Chapter 28 #2
As he crouched down next to her, she scooted over to give him room. Stretched out on their sides, they lay speechless, staring into each other’s eyes while Colin played with a stray lock of her hair.
“Make love to me, Colin.”
Her request surprised him. Not because they were out in the open.
The isolation of the folly gave them some privacy.
Not because it was the middle of the day.
They’d dispelled that silly notion the day they were married.
Not even because Anne had been the one to ask, although in his entire previous marriage, Margery had never once initiated their couplings.
Anne was nothing like Margery after all.
No, his surprise, even his unease, came from the seriousness in Anne’s eyes and voice. Anne, who was a walking, talking ray of sunshine. Who frolicked and teased and, yes, challenged him, seemed almost vulnerable in her invitation, as if he might refuse her.
Worry webbed through his mind as he wondered what had precipitated such solemnity in his Siren of Seduction. As he stared into her beautiful blue eyes, warmth unfurled in his chest, and he pushed the worry aside. For Anne.
“It would be my pleasure,” he answered and meant every word.
Spurred not only by her request but also by his own burgeoning feelings, when they made love, it was more than passionate—although with Anne how could it be less?
He worshipped her body with his, and she reciprocated eagerly.
Tender caresses mixed with more heated and urgent touches.
His breath hitched in his throat, and his heart pounded like a caged animal against his ribcage.
His head spun from the sweet fragrance of her perfume and the soft curves of her body pressed against his.
She rocked him to his very soul. Electricity crackled and sparked between them. But something tender simmered beneath the surface, and his mind struggled to name it.
Neither of them spoke, the silence broken when a flock of birds took flight. Wings flapped furiously, mimicking the rapid beating of his heart.
Since their first coupling—had it really only been a little over a week since they’d married?
—something had changed between them. At first, their union had been merely physical.
Anne’s response to him was both unexpected and glorious and only increased his desire for her, which was no small measure to begin with.
Seductive voices whispered that his ability to pleasure her sexually meant he wasn’t a failure—at least not in the bedroom—and he took great personal satisfaction each time she climaxed.
But as they explored each other’s bodies, as he learned how she whimpered when he kissed the one particular spot under her ear, how she pulsed around him speeding his climax, or how, in the heat of passion, she enjoyed when he whispered naughty things to her, he found himself more and more under her spell.
Pleasing her was no longer a validation of his own worth, but simply because he wished to please her.
Even outside the bedroom, he found himself eager to see her when he’d finished with work in his study, to listen to her plans to redecorate a few of the rooms, to hear her endless chatter during supper, especially when she’d say things aloud she’d meant to keep silent.
Something had shifted in him. Gradually, perhaps. He couldn’t say. He only knew the truth of it in that moment. His attraction to her was no longer just physical but something deeper, something purer, something . . . ineffable.
The word teased his mind, dancing around just out of reach, driving him mad.
As a man of action, maybe if he examined what the feeling encouraged him to do, he could name it. What was it?
He gazed down at Anne snuggled in his arms, and he had an overwhelming desire to see her smile. To make her happy. To protect her, defend her. Pamper her.
From the first moment when she’d startled him on the terrace of Hartridge House, she’d bewitched him. First in body and now, in soul.
Like a child peeking out from behind their hiding place, the word made itself be known.
Love?
No. It couldn’t be. It seemed ludicrous. How could he love this woman he’d known less than a month?
He wasn’t incapable of love. He loved his parents, even as strict and demanding as his father was. Perhaps respected was a more accurate word. He loved Honoria and the girls. But that was fraternal and paternal love.
But romantic love? What was that even like? He’d cared for Margery. He wasn’t sure romantic love had ever crossed his mind during their marriage. They’d certainly never said those words to each other.
As he stared into Anne’s blue eyes, his heart ached, and far from being painful, it was sweet. She not only satisfied him physically, she completed him, as if a piece of his heart had been missing and she’d just reinserted it.
A gentle breeze drifted in from the surrounding water and cooled their naked bodies dotted with perspiration from their shared passion. The air around them held a buoyant sort of wonder. The realization swept over him like a sudden tide then hit him hard, right in his aching heart.
He loved her.
He felt it. Knew it. Deeply, down to his bones. This was what being in love was like.
Joyous.
Chaotic.
Confusing.
Frightening.
What if she couldn’t love him back? What if in confessing it, he exposed too much of his real self and Anne rejected him?
Much like Anne’s unwilling utterances, if he said it out loud, it would become real. Something he couldn’t deny, even to himself. And facing another failure in his life was too great a risk. He would wait and keep it to himself.
A secret more dangerous than the hidden passages in his home.