He held her gaze and shook his head. “I might experience those feelings for inanimate works of art, but they are nothing but pale wraiths compared to what I feel for you—the feelings you evoke in me.”
She allowed her lips to lightly curve. “It seems we’re a matched pair. I hoped that was so, and put simply, I couldn’t let tonight slip by. I have to know where desire and passion can lead me—even if for only one night.”
The comment jerked Godfrey back to earth. He stared at her while an immediate rejection of her words rose in a turbulent wave from the deepest part of him. Yes, she’d made her feelings clear, and he appreciated how much courage that must have taken, for a lady of her station to come to his room and so clearly state why. To so unequivocally admit and honor her own feelings, her desires and wants.
He drew her to him again and, bending his head, took the lips she offered in a kiss that, within seconds, transformed into a ravenous melding of their lips, a heated duel of their tongues.
Passion ignited, powerful and pure.
No, he wasn’t going to resist.
With them both clinging to the kiss, he backed her toward the bed, and she readily fell in with his direction.
Yet…she’d given him her truth. Didn’t she deserve his in return?
By the time the backs of her legs met the edge of the mattress, they were both hot and heated, and the passion the kiss had called forth was just this side of searing. He pulled back and raised his head.
He looked into her eyes, large, wide, bright with desire. “Obviously”—his voice was a gravelly growl—“our feelings—our wants and needs—are entirely compatible.” He dragged in a breath and locked his eyes with hers. “But I’ve been down this road before. I know what my feelings usually are.” He shook his head. “What I feel for you, when I’m with you… That—this—is something else. Something extraordinary.”
Holding her gaze, he struggled to find the right words. “You are the only woman I’ve ever imagined a future with—something that lasts for far longer than one night. Even before we’ve enjoyed this night, explored where our mutual passions lead us, I know—to the depths of my soul know—that I will want to remain with you, to stand beside you, not just for tomorrow but for however long I can.”
Suddenly, the words were there, pouring over his tongue. “I want to be by your side to protect you and your family against whatever might come, not just next week but through the coming decades. I want to live with you, to make a life with you.” He paused, then said, “I’ve never wanted that with anyone else.”
Her eyes couldn’t get any wider; he wondered if it was his imagination that stars now shone in their depths.
The sight compelled him to admit, “To me, you are unique. Uniquely wonderful in that you are the key that opens the door to my most-desired future. A future I hadn’t even sighted before I came here and met you.”
“Oh.” A wealth of wonder shivered through that single syllable. Her hand rose to lightly touch his cheek, almost as if to convince herself he was real.
He hauled in a breath and forced himself to go on, to say what he had to say. “So, dearest Ellie, you need to know, to understand, before we take any irrevocable step, that if we do go on, if we take that step, then I will strive to make all those things I want come true.” His voice lowered. “That I will move heaven and earth to seize that future I didn’t know existed before I saw you.”
Ellie blinked and blinked again. Joy of a type she had never felt was geysering through her. This man, something in her chanted. This man.
His chest swelled against her breasts as he drew in another, this time shaky breath and, his eyes locked with hers, asked, “Is that what you want?”
She didn’t have to think. She pushed her hands over his shoulders, wound her arms about his neck, stretched up, and kissed him again—this time with all the pent-up longing in her soul. “Yes,” she breathed when she drew back. She raised her eyes to meet his. “Yes,” she affirmed, “I want you. For tonight and for however many nights you and Fate allow me.”
The tension that had held him eased as uncertainty fled; for once, she could read that clearly in his face. His eyes hawk bright, he returned, “Fate will no doubt have her say, but for me, that means forever.”
“Forever,” she agreed.
He smiled, the edge passion had lent his features still evident. “For us, forever starts tonight.”
She felt her lips irrepressibly lift and pressed closer as he bent his head.
Their next kiss sent flames dancing across her skin as their passions, unleashed, roared to unrestrained life.
Despite that, he was, indeed, the master she’d imagined him to be; he refused to rush, even when, driven by an urgency she could barely comprehend, she tugged and insisted.
He soothed and treated her to another caress, then another even more evocative, until her head spun and her wits careened so wildly she lost touch with them entirely, even while her senses danced.
Waltzed to a tune he orchestrated.
Passion rose and fell, wave after wave, building and steadily rising higher and higher in a tide that swept all modesty and hesitations aside.
Desire swelled to a tumult in her blood, compelling and insistent.
Between them, they stripped off her clothes, then his.
And no matter what he thought, he was an artwork in her eyes; the long, sculpted muscles of his back, buttocks, and thighs formed a line she could gaze at for hours.
Not that she caught more than a glimpse, and when he turned back to her, all capacity for thought fled.
Then he lay beside her, and she couldn’t resist setting her hands to the naked planes of his chest and exploring.
He allowed it, but that was only the first minor act in a glory of mutual adventuring as they learned and explored each other’s bodies, each other’s reactions, and she discovered another level of sensation and feeling—uncovered another plane of tenderness, devotion, and reverence to this, to the moment, to the togetherness it wrought.
And through it all, her need only swelled.
By the time he moved over her, she was aching with that need, so empty and yearning she could barely wait for him to join with her and complete her.
Complete them; when he thrust in and pain briefly flared and she froze, with his muscles unforgivingly locked, he held steady above her.
Until she exhaled, then tentatively moved. The sensations were so much more than she’d imagined, so evocative, so truly intimate. From beneath her lashes, she met his eyes, then she smiled, tightened her arms around him, and whispered, “Come on.”
He exhaled in a rush, then filled his lungs and complied and taught her what she’d never thought she would learn. He showed her the pathways of pleasure.
The end, when it rolled over them, shattered their senses and filled their minds with the blinding brilliance of searingly intense sensation. To her, it felt as if the power released was so great, it fundamentally altered the bedrock of her being.
The sensation crested and broke, leaving glory spreading through them, warmth and lingering pleasure diffusing beneath their skins, and in her mind, it was as if a bell tolled.
In recognition of a new state—a new life?
Exhausted, he slumped upon her; she rather liked feeling his weight draped protectively over her. But then he lifted and disengaged and rolled to lie on his back by her side. Unable to stop smiling, she turned, snuggled closer, and settled her head on his shoulder. He softly grunted and draped an arm around her, and she slid her leg over his.