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She folded the cloth back around the manuscript.
He kissed her then, tumbling her back onto the bed and covering her with his powerful frame.
“Damn you, Ford. You reduce me to a puddle of quivering ninnyhood.” She wrapped her armsaround his neck. “And do you know? I’m quite happy about that.”
“I don’t usually admit these things, my love, but you make me weak at the knees.”
“I do?”
“Mmm. Especially when you whisper archaic words in my ear.”
“Crapulous,”she whispered.“Slubberdegullion.Quodlibetificate.”
He groaned. “Stop, temptress.”
“Sesquipedalian.That’s me. It means ‘having the tendency to use long words.’ Here’s one you might like—apodysophilia, the feverish desire to undress.”
“I do like that one.”
“And here’s another you might like—dodrantal. It means ‘nine inches in length.’”
“I think you just added another inch, or two,” he growled. “I once had a lady teach me some wooing words. Let’s see if they work. Beatrice, your eyes are lambent. Your lips are sapid. And your figure is pulchritudinous.”
“Ford.” She beamed at him. “You remembered.”
“I remember everything. Seeing the glow of your hair in the library window and wanting so badly to talk to you, to walk with you to the sea. Hand in hand.”
His lips teased the edges of her mouth. “Thinking that you really, really loved words and wondering what it would be like to have that passion directed at me.”
He slid a hand down her bodice, cupping one of her breasts in his palm.
“Handing you that sledgehammer that weighednearly as much as you did and watching you smash the plaster to dust. Something came loose inside of me then, Beatrice. I think that’s when I knew that I was seriously in trouble.”
“That’s when I knew I was... falling in love,” she said, her voice breathy because he was doing very wicked things to the tips of her breasts with his tongue. “When I held your hard hammer.”
A snort of laughter. He lifted his head. “I was completely lost when I walked into the room and saw you wearing those trousers that you had no idea hugged every one of your curves.”
“I had some idea.”
“You were cursing at that stubborn floorboard, just like you castigated me during our arguments.”
“You’re stubborn.”
“I know. But you found a way to pry my heart free from its moorings. And I’m so glad that you did.”
He kissed her then, ravishing her lips until her mind filled with longing and her body craved his touch. But she had one more thing to show him.
She reached into the specially designed pockets of her blue gown. “I thought you might like the third book in the series.”
“‘The Dangerous Duke’s Desires,’”he read.
“Turn to page one hundred,” she instructed.
“Are we going to act out your favorite passage? I like the sound of that.”
“Just open the book.”
“What’s this?” He pulled something fragile and red from between the pages.
