His answering groan and thrust deep, deep inside her confirmed he’d reached this wondrous place, too.
They gasped and clung, lips touching, chests heaving, brow to brow, cheek to cheek. He tried to say something but finally shook his head and collapsed to his side, bringing her with him. Wordlessly, he tucked her against his body. She opened her mouth, feeling she must say something, but he shook his head again and whisked his finger across her lips. Not yet.
Before she could take another breath, her solicitous, remarkable intended tumbled into an exhausted sleep.
She could only sigh, laugh, and join him, her heart lighter than a butterfly’s wings.
* * *
She wasn’t alone.
The panicked realization ripped through Raine’s mind before she remembered. Blinking, she rose to her elbow, her hair a flaxen shroud falling over the man whose shoulder she’d been using as a pillow. Christian’s breathing was even, his lids fluttering with dreams she hoped she inhabited. She looked to the window, determined it to be an hour or so before dawn. She’d need to leave him soon, creep back to the attic, and pretend she’d been there all night.
Instead of what she’d been doing, which was planning her future.
Raine dropped her cheek to her hand, allowing herself a moment to watch him. Record every inch of him as she’d been too occupied during the night to do. The sheet was tangled about his long legs and drawn judiciously to his trim waist. His belly rose and fell with his breaths. She trailed a finger up his chest, traced a crescent scar on his neck, marveled at eyelashes that looked like the tips had been dipped in amber.
He wasn’t perfect. He had a temper. He was impulsive. Even a little arrogant. But he was also generous. Considerate. Shy, unbelievably. And so talented he made her proud when she’d no reason to claim the sentiment.
He was a sincere man in a society of impersonators.
And he was hers.
“Your scrutiny is lighting me up like you pressed a glowing ember against my skin,” he whispered and rolled over her, their bodies settling flawlessly into place. “I’m a watchmaker without a timepiece. How long do we have?” He gazed to the window, chewed his bottom lip in deliberation. “I have an appointment with Devon at nine, the courtesy of informing him of our upcoming nuptials before any bit of nonsense about us is repeated. In light of your father not being here for me to ask. Though once we return to London, it’s my first task.”
Her heart squeezed. Love was a powerful drug, indeed. “We have ten minutes, maybe fifteen.”
He nodded, the keen glow in his eyes sending a serrated pulse through her. “I’ll make it work.”
“We’ll see,” she said as he dipped his head to nibble on a sensitive spot beneath her jaw. Both times during the night had taken longer, much longer.
“Oh, love, just watch me.” His hand swept low, his fingers, his tongue, his teeth following just behind, turning her world upside down. “And you know what they say. Third time’s a charm.”
So, she did. And it was.
Chapter 7
Christian was rarely nervous.
However, the Duke of Devon’s regard across the breakfast table was unflinching, rather like Christian had felt upon being summoned to the headmaster’s office at Harrow. Which, due to his tenacious nature, had occurred often.
After escorting Raine to her attic chamber without incident just before dawn, he’d taken a stroll around the estate, nerves snapping, pulse drumming. Nervousness was allowed; it wasn’t every day a man publicly professed his love and intention to marry the woman of his dreams. Across the sloping lawn, over the bridge, and past the spot where he and Raine had shared the first of what would surely be many arguments, he’d considered his future and his extreme good fortune.
He was, after all, gaining a passionate wife.
And passionate women didn’t always do what their men wanted them to.
When the sun had risen high enough in a vivid blue sky to designate it appropriate, he’d gone in search of James Hampton, the fourth Duke of Devon. Surprisingly, Christian was directed to the breakfast room, where His Grace, an early riser unlike most of the useless fops in the ton according to the footman, was having tea while reviewing an ironed edition of The Times.
To say His Grace’s glittering green gaze could cut glass as he waited for his watchmaker to get to the point would be apropos. Christian sipped his tea when he much preferred coffee and practiced his entry into the conversation. You see, Your Grace, ten years ago…
“Let me expedite the process as you’re about to splash tea on your waistcoat. You’ve come to alert me to the fact that Miss Mowbray will not be in my employ for any longer than it takes you to finish calibrating my clocks. Does that adequately summarize the situation?”
Christian’s cheeks stung, emotion flowing freely across his face an embarrassing predicament since he was a child. And then it occurred to him that someone in the house may have seen them sneaking through the halls this morning, fingers linked, faces aglow. “I don’t… that is to say, Miss Mowbray…”
The duke laughed, bringing his napkin to his lips to hide it. “You’ve not been caught if that’s your concern. And if it is, I’m heartily glad you’re making the expedient decision to offer for the girl.” He dusted his lips with the linen square and laughed again, truly the first time Christian had known the man to show such cheerfulness. Being a source of entertainment was starting to nip at his self-esteem as much as embarrassment had his cheeks. “Calm down, my man. Miss Mowbray spoke to someone in the household, a request for feminine advice, I believe. It traveled from there,
