Forever My Love (Berkeley-Faulkner #2)(115)

His powerful hands closed carefully over her wrists,mindful of their fragility, and he pulled her hands away from her face. “This is not a castle. It’s a home, yours as well as mine. There is nothing in it that can’t be replaced if you break it. In fact, we can afford to rebuild and refurnish this whole damned place several times over. Does that make you feel better?”

“No. It is a palace, and it is too big, and it unnerves me. I would rather live in a cottage.”

“My sweet love, picture a cottage. Four walls and a door. Our home is merely a variation on the same theme, except that there are more walls and more doors. I am reasonably well-versed in the principles of architecture—trust me.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “You would say anything in order to make me more resigned to all of this.”

“Anything,” he agreed readily.

“But my perspective of these walls and doors is very different from yours. You are a duke, and you are accustomed to this, having been brought up to—”

“Don’t think of me as a duke. Think of me as your husband.” He sent her a beguiling smile. “Now, don’t you want to sit by the fire with the man who loves you?”

“On that expensive counterpane—”

“Bedspread,” he corrected. She smiled reluctantly, her mild panic subsiding, and she allowed him to pull her down onto the soft, cushiony counterpane. Leaning her back against his chest, she stared dreamily into the fire, comfort seeping into every pore of her skin. He was right. Names and objects did not matter. Only this mattered. Only him. “I thought every woman wanted to be carried away to a castle,” Alec said, ducking his head to kiss the soft place where her neck joined her shoulder. “And kept safe and sheltered—”

“While you’re away?”

“Yes, fighting the dragons.”

“No. I intend to keep close by your side, fighting them with you.““But how unfair for the dragons.” She twisted around with a smothered laugh, intending to pummel him playfully. Her gown became tangled around her legs, and her br**sts brushed against his chest, and the veil of silk that covered her bosom did nothing to muffle the sensation of her flesh pressing into his. His body was warm, vital, hard against hers. Motionless, Mira absorbed the abrupt plunging sensation inside her abdomen, the quick throb between her legs. She took a slack, unsteady breath. “No mercy for dragons,” she said, mesmerized by his lazy smile.

“Nor for husbands, it seems.” Alec rolled her onto her back, looking down at her with eyes that shone like quicksilver. He hooked his fingers in the bodice of her gown and pulled it down her body, tugging briefly as it caught at her hips. Then the silk was thrust aside, and Mira quivered as his na**d chest lowered over hers. He kissed her unhurriedly. So sweet, this closeness. • Her body, tender and supple underneath him. And his, racked with alternate drafts of hunger and relief.

The remainder of his clothes were cast aside. “I love you,” she whispered, saying the words without expectation, without demand, without fear. The way that they were meant to be said, as a gift of emotion, a declaration that to him was unequaled in value. He answered her with the same words, and with his body, and with a heart that had once scorned love as something that did not exist. His reason fled, and just as the times that had gone before this, sex became an act without calculation, without thought. Blinding excitement poured through and between them, around them with white heat. All of his senses were focused on her… Mira in the firelight, her hair entangling him in lengths of dark silk, her delicate hands slipping over his tensile strength.Her skin was as soft as down. His hands moved over her, his touch bold, then excruciatingly light, slipping from the full swell of her h*ps to her finely boned shoulders. A muted whisper fell from her lips as his palm curved over the gentle rise of her br**sts, brushing over the tips of them in a teasing caress. Alec pressed his mouth to the hollow of her throat, and the touch of his tongue awakened her nerves into trembling awareness. Another damp stroke between her br**sts… eagerly she arched up to him, groaning his name as his mouth dragged slowly up the warm slope… so damned slowly, making her wait even though he knew what he was doing to her. Finally his lips reached her nipple, and she purred with pleasure. His tongue feathered over her artfully, tracing around the outline of the aroused peak.

Weakly she abandoned herself to him and the torment that he wrought so expertly on her body. The light of the flames struck off the ebony filaments of his hair, and her fingers sank into the thickness of it before slipping down to his powerful shoulders. At her touch they flexed involuntarily. Alec lifted his head, closing his eyes as her fingertips wandered along his spine, pressing lightly into the hollows. His mouth returned to her flesh, endlessly craving the taste of her.

“So beautiful…” he muttered, his voice low and ragged. “I want to know you better than any human being has ever known another.”

“You do. You have.”

He looked at her, his eyes shining hotly, and the merest intimation of a smile touched his lips as he read the sincerity in her expression. “Have I?” he asked, and as if to prove her wrong, he touched her in ways that he never had before, discarding more of his restraint. His hands curved around her bu**ocks, massaging and cupping… and suddenly his fingers dipped into the crevice between them, causing her to flushscarlet and writhe away from him. “Alec,” she choked in protest, startled by the intimacy, and he laughed softly, withdrawing his hands to a less disturbing place. Effortlessly his knees spread hers.