were a man’s hands, big, strong, but caressing with a tenderness that made her want to weep. But the time for weeping was past. She was tracing the contours of his cheeks with her fingers, feeling the roughness of the beginning of stubble, glorying in his sheer masculinity. It had been too long since she’d held a man. Any man. She’d loved Max, but for years he’d been ill, and her touch had needed to be tender. She’d been the one doing the giving.
Not here. Not now. She could feel the strength in Nick, the unleashed power, and she wanted it, oh, she wanted it. But she’d never guessed until this moment how much.
He was deepening the kiss, and she gloried in it. Her lips parted, and her tongue did its own exploring. Her breasts were pressed hard against him, against the soft linen of his shirt, feeling the strength of his chest. Feeling…
All she was doing was feeling. All she wanted to do was to feel. He’d kept his trousers and his shirt on during all the troubles of this night, but she wanted them gone now. But to ask him to remove them-to remove them herself-was to break the moment. And how could she?
It was Nick who paused. It was Nick who moved back, just a little, holding her at arm’s length so he could look into her eyes. His eyes were dark in the firelight, almost black, and when he spoke his voice was deep and husky with desire.
