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Buried deep inside her until the very last second when he pulled out of her and spent over her belly, a guttural groan escaping his lips.
He loosened his grip on her wrists and collapsed on top of her. She ran her fingers down the ridges of his back, soothing him.
He rolled off of her and reached down beside the bed. He used his shirt to wipe her belly clean. She curled up against him, suddenly more exhausted than she’d ever been before.
He pulled a blanket over them.
“Mina, that was extraordinary.”
“Wasn’t it?”
She kissed his cheek. Emotion welled up in her chest. This strong, formidable man had trusted her enough to be vulnerable, to let her see his pain.
Mina was falling asleep, her body loosening in his arms, breath lengthening.
He watched her face as she slept by the light of the candles on the table near the bed. Her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks.
What would she dream about tonight? He hoped that she would dream about him, because he’d been dreaming of her every night.
Maybe he’d wandered one too many windswept moors. Maybe he’d spent too many nights alone in his enormous bed with the crimson velvet curtains closed against the chill and the eerie sounds old houses made at night.
Maybe telling her all of his secrets had permanently changed him, and he’d never be able to bottle all of his emotions back up.
Whatever it was, he found himself stroking her hair, listening to the sound of her breath, and making plans for their future.
Could they have a future? In these sleepy golden moments, as the fire died and the candle sputtered, he almost believed that they could. If they found Rafe, and helped him capture this villainous Le Triton person, then Mina would have avenged the death of her parents. And then, maybe...
Mina at Thornhill House. He thought about uncorking a bottle of his groundskeeper’s elderberry mead, redolent of summer sunshine even in the iciest of winters.
She would like elderberry mead. He would like kissing her after she drank it.
She liked to walk with him in the evenings. She loved orange sunsets the best.
She smelled like the honey of clover buds, but she wasn’t above rolling up her sleeves and pitching in when there was work to be done on the estate. And then she smelled like good, honest sweat.
Sweat and clover and woman.
She turned that sharp mind of hers to solving agricultural problems.
Modifying and improving his hunting rifles was a passion of hers. So was languid morning sex, when her hair was tangled and they were still half asleep.
They found new routines, new rhythms. They knew each other’s bodies so very well, and yet each day there was a new discovery.
He kissed her forehead, allowing himself to dream in time with the cadence of her breathing.
Tomorrow they faced untold dangers. Choices would have to be made.
Tonight, with Mina curled inside the circle of his arms, everything was a beautiful dream.
A dream with no tomorrow.
A knocking on the door woke Drew from a deep slumber.
Morning sun filtering through the curtains.
“Wake up, Mina,” he whispered. “We overslept. There’s someone at the door.”
Mina dove under the covers.
