Chapter 11 #3
"Baby, I'm heavy." He stirred himself enough to lift his head.
What he saw on her striking face had his heart beating even faster.
Her lips were parted and her golden-brown eyes luminous from the passion they had just shared.
"Just let me--" he shifted so he was lying on his side, still intimately joined to her. "Better?"
"I was quite all right. I love feeling your weight on me."
"Hmm." He ran his hands up and down her back. "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
"I was prepared to wait until, you know--"
"I'm aware." She sent him an arched look that had him lifting his brows.
"Did you plan this?"
"Spur of the moment."
"Was it?" His skeptical look had her laughing.
"You have a very suspicious mind, Mr. Copeland."
"It's a curse and a blessing." He admitted blandly. Lifting a hand, he brushed back tendrils of her hair clinging to her cheek. "It's a rational question, considering that we were just discussing the possibility of my cheating."
"This has nothing to do with the discussion."
"So, it was perfect timing on your part?" he queried.
"Or the fact that I haven't been with my husband in a long time and I was simply horny."
"I see." He trailed a finger down the side of her neck. "Horny, is it?"
"Hmm." Capturing his finger, she brought it to her lips and bit down on the flesh. He immediately surged to life.
"You're playing with fire, Mrs. Copeland." He warned thickly.
"Am I?"
"Absolutely." Running his hand down her thigh, he lifted it to wrap around his waist. "I hope you don't complain of soreness."
Leaning in, she captured his bottom lip between her teeth. "I won't." She promised.
*****
"Does it hurt?" he asked huskily, tracing the path of the incision. It had faded to a long pink line that still, to his eyes, looked painful.
"Not anymore."
His head was propped up on one hand as he examined the mark on her abdomen where they had opened her up for the C-section. He would never forget seeing it and how it had affected him to see them cutting into her flesh like that. He had felt it to his very bones.
"I didn't feel anything." She went on to add, as if realizing where his thoughts had taken him.
"Your beautiful skin."
"I will still be able to wear a bikini at the beach.
" She told him jokingly. Her amusement fled when he lifted his head to look at her.
The expression on his usually hard, handsome face took her breath away.
There was no doubting the way he was feeling.
The naked adoration there made her unable to breathe or even think.
"I adore you." He told her thickly. "How can you think I could ever love another? Be with another woman?"
"I--I don't--" She felt as if she was suffocating.
"You're mine and I'm yours. From the first time I laid eyes on you, that has been the case and will always be the case.
It's even more so now." He pressed his palm flat on her abdomen, his emotions veering close to the surface.
"I've never met anyone like you. You display the type of strength that I've never seen before.
I admire you, darling. And I love you so much that it scares me. "
"Samuel." Tears blurred her vision. "Samuel."
"Use your words." He teased shakily.
"I can't." She gamely swallowed the lump in her throat.
"Then let me help you out." He moved so that he was lying next to her. Turning her in his arms, he gazed into her eyes deeply. "I'm yours. I'll always be yours. Do you understand?"
She nodded, still unable to verbalize what she was thinking. He overwhelmed her, this powerful and often taciturn and arrogant husband of hers. The world saw him as ruthless and unattainable, but with her he wasn't afraid to show his vulnerability. It humbled her tremendously.
"I would do anything for you." She told him huskily, her hand lifting to touch his cheek. "Anything. I wanted a family for us and was determined to make it happen."
"I know." He brushed his lips on hers. "You thought you were losing me. You weren't."
"We had been so far apart that I panicked. I could not lose you."
"There was no fear of that ever happening. I might have entertained thoughts of it, but I wouldn't have gone through with it. I couldn't leave you." He stroked her hair.
Her hand drifted down his chest, loving the feel of the springy chest hairs covering the skin.
Leaning over, she kissed his throat, glorying in the feel of his pulse hammering madly.
This was all for her. She felt him surging to life inside her.
She could make him feel this way and it made her feel invulnerable, strong, and powerful. And confident.
"Don't blame me if you feel exhausted in the morning." Flipping her onto her back, he covered her body with his. "Because I'm about to prove myself to you again."
"As much as you like. I'm all yours." She told him with a sultry smile that had him chuckling.
Even after she had fallen into an exhausted sleep an hour later, he was still wide awake, his body still wired.
Turning his head, he brushed his lips gently on her forehead, a smile touching his lips.
His wife, he mused tenderly. The only woman he had ever loved.
When he considered how he had entertained the thought of divorcing her, he shuddered.
But he had told her he would not have gone through with it and he meant every word. He belonged to her, always.