Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
“Rhys.” She slid her fingers through his cropped hair. “Yes.”
And then he stopped.
He froze, deep inside her, panting against the curve of her neck.
Her hips writhed with need. God, she was so close. Did he mean to torture her?
“I can’t do this,” he said, gasping for breath.
“What do you mean?” She cinched her legs about his waist. Her intimate muscles tightened around him, too, and he groaned with pleasure.
“I just can’t. Not like this.” He huffed against her neck. “The damned dogs are chewing my boots.”
With a gasp, Meredith twisted and craned her neck to see. Sure enough, there the two hounds sat at his feet, nipping at the tassel of his Hessian where it tangled with the hem of her shift.
She couldn’t help it. She laughed. And after a moment, he joined her, chuckling low against her neck.
He lifted his head to meet her gaze. They stayed like that for a moment, joined in body, both breathing hard, laughing with their eyes and speaking without words.
An unbearable sweetness bloomed in Meredith’s heart, filling her chest and spreading out to her limbs. They’d begun this in a frenzy of anger and desperation, and all it took was one minute of his skin against hers for benign normalcy to prevail. It was just as he’d been saying from the very beginning. Being together just felt so right.
With trembling hands, she stroked his hair. His eyes shone with affection and vulnerability, and she had a sinking feeling that they looked that way because they were reflecting the unguarded emotion in hers.
He swallowed hard, and she cupped his face in her palms. “Oh, Rhys.”
I love you, she thought. I am hopelessly in love with you, and you’re leaving me at dawn.
“Don’t say it,” he said. “I know.”
Still erect and deeply planted within her, he cupped her backside in his hands and lifted her away from the door. He turned, taking hobbled steps toward the bed, and gently laid her on the mattress without ever withdrawing from her body.
Easing her backward, he joined her on the bed, boots and all. The hounds, deprived of their amusement, returned to the hearthrug.
She was under him on the bed, completely surrounded by his strength and protected from the chill. And she’d never felt so afraid, so lonely and cold.
He tugged at the hem of her shift, pulling it up to her midriff. “Take this off. I want to see you. I need to see you—”
One last time.
The unspoken words gave her gooseflesh. But even though she shivered as she did it, she eased the chemise up and drew it over her head, casting it aside. She pulled at his shirt next, as he began to move within her again. Slowly, now. Gently.
By shifting his weight from one arm to the other, he helped her pull the shirt over his head. They were as bared as they could be without separating, and neither of them was willing to do that.
Balanced on one elbow, he traced the swell of her breast with his free hand.
“You’re so damned lovely.” His voice was a broken whisper, hoarse with yearning. “So beautiful.” Flexing his thigh, he slid deep, nudging her womb. “I should have known better than to dream you belonged to me.”
“But I do.” She cupped his cheek. “I am yours. Body, heart, soul. I lo—”
“Don’t.” He kissed her quiet. “I can’t bear it.”
When he thrust deep again, she lost the breath to speak. She kissed him instead, pressing her lips to his mouth, jaw, throat, ear … any part of him she could reach.
He caught her arms and pinned her to the mattress, levering himself up as he stroked home, again and again. She didn’t want this to ever end. Please don’t let this be the last time. She struggled to hold herself back from climax. If he left her unsatisfied, her knowledge of the male mind argued, his pride simply wouldn’t allow him to go.
But he was too much for her. Too big, too fierce, too tender, too wild. She couldn’t resist him. Never could. He rode her to a bright, gasping peak, then released a savage growl as he took his own pleasure in her.
When he collapsed, spent and panting atop her, she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.
“Stay,” she whispered. Her tongue flickered over the salt of his skin. “Don’t go.”
“I have to go.” He withdrew from her body, then sat at the edge of the bed, refastening his breeches placket. “I have to see to this business with Faraday. This is what I do.”
“No.” She rose to a sitting position, gathering the bed linens around her. “No, this is not what you do.”
He reached for his shirt. “You saw me this morning. The whole village saw me this morning. That’s how I’ve spent most of my life, Meredith. Fighting. Brawling. Tearing things apart. I thought I’d finally left all that behind me, but …” He leveled a hard, unflinching gaze at her. “I would have killed him.”