And Dominic Vane, who had spent four years refusing surrender in any form—grief, love, hope, healing—was surrendering now, utterly, her name on his lips, her hands steady at his hips, every defence he had ever built falling away.
“Stop,” he gasped. “Lorraine—stop, or I’ll—”
She stopped. Looked up at him, lips parted, eyes bright. “Was that—”
He pulled her to her feet and kissed her with a force that stole her breath, her balance, and what remained of her composure. “You impossible woman,” he said against her mouth, half-laughing, half-undone. “You magnificent, impossible—”
“I shall take that as approval.”
“Come to bed. Now. I need—let me—” He was already at the ties of her nightgown, his hands unsteady, his usual precision abandoned. “Let me show you.”
And he did.
He laid her down and attended to her with a thoroughness that was, she thought through the gathering haze, almost vengeful—as though her boldness had stirred something competitive in him, as though he could not bear to be outdone even in this. He kissed her throat, her breasts, the soft skin below her navel. He settled between her thighs with a patience that bordered on cruelty, and when his mouth found her, she arched from the bed with a cry she scarcely managed to muffle against his pillow.
“Don’t,” he said, his voice rough, his breath warm against her skin. “Do not be quiet. I would hear you.”
“The servants—”
“Are asleep.” He shifted, and the sensation that followed scattered her thoughts entirely. “Let me hear you, Lorraine.”
She stopped being quiet.
Afterward—a long, shuddering, boneless afterward—he drew her against his chest, pulled the counterpane over them, and pressed his lips to the crown of her head. She lay in the warm dark, her cheek against the steady beat of his heart, her body humming with a satisfaction so complete it was almost painful in its depth.
This is the danger of happiness,she thought.It teaches you what you stand to lose.
“You are thinking rather loudly,” Dominic murmured into her hair.
“How can you tell?”
“Your breathing alters. It goes shallow when you are troubled.” His arm tightened about her. “Tell me.”
She was silent for a moment, tracing the scar along his ribs with one finger. “Do you ever think about what comes after?”
“After?”
“After the Hardings arrive. After Thomas goes to India. After—” She swallowed. “After this… arrangement reaches its natural conclusion.”
The word was chosen with care. Not love. Not anything that presumed permanence or equality or a future the world would deny them.
Dominic was silent long enough that she felt the warmth between them begin to cool at the edges.
“I think of it constantly,” he said at last, his voice stripped of its usual control. “When I wake and find you gone. When I watch you with Thomas. When I sit at my desk pretending to read correspondence while calculating how many hours remain before I may see you again.”
Her chest tightened. “Dominic—”
“I have no answers, Lorraine. I do not know how to make this possible. I do not know how to keep you without destroying what remains of your reputation,” he added gently, without pity. “I do not know how to keep Thomas. I do not know how to be the man either of you deserves.”
“You already are.”
“I am not. But I am trying.” He lifted her chin and kissed her—slow, unhurried, the gesture carrying more tenderness than heat. “I do not want an arrangement, Lorraine. I want—” He broke off, then tried again. “I want mornings. Every morning. I want—”
He couldn’t finish.
She saw the words there nonetheless, waiting—vast, terrifying, inevitable.
He drew her closer. She pressed her face against his throat, breathing him in—sandalwood and woodsmoke and the warmth that was simply him.
