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“Though you can’t say the words yet, you wouldn’t be here if your answer weren’t yes. Kiss me, Sydney.”
Moaning her compliance, she obeyed her own overpowering instinct to meet the compelling urgency of his entreaty. At the first fusion of their lips, the world swirled around her, driving her to cling to him. He was the breath of life to her.
Nothing had prepared her for this explosion of hunger or the ecstasy he created. There was a refined savagery in the way he was holding and kissing her.
Delirious with the passion born of their suppressed desire, they drank longer and deeper from each other’s mouths until she felt white-hot heat start to devour her. It spread from the secret core of her body to radiate to her very fingertips.
His moans followed hers as they gave and took indescribable pleasure from each other in the dark confines of the room.
“I love you, I love you,” she cried rapturously while her lips traveled the contours of his unforgettable male face. “You’re such a beautiful man, I’m in awe,” she whispered into the luxuriant black hair she couldn’t stop touching.
She felt him suck in his breath. He kissed the base of her throat where her pulse throbbed. “I don’t dare tell you how I feel about you or else I will really start to show you, and I can’t do that until I have your parents’ permission to marry you.”
Very gently, he disengaged himself until she stood there alone, swaying and bereft.
After emerging from a fiery furnace where she wanted to stay and be consumed by the flames, the mention of her family acted like a numbing cascade of glacier water. It effectively put out the fire he’d generated, robbing her of the inexplicable joy she’d just experienced in his strong arms.
She turned her body away from him and clung to the wall. “They’ll never give it. I’ll quit my job and we can be married in Europe.”
Sydney couldn’t believe she’d just said that, but her love for Jarod was too great for it to be jeopardized now.
Jarod was still so close to her, she could feel the heat from his body. “I won’t marry you without at least giving them a chance first. Your parents brought you into this world. You’re their only child. They adore you.
“Do you honestly believe you and I could take full joy in our union if they weren’t behind it, anxious to be a part of it? If my own family’s miserable failures did nothing else, they taught me how precious and sacred those ties are.
“I haven’t given up on my family yet, Sydney, and I refuse to start out married life with you estranged from your parents. It won’t work. We’d both be desperately unhappy—unable to build a life that’s going to last.”
White-faced, she turned to him. “You don’t know them the way I do. To marry a man outside their church would be incomprehensible to them. Especially one w-wh—”
“Who’s an ex-priest?” he broke in. His lips twitched. Any hint of a smile made him so gorgeous, she got lost just staring at him. “Maybe that will work in my favor.”
“Don’t tease about something this earthshaking—” she begged him.
“Sydney—”
He pulled her back in his arms. She burrowed against his solid shoulder while he rocked her in place. “Our love has brought us this far. It’s going to take us all the way.
“Since you don’t have to be back to school until Monday, let’s fly to Bismarck tomorrow morning and pay them a surprise visit.”
In anyone else’s case, his suggestion would have made perfect sense, but Jarod had no idea what he’d be up against with her parents. A frightened tremor shook her body.
He buried his face in the gold satin of her hair. “When you tremble like this, I want to take you to bed and make you forget everything and everyone else but me. Soon that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
“But for now, you have to leave my room. Otherwise I won’t be responsible for my actions, and then you’ll have something else to feel guilty about.”
She groaned, knowing he was right, but her reaction was to press herself harder against him. “I don’t want to move from your arms. Not ever again.”
“After we receive your parents’ blessing, I swear I’ll never let you out of my sight.” He took her mouth in another long, hard kiss, then abruptly tore his lips from hers.
“Come on. I’ll walk you to your car and follow you home so I know you get in your apartment safely.”
She gazed up at him with her heart in her eyes. “I wish—”
“So do I.” He read her mind with unerring accuracy. “But it wouldn’t be a good idea to spend the night at your place. I wouldn’t last two minutes on your couch before I came in your bedroom and joined you. So I’ll pick you up at six in the morning and we’ll have breakfast on our way to the airport.”
Six in the morning.
As he walked her to her car, Sydney didn’t know if she could make it through the night without him—now that they were finally together again. Right now he was being the strong one. The discipline of a priest made him exceptional…yet she wished that for this one time, he’d give in to his human side.
