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“It’s the perfect place and time for a declaration. Whenever I am inside you is the perfect time and place.”
She bit his jaw. “You’re not inside me anymore.”
His arms tightened around her back as he gathered her close. “Not until I’ve said it all. I’ve never truly had anything to lose, until you came along, crashing into my well-ordered life with your charm and your cleverness, and I was spellbound. The truth is, Bronwyn, I don’t know when you stole my heart, ragged, undeserving thing that it is, from right beneath my nose, but you have. It’s yours, even if you decide you don’t want it.”
She wanted it. She wantedhimmore than anything. But perhaps it was time for a little retribution. “I shall require convincing, sir. In fact, I shall require you to beg for my favor.”
Valentine met her eyes, and Bronwyn lifted a brow. “Dukes don’t beg.”
“Since when do you ever do anything society expects of you?”
“That is true.” He snorted. “I am admittedly an abysmal duke. I expect most of my tenants will scatter at the sight of me when I eventually go to Scotland.”
“Why would they?” she asked.
“I’m a harsh man, Bronwyn. I’m not likeable or young or perfect high society fodder. I’ve done and seen things that have changed me. I don’t know how to be a duke. How to be…the perfect gentleman.” Bronwyn’s breath hissed out. He wasn’t talking about Scotland at all.
“Be yourself. That is enough.”
“Is it?” When she nodded, he kissed her nose, eyes glinting with so much warmth—andlove—that her breath fizzled in her throat.
Bronwyn slid her arms up around his neck, needing to feel him close. It felt as if she was imagining the whole interlude. His openness. His sweetness. His tenderness. This vulnerable side of him that only she got to see. “You’ve always been enough, Valentine, whether you were an earl, a spy, or a duke. You just weren’t ready to accept that.”
***
Valentine bent to bury his nose in the crook of her neck, the skin there already cooling from the fine layer of perspiration on her velvety skin. She smelled of spiced apples, and he wanted to devour her whole. Her pulse rose and crashed at the base of her nape, but she remained excruciatingly silent on the subject of her true feelings. Of herlove. He supposed he deserved that…just because he had been ready didn’t mean she was. The thick wall of ice surrounding him had done its job well.Toowell. Perhaps she did not believe him.
His hopes plummeted, like a falling star. “I didn’t mean to spring this on you. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she rasped, the soft waft of her breath blowing into his hair. “I just need a minute.”
“I understand,” he whispered.
“What about everything you said before? That love wasn’t for you?”
He huffed, gliding his lips along her soft skin and feeling his cock twitch. His desire for her hadn’t abated in the least with his declaration. Instead, it had increased. “I guess I’m the fool then, aren’t I?” He kissed her eyelids. “To be bewitched by a pair of bright-blue eyes and a luscious mouth.” His lips moved to hers, for the sweetest graze from corner to corner before pressing into their plush depths. “A wicked tongue that could reduce the most hardened of men to mush.” His tongue licked hers in a move that made her gasp and writhe against him. “A brain that could bring any foe to mercy.”
“Valentine?”
“Yes, love?” he asked.
“Are you ever going to stop talking and finish what you started?” His little virago tightened her arms around his neck, hitched her fallen skirts, and hooked her legs over his hips. “Inquiring minds need to know.”
“As my lady wishes.”
When he slid into her anew, it felt like home. Where he belonged. And when he began to move, Valentine’s whole world shifted. So this was what it felt like to offer himself up fully, without holding back. He made love to her tenderly, despite their location, though when had that ever mattered to them? She hadn’t said she loved him back, but he would wait.
Bronwynwas worth the wait.
He felt her body tighten deliciously around him before she gasped out, fingers digging into his shoulders. “Faster.”
Valentine quickened his strokes, wanting to find his release with her, wanting this moment to be perfect. She was beautiful, caught in the throes of passion, lips parted, pupils dilated, her creamy skin marked with a beautiful flush. She would always be the most exquisite woman he’d ever seen. When she cried out, her muscles clenching around him as she tumbled over the precipice into bliss, again he gladly followed.
He’d follow her anywhere. Into pleasure. Into purgatory.
Into the unknown.
His release went on and on, as if that part of him, too, refused to let her go.
