Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(89)

“Yes.” She wrapped her thighs tightly over his hips, embracing him the only way she could. “Always.”

“I want to fill you with my seed. I want you to bear my child.” His pace quickened; his eyes squeezed shut.

“Gray,” she gasped, feeling a rush of pleasure as he tilted his hips. Now his pelvis ground against hers, lifting her to a higher plane of ecstasy with each deep thrust. Her mouth fell open as pleasure mounted within her, spiraling up and up.

“I want you,” he growled, his fingers tightening over hers. “I want the truth.”

He froze. Time slowed, teetered on the edge of an abyss.

“I want the truth,” he repeated, pushing into her again. Then he stopped, completely sheathed in her, the full length of him filling her, pressing hard against her womb. He released her hands and bent over her, burying his face in her neck.

“God, sweet, can’t you understand? I want you. All of you. I want to know you, inside and out. I want you to know me. Nothing will change that, I swear to you. You can tell me anything. I’m ready to hear it.”

With trembling hands, she cradled his head. “I love you.”

“That’s not …” He stiffened in her arms and began to withdraw. Sophia arched her body and clasped him to her, drawing him back in. “Oh, God,”

he groaned, sinking into her again. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Isn’t it?” She wove her fingers into his hair and kissed his earlobe. “Gray, it’s the truth. I love you.”

The muscles of his neck went rigid under her fingertips. His hands slid down to cup her bottom, lifting her hips. Oh, and now he was so deep, so solid inside her. The tempo of his thrusts increased, driving her to a helpless crescendo.

Ragged breaths scorched her ear. “Tell me again. Tell me the truth.”

“I love you.”

Faster, now. Urgent. Desperate. She was soaring toward release.

“Tell me more,” he demanded, his teeth scraping her shoulder.

“You love me, too.”

His lips found hers, and then the truth was there—in this kiss, in their joining, in the exquisite pleasure that shuddered through them both and the hot bursts flooding her womb.

They collapsed together, damp with sweat and gasping for breath. He lay still only moments before starting again, seeding light kisses along her neck, palming her breast in his callused hand.

“You are so beautiful,” he sighed into her hair.

She tried to check her girlish giggle, unsuccessfully. “Gray, it’s dark as pitch. You can’t even see me.”

“Even in the dark,” he murmured against her skin. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, even in the dark.”

Suddenly, it was tears Sophia fought to suppress. She lost that battle, too.

“I swear I’ll never leave you,” he whispered. “I said it before, and I mean it still. I don’t care what you’ve done in the past, because your future is with me. If I never learn your name, it doesn’t matter. I intend to give you mine.”

He rose up on one elbow and smoothed the hair from her brow. His smile was a flash of white in the dark. “You can be ‘Mrs. Grayson’ to the world, but to me … to me, you’ll always be ‘sweet.’ I don’t think I could call you anything else.”

Sophia swallowed hard. Did he mean what she thought he meant? “Are you certain? I may still get my courses.”

“I’m certain. I’ve never been more certain.”

“I thought you weren’t the marrying sort.”

“I wasn’t. And it’s a damn good thing, too, or I’d be off with some inconvenient wife instead of here with you.” His hand drifted down to her belly. “You could be carrying my child. I want our child. I want a life with you.”

Hope fluttered in her chest. “Gray …”

“Shhh.” He laid a finger against her lips. “Don’t say anything, unless it’s yes.”

The silence was unbearable, the darkness palpable.

Gray kept his finger against her lips, suddenly afraid to move. If he released her and she didn’t say yes …

Doubt seeped into his mind, inviting panic to follow. How had he come to care so deeply for this woman, in just a few short weeks? How had he come to care so deeply for anything? And how did he dare to believe he deserved her, deserved this happiness?

Her lips trembled under his touch; or perhaps his finger trembled against her lips. He felt as though a heavy weight balanced on the fulcrum of his heart. One sigh, one breath from her could topple it. Could crush him. She swallowed, and beneath his fingertip, her lips thinned, separated. A slender crescent of white rent the dark. She was smiling. Don’t hope, he bade his hammering heart. Women smile with regret asoften as not.

Slowly, he slid his finger downward, releasing her. The world stilled. He felt like a convict awaiting his sentence, absurdly hoping for life imprisonment.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Yes?” Hearing it once was not enough.

The crescent of white swelled, like a waxing moon. “Yes.”

He clutched her shoulders. “Yes,” he prompted again. Hearing it twice was not enough, either.

She hugged him close, her legs over his hips and her arms linked around his neck. He was still inside her, and she tightened around him there, too. Arousal pulsed in his groin, and he began to thicken once again in her velvet embrace.