Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match(90)

“It would be cruel to not let her have you for the hours, days, months, and years you may have remaining,” Lizzie said. “Whatever happens, we will take care of her. But for this moment, that is up to you. She needs you. Find that romantic story inside yourself. Never have I heard of one so extraordinary.”

Arlo rose from his chair and threw his napkin aside. He didn’t utter any polite good-evenings, but instead pushed through several mahogany doors until he was at the stairs. It made him think back to that first night, when Angelika had half carried him into her bedroom. In every step he took, there was a blade-on-bone kind of pain, and a thousand little deaths. The automatic thought came to him now: I think I’m dying.

Stubbornly, he rebutted it. I think I’m living.

The portrait of Caroline Frankenstein glowered contemptuously down at him as he climbed. Her look was, You believe yourself worthy of my daughter?

“I am not, fair lady,” Arlo replied out loud, “but I am who she wants, and I allow myself to be chosen.” It was a waste to spend another moment without Angelika. “I wish to marry her. I need to marry her. And I don’t want to die.”

Admitting this, no matter how undeserved, gave him the boost he needed to take the stairs two at a time. Light-headed, breathless, cold, and in agony, he was about ready to push through her bedroom door when Sarah appeared behind him bearing two heavy buckets.

“I’ll take them,” Arlo said. “Thank you, Sarah.” The girl blushed red, of course, but she was happy enough to put the handles in his palms. His hands were fading by the moment—how many more pails of water? How many more strokes of his love’s skin? Forget all that, he told himself firmly, and pushed open her door.

“I’m here,” he said.

Angelika was sitting in the half-filled tub, her arms around her knees. “What do you want, Arlo?”

He poured the first pail of water in at her feet. “I beg you. Please marry me.”

A sigh was the only reply.

The second pail went in, and he was also pouring his heart into the crystal-clear warm water. She did not lift her head to see him unbuttoning his shirt. Perhaps she heard the fabric moving, but his bride was stubborn, and that porcelain cheek remained on her forearm.

She definitely felt the shift in water as he put one foot into the tub, then the other, then he sank in behind her. The flawless expanse of her back, and the curves of her neck and waist, had his cock as hard as iron. He put an arm around her collarbone and eased her back from her braced position.

He used his hands to stroke her, wash her, pleasure her . . . but she did not reply.

“I’m not afraid anymore,” he explained. “I will be married to you, and I will be your husband, until I die. It is the only thing I want from this new life.”

Her breath shuddered out, and her spine softened, and she grew heavier in his arms. He watched his hands touching her: wrists, the bends of her elbows, the heavy palmfuls of breast, and the flat stomach that he would try to stretch full, in time, if miracles did exist. He ignored the knowledge that his fingertips were fading like the stars at dawn; right now, in this exact moment in time, he could still feel the wrinkles at her nipples and the hollows of her collarbones.

“This is only what your body wants,” she countered in a whisper.

She was sad, even as she pressed her bottom against him. He knew the signs that she was becoming restless with need; her chest was blushed pink, her thighs were squeezing and relaxing, and she dropped her head back on his shoulder to give him access to her throat.

“I am my body, and my soul,” Arlo countered as he kissed. “All of me wants to be your husband. Please allow me this honor.”

“I want to be married in a cathedral,” she said, and his heart soared with hope. She hid how serious she was with a flippant “But I suppose you would not want that.”

“That is what I want.” Scandal, gossip, his background exposed, jokes at her expense . . . nothing could touch them. “I will be there with you, and that is what you shall have.”

She pulled away, and his hopes began to falter . . . until she got to her knees, turned, and straddled his lap. The bathwater was now an ocean. Between their bodies, his arousal was hard, and her tight fist squeezed out his breath.

“I want a honeymoon that lasts a year,” Angelika told him as she lifted her body, aligned him, and began to sink.

“Fine,” Arlo choked out.

“I want to see the world. I will be extravagant in every regard, and I am a ridiculous traveler.”

“I already know that.”

She leaned herself back, to find the angle she liked best. “But I do not suppose you would enjoy that type of life, being taken everywhere with me, put into my bed, and bought anything I think you will enjoy. Ships, horses, carriages. Spices, tapestries, wine.” She was losing her breath. “Then, we shall return to Larkspur Lodge, where I will have our first baby.”

“That is all I want.”

He was having trouble thinking, but she deserved so much more. He angled his pelvis, and focused. “I was too much of a coward to say everything I want, because I feel like I could lose everything again. But it is no use; I simply must have you. All I have to give you is this, my body”—his breath stuttered in his chest as the water crested—“but even as I become completely myself again, I will still love you as I do now. Fiercely, violently, in ways that scare me. I vow to you that I will not change.”