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“Wait.” She sat up in bed, reaching for the edge of the rumpled bed linens. “I’ll prove it to you. You know I worked on my trousseau for years. Every girl does. But I hemmed this particular set of bed linens the year I was one-and-twenty, I believe.” She skimmed her fingertips along the side until she found what she was searching for. “Here.” She showed it to him. “What does that say?”
He peered at it. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. It’s ‘M.C.I.’ I was dreadfully infatuated with you by that time, and in a sentimental moment, I embroidered your initial at the end of my own. Nearly seven years ago.”
“But you say you were infatuated. Infatuation isn’t love.”
“No, it’s not. I told myself the same thing. So after you’d purchased your commission and left for war, I put my feelings aside. I told myself to be practical. Giles asked to court me, and then he asked me to marry him. I said yes. Even though I knew I didn’t love him, could never love him.”
She closed her eyes and steeled herself. “But it wasn’t until I lost Henry that I truly knew. The rector came to call. And I knew—I just knew—it meant one of you had been killed. When he told me Henry had died, I was devastated. Not only because I’d lost him—but because I’d had this terrible flash of relief in the same moment. I’d thought, Thank God it wasn’t Sebastian.” A hot tear fell to her cheek, and she impatiently dashed it away. “Can you imagine? I hated myself. But after that, there was no denying it. I was truly in love with you.”
He caught her in his arms and rolled them over, so that she was beneath him. His disbelieving gaze searched hers. “Mary.”
“I love you.” She took his face in her hands and kissed his cheek. “I love you.” Then his chin. “I love you.” Then the pounding pulse under his jaw. “I love y—”
He covered her mouth with his, kissing her forcefully. As if to forbid her from loving him, and at the same time beg her to never, ever stop. They tangled tongues and limbs and hearts and souls.
He buried his face in her neck. “I need you,” he whispered hoarsely. “Can you take me again?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
This time it was different. Not slow and tender, but desperate, urgent. He raised up on his arms and stared down at her, never breaking his intense gaze as he took her in deep, powerful thrusts.
This wasn’t lovemaking. It was possession.
“You’re mine now,” he said through clenched teeth. “Do you hear me? You’re mine.”
He moved harder, faster. As if he meant to pound at her body until he became part of her, sharing the same blood and bone, and pulling away would tear them both in two.
She held him tight, arching her hips to match his rhythm. His every motion drove her higher. Closer to her peak. Closer to him.
Somehow they found each other in the feverish storm of climax, holding each other in every possible way.
He slumped atop her, and she caressed his hair and shoulders as he recovered his breath. His back was slick with sweat.
“You’re mine now,” he whispered. “Don’t even try to argue it.”
“I won’t argue it,” she said. “Just as long as you understand that you’re mine, too.”
Chapter 10
They woke to the sound of someone pounding at the cottage’s front door.
Mary sat up in bed. “Who on earth could that be, at this hour? Surely not Dick or Fanny.”
Sebastian gave a derisive chuckle. “Certainlynot Dick or Fanny. They would never knock.”
“You have a point.”
“It would seem they’ve gone away,” he said after a minute. “We can go back to sleep.”
“I don’t know if I can return to sleep. Not after being startled awake.”
“Well, then.” He slid his arm around her, drawing her close. “I suppose we could amuse ourselves in some other way.”
The pounding resumed.
With a groan, Sebastian let his head drop to the pillow. “Stay here. I’ll see to it.” With a light kiss to her lips, he rose from the bed and slid his legs into a pair of breeches. He plucked his shirt from where it lay discarded on the floor and dragged it over his head and arms. Then he reached for the candlestick and stumbled his way down the stairs.
