Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match(91)

He felt his composure begin to break down. How had he been so slow to reach this surrender? “I will kill for you. I will live for you. I will allow myself to be spoiled by you. From this moment on, you are my wife.”

“Father Northcott, performing his own wedding vows?” Angelika replied with a pinch of sarcasm and sweat on her brow.

She still did not believe him.

He did not know where the strength came from, and there was no longer any pain. He stood up slowly, feeling her gasp, and her body clutched him tight everywhere. With strange ease, he stepped out of the tub, and now there was the sound of rainfall and a cold chill. They did not notice. The windowsill was a promising height, and he didn’t lose his deep seat inside her as he put her down and crowded into her open thighs. His world was narrow and tight, dripping wet, and he felt himself changing.

Beyond this leadlight window was the forest where he’d found her on her back, sleeping as if enchanted, having cheated death by inches, and he was becoming that wild creature that had fallen to his knees, terror in his heart.

“I’m going to keep doing this until you say yes,” he said, moving his hips, and she uttered a rich, desperate moan. “I will spoil you in ways you cannot imagine.”

Her eyes rolled closed, but he did not feel that vise-tight sensation that usually gave away her overloaded passion. He put his hands under her knees, and continued pushing and pulling her. “I want to have you like this every day, showing you how I love you, how I am desperate for you. Every blink of your eyes, and every tart reply, makes me store this up for later, when I take you to our bedroom. Do you want that life?”

Her hands were slipping on his wet shoulders. “Yes. I want that. Harder.”

He put his hand to where they were joined, and added a new tension to her next moan. When they made eye contact again, everything turned desperate.

Words were not possible any longer, and now he used his body and his lips to explain to her what she meant to him; that she was exceptional in every way, the most gloriously gorgeous, rightfully vain, brilliant person he would ever meet. Memories of her began to splinter in his mind as he thrust again and again, and she began to break down in ecstasy.

Trousers tight on her thighs, a sea sponge in her hand, the fall of her loose hair on her shoulder, biting into an unusual apple, the spark of light in her green eyes, and how she always looked at him: like she loved him beyond any sense, sidestepping the natural order of the universe with a grin and a quip . . .

Now she was traveling into that private landscape of ecstasy, her limbs jerking, her pulsing and pulling causing him to follow. He clutched her to his heart, and he felt like a wild animal. “I love you.” It was the truest thing he’d ever said, even if it was growled. “Marry me, for God’s sake, give yourself to me.”

He lifted his head as his body took care of his orgasm, tripping him back into jerks of sheer pleasure, over and over. He looked into her eyes, and she smiled.

“Yes. I consent to marry you, Arlo Northcott. But I have a complaint. This is not a story we can tell our children.”

She put her hand to his cheek and kissed him.

He’d never felt relief quite like this.





Chapter Thirty-Two


They belonged to each other now, forever, until death.

In the first rays of dawn, as Arlo swirled his hands on Angelika’s skin, he committed the sensation to memory. If his hands would not work, he would use his mouth to feel this otherworldly softness. He would adapt and change and live the life they had charted out together, in the quiet moments in between the breathless couplings.

He allowed himself to feel excited about Larkspur Lodge; she had described it to him so vividly that he had fallen asleep and dreamt he was walking the corridor, lined with ancestors’ and foxhunt paintings, toward their opulent bedroom overlooking the wild acres of garden.

The future glowed so bright it terrified him.

“I want to live,” he explained as she kissed his tears away. “The thought of dying now, when I have so many days and nights ahead with you . . . I cannot bear it.”

“I will keep you safe,” she replied, and because she’d proved it every other time, he chose to believe her.

Angelika was now lying across his body just like that very first morning, when he’d awoken in this rich girl’s bedroom with a mind like a blank slate. Thigh over his lap, cheek on his chest, she fit against him like a missing piece, now fully restored. Arlo closed his eyes, exhaled, and felt complete peace.

“I love you,” he told her, and although she was sleeping, she smiled.

And then, the bell above the front door downstairs rang.

Ding.

*

It interested Arlo to watch Angelika don her armor: that of a practically royal lady who held the power in every situation. She was apparently unfazed by the dawn visit and left the magistrate, the church aide, and Christopher to languish in the drawing room for going on a full hour as she readied herself for her day. Humming, she uncapped a bottle of perfume and breathed it in.

Arlo lay in bed with the sheet pulled up to his waist, feeling quite depleted, and decided to borrow a little of her self-assurance. His trousers lay in a damp heap by the bathtub, and he wasn’t keen to put them on. Like a rich man who cared for nothing but his own body, he stretched, enjoying her mattress and pillows.

“Are you nervous?” he asked, knowing what look she would give him in her mirror.