Page 65 of Courting Elizabeth

Heat rushed to my temples.

“And if I wish for something else?”

He remained crouched by the fire, motionless.

“You must be certain.”

“You always ask me to be certain. I’m beginning to believe you never are.”

He straightened slowly.

“I am certain that I want you. That’s precisely the danger.”

The groom was a few yards away, separated from us by a wall and the sound of the rain. The door was closed. We were married. Nothing in this situation was truly forbidden, yet the isolation lent each word the intensity of transgression.

I approached the fire.

“Kiss me.”

He came to me.

His mouth was warm despite the cold. I closed my arms around his back and felt the water from his shirt against my chest. He held me beneath his coat, one hand at my waist, the other in my wet hair.

The kiss deepened almost immediately. There was nothing but the rain striking the stone and the fire beginning to catch.

I slid my hands over his chest.

The wet linen hid almost nothing. I felt the firmness of his body, the muscles contracting beneath my palms. He groaned when my fingers found the opening of his shirt.

“You like that sound,” I murmured.

“You like provoking it.”

“Perhaps.”

He kissed me harder.

His hands slid down to my hips. He lifted me and set me on the table, exactly as in his study. My wet skirts hung heavy around my legs.

“Pemberley’s furniture inspires strange uses in you,” I said.

“I’ll have a list of recommendations drawn up.”

I laughed against his mouth.

Then his hand slipped beneath my knee.

The laughter died.

He moved slowly up along my calf, beneath the layers of my skirt. His fingers were warm on my cold skin. I gripped his shoulders.

He slowed when he reached my garter and looked up at me.

I took his wrist and guided his hand higher.

His touch traveled up my bare thigh, beneath the layers of skirt and petticoat. I had never been touched there. The intimacy of it made me close my eyes.

“Look at me,” he said.