Chapter 19 #4
Stepping into his arms, she placed her fingers across his lips, cutting off his words.
“It isn’t too anything.” She trapped his gaze with hers, looked deep into his hazel eyes.
“This is our time to talk, to discuss, to decide—all you did was ensure we have the privacy to do that, and for that . . .” As she removed her fingers, her gaze lowered to his lips.
“I can only be glad.” She breathed the last word as she stretched up and set her lips to his.
A wanton act, perhaps, but to her mind, he and she had already stepped past the social boundaries.
The polite barriers no longer applied. Here, now, it was just her and him—a man and a woman, a gentleman and a lady.
Here, in this private space, only the personal, what existed between them, remained.
Apparently, he agreed; she’d barely had a chance to kiss him before he took over and kissed her back.
His arms closed around her, drawing her close, not hesitantly but definitely.
That warm, safe, reassuring cage made of his muscles and bones, and even more her reaction to it, told her where she stood.
To her, this man was safety, security, a safe harbor through any storm—and more.
With him, she could be . . . the woman she’d been born to be.
Opportunity.
She reached for it—without hesitation pressed closer, deeper into his embrace; sliding her arms over his shoulders, locking her hands at his nape, she held him to her. And when he tested her lips, she parted them and, boldly, without any guile, invited him in.
And delighted in his acceptance.
Never before had she communed with a man thus. She’d been kissed before, yes, but not like this—not when the exchange became a dialogue, a communication that passed back and forth, wordless yet so descriptive, silent yet deeply, profoundly evocative.
Meaningful.
Promise, and commitment.
Both were there in that kiss—him to her and her to him, and beyond that to what might be, to what they together might create and share.
Their exchange shaped the vision, enshrined it in their minds.
A clear statement—and they both wanted it.
Yearned for it.
Desired it.
Heat of a kind she’d never felt before rose and spread, heavy and lush, beneath her skin, a compulsive surge that for all its unfamiliarity she recognized instinctively. Rich and potent, it lured and beckoned, and she answered—and so did he.
Gently, with a reluctance that resonated within her, he drew back and broke the kiss.
He looked into her eyes, and she looked into his and saw him—the man she loved—clearly.
One large hand cradling the back of her head, his gaze traveled her face, her eyes, her lips, as if in wonder, then he brought his gaze back to her eyes.
“I’m a simple man, Violet—I don’t have fancy words.
All I know is that I need you to make my life whole.
All I know is that I want you as my wife, and that I will move heaven and earth to win you. ”
Her answer leapt to her curving lips. She held his gaze as she gave it. “I don’t want heaven. I don’t even want earth. I do want you—and I do, more than anything else in life, want to fill the position of your wife.”
“So you’ll marry me?”
“Yes.” Even she heard the joy in that word. “I’ll marry you, and be your wife, and have you as my husband—nothing, simply nothing, could make me happier.”
He captured one of her hands and raised her fingers to his lips. “I swear you will never regret accepting my suit.”
“I know I won’t”—she held his gaze—“because I love you.”
She felt the ripple of reaction that passed through him, as if those simple words had turned some key and unlocked . . . something within him.
It felt as if shackles fell, as if her words had released some long-ago binding, one he’d placed on himself and had forgotten, or had never truly realized was there.
His commitment to his work had been that absolute, that demanding.
But now . . . he felt free—free to speak, to say, to admit, “Love”—he searched her eyes and saw that emotion shining—“is too simple a word for what I feel for you. Admiration, adoration, worship—all that, and more.”
Slipping her fingers from his, she laid her palm against his cheek. “You don’t need more—you just need to be you, and to continue to love me as I love you.”
“But . . . I want so much.” He felt his lips wryly curve. “The businessman within me will never die—my heart seems such a paltry thing when placed in the scales.”
She laughed. “Never that. You have the heart of a lion.”
“But I want . . .” He couldn’t, it seemed, stop himself from making a bid to have it all, all he now knew his soul yearned for.
Craved. “You, by my side, and a family—if we’re blessed.
” At the arrested look in her eyes, he hurried to explain, “I’ve already got the business, the position, the station—the wealth, the acquaintances, even the close friends.
I have all the appurtenances of a successful life, but without a wife, and even more a family, all the rest means little.
” He held her gaze. “I know we’re neither of us in the first flush of youth, yet .
. .” He hesitated, then forced himself to say, to ask, “If you’re willing . . . ?”
The smile that slowly bloomed on her face transcended joy. Her eyes shone with the same all-encompassing emotion. “You said it yourself before—we are our own people, you and I. We can be whatever we wish to be. Lovers, spouses, parents—we can, if we choose, have it all.”
As he drew in a huge breath, she stretched up and, just before her lips touched his, she stated, “And we do so choose.”
Then she kissed him, acceptance, agreement, and commitment reaffirmed—passionately—in the caress.
Without conscious direction, his arms closed around her and he gave her the same in return.
And let the moment lead him—and her—as it would.
When he lifted his head—separated their lips by a heated breath—and glanced at the door to his left, then arched a brow at her, her smile only deepened.
And she whispered against his lips, “Yes.”
Violet didn’t need to say more.
Not to him—the man who looked at her with love and passion in his eyes, solid and true and unwavering.
She could never question the rightness of this—could not doubt the sense of falling in with destiny as she let him lead her into his bedroom and close the door.
What followed . . . was a reflection of them, of who they were, the straightforward, honest, and true people they knew no other way to be. They offered themselves up—to each other, to the glory that erupted and swept through them.
In the soft sheets of his bed, in the soft light of a long, autumn afternoon, they found each other, and discovered themselves.
Discovered a wider view of all they could be—of all they could aspire to claim.
Passion and joy, heat and desire, and the culminating cataclysm of ecstasy—they found them all on that golden afternoon, found, seized, and made them theirs.
And when, at the end, Violet settled in his arms—a Violet unbridled, her lustrous hair rippling in a silken mass over his chest and arms—he smiled.
On his back, eyes drifting closed, he recalled an earlier thought.
“Before I met you and all this”—with a slight wave, he indicated them and their togetherness—“came about, I never thought of myself as a man of action. But courtesy of you, and all that’s followed, I’ve discovered that when the need is there—”
“You very much rise to the occasion.” She chuckled, soft and low.
He could feel the curve of her lips against his chest. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t going to put it quite like that.”
“That’s why I said it—I knew you wouldn’t.
” She shifted; lifting her head, she looked into his face.
Smiled. “You haven’t surprised me—I saw you, your potential, clearly from the first. You’re the man I’ve been waiting all my life to find, and now I’ve found you and claimed you .
. .” Stretching up, she touched her lips to his. “I’m never going to let you go.”
As she eased down again, into the hollow by his side—a space, it seemed, perfectly fashioned for her—he tightened his arms around her. “Just as well, because you’re everything to me.”
Settling, she sighed happily, then spread her hand over his heart and lightly patted. “My Heathcote.”
He smiled. Through the last hours, she’d said his name several times—gasped it, moaned it, sighed it . . .
Nestling his cheek against her hair, he closed his eyes.
Hearing her call him by his given name had already become his most treasured dividend.