Page 73 of Sir Durham’s Disarming Asset

She had only enough time to grasp the knob before he had her flat against the wall.

His lips were in her hair. On her ear. Her shoulder. His hands were chains around her breasts. With a jerk, he turned her in his arms.

His lips were a breath from hers. “If I have you, you will belong to me.”

Triumph sang through her veins. She sank to him and let her cape and robe drop to the floor. “Have me, then.”

He gulped and ground her against him. “If I have you, you will never leave me.”

“Never.”

Tears dotted his long black lashes. “I want you—God in heaven knows I do. I could lay you down a million times in as many beds, but if I do, I will not be able to stop myself from taking all of you.”

“You have my heart, my soul. Take the rest of me.”

“Sweet girl,” he whispered, remorse in his gravelly voice and in his torn and shaking body, “I am a man used to giving all and taking all from a woman. Zephora, darling, I dare not give you babies.”

That shocked her. She blinked, thinking how to get past this snag. “I do not know if I can give them to you.”

“I had a midwife examine you, sweetheart.”

“What?”

“I called for a midwife when we were in Orleans. You were delirious still, but I wanted her to tell me if you were hurt, ruined for any family you might want.”

“And?” Delight blossomed inside her that he would regard her so highly as to summon a midwife to tell her to what extent she had healed.

“She heard the tale and said you had been badly used, but she saw no damage. Still, she could not declare you were capable of intimacy or of bearing children.”

“Oh, Rafe.” She would tell him later of the same diagnosis by Gus’s midwife. “How will we know unless you make love to me?”

“Zephora! I could be kind and gentle and, in unknown ways, still kill you!”

She sank her fingers into his hair and pulled at his curls. “I will kill you, my tormenting man, if you don’t make love to me, keep me, have me, have me…” She was weeping now. “Have me.”

He took her hands from his hair and pressed them around his waist. “You are more than I ever asked of heaven. You are the sun to my skin. The earth of my reality. The strong, sure air of life. I love you. I love you.” He dropped little kisses to her eyes.

“Have me.” As ever, she wanted to get lost in him. “Have me for tonight and all the nights and days of our lives. Have me for joy and sorrow. Have me.”

“Know this.” He brushed her hair back from her cheeks, and his gaze bored into her own. “If I take you to my bed, you will not leave my arms until you marry me.”

“That will be hours,” she whispered as she kissed him over and over, “and days. But from this moment on, I am yours.”

He hesitated, this chivalrous man.

She would not countenance his rejection now. With a shrug of her shoulders, she allowed her gown to slither to her feet.

“Zeph.” His voice was a prayer, his gaze a declaration of how he surrendered to her.

Then, in one instant, his whole body changed, from daring lover to ravenous male. He took a step, her hand in his, but she was so stunned by his change of heart that she stumbled over the gown.

He growled and swept her up into his arms, then took her through his sitting room to his massive bed. There he placed her delicately in the middle and crawled over her. “I would never hurt you.”

“You can’t. I know that, Rafe. Don’t you see that you are the only man who never would?”

He dropped his forehead to the valley between her breasts. “Oh, my sweetheart, how do you think so well of me?”

She started to tell him why.