Chapter 22 #3
“I have never meant anything more.” He pulled her hand to his chest, pressing it against the steady beat of his heart.
“Dominic.” She started, her breath hitching as tears threatened again.
“Say it again.” He pulled her closer, his hand sliding to the back of her neck to anchor her. “I want to hear it again.”
“I love you.” She leaned into him, her forehead pressing against his. “I love you.”
“Again.” He breathed the word against her lips.
“I love you.” She laughed, the sound wet and broken and free, her fingers threading through his dark hair. “I love you, I love you, I love...”
He kissed her, swallowing the words right out of her mouth. His lips were desperate against hers, his hand tangling in her hair to hold her steady. She gasped against his mouth, pulling back just enough to speak, her hands braced on his shoulders.
“Dominic, you are hurt.” Her hands hovered over him, shaking.
“I don’t care.” He tried to pull her closer, wincing at the movement, his grip tightening on her waist.
“You will hurt yourself.” She held him down to the pillows, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.
“Then hurt me.” His hands found her waist, large and warm through the fabric of her dress. “I need you. Please. I need...”
“Dominic.” She tried to protest, even as her body leaned toward the heat of him.
“I almost died.” The admission broke in the back of his throat, raw and jagged, his iron eyes dark with an unmasked hunger. “I almost died, and all I could think about was you. Your face. The memory of you. The way you taste.”
“We shouldn’t.” She shook her head, even as her fingers curled into the linen of his shirt, grounding herself to him.
“I need to feel you.” He pulled back just enough to look at her, his chest heaving the way he’d just run a mile. “I need to know you are real. That this is real. That I am not dreaming.”
She should say no. He was injured and weak, and he needed rest, not the fire of this moment. But the way he looked at her—as if she were the only thing keeping him tethered to the world—decided it.
“Please.” He exhaled the word against her lips, his hand cupping her cheek with a reverence that made her heart stall.
She kissed him, her mouth providing the answer he sought. He groaned against her lips—a sound of profound relief and desperate want—his hands pulling her closer.
“Slowly.” The instruction was a soft breath against his mouth, her fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw. “We do this slowly. Carefully.”
“I don’t want careful.” He nipped at her lower lip, his hands sliding down her back to the small of her spine, pulling her flush against him.
“You are getting careful.” She pulled back and met his eyes, letting him see the steel behind the softness. “Or you are getting nothing.”
He laughed—a surprised, breathless sound that made his chest shake beneath her palm. “Stubborn woman.”
“You love it.” She traced a finger along his collarbone, feeling the fevered heat of his skin.
“I do.” He reached for her, his fingers catching the fabric of her sleeve. “God help me, I do.”
She rose from the bed, but his hand caught her wrist instantly, his grip tight with a sudden, sharp desperation.
“Don’t go.” He searched her face, panic flickering in the depths of his pupils.
“I am not going anywhere.” She reached for the buttons of her dress with her free hand, her fingers trembling as she worked. “I am just… making it easier.”
He went perfectly still, his eyes locking on her hands and tracking every movement. The buttons slipped free, one by one, for moonlight spilled through the window, silver and cold, painting her skin in pearl. She let the dress fall, the silk pooling at her feet with a quiet whisper.
Stays and chemise remained—but even those felt like a wall between them.
“Come here.” The command was pure gravel, rough with a want that seemed to vibrate in the air as his hands reached for her.
She climbed onto the bed, careful to straddle his thighs without putting weight on his injuries. His hands found her hips immediately, large and trembling.
“You are shaking.” She touched his face, tracing his jaw with her fingertips.
“I have wanted this for so long.” He stared up at her, his thumbs pressing into the curve of her hips. “I didn’t think you’d ever...”
“I know.” She leaned down and brushed her lips against his. “I was afraid.”
“And now?” He slid his hands up her sides, his touch reverent.
“Still afraid.” She admitted, her breath mingling with his. “But more afraid of losing you.”
He reached for the laces of her stays, his fingers fumbling in his eagerness.
“Let me.” She helped him, loosening the ties and tugging at the fabric until the stays fell away.
He pulled the chemise over her head, his eyes never leaving her body. She was bare in the moonlight. He stared at her like he’d never seen anything so beautiful, his hands hovering just above her waist.
“You are perfect.” He breathed, his palms finally settling on her skin.
“I am not.” She tried to cover herself, arms crossing over her breasts as she curled inward.
He caught her wrists, gentle but firm, pulling her arms away. “Don’t hide from me.”
“I am not young.” The words spilled out faster than she could think. “I’ve had children. My body isn’t...”
“Your body is a miracle.” He released her wrists, his hands finding her waist and the soft curve of her stomach. “You grew two lives inside you. You survived. Every mark on you is proof of that.”
Tears threatened again, and she blinked hard. “Dominic.”
“Let me worship you.” He pulled her down toward him, his lips brushing her collarbone. “Please. Let me show you.”
He kissed her throat, his touch soft and reverent, the way she were something sacred.
Then he moved to her collarbone, his lips tracing the bone with a warm, gentle pressure, his breath hot against her skin.
He moved lower still to the swell of her breasts, his hands cupping their weight while his mouth trailed heat across her flesh.
She arched into him, her fingers threading through his dark hair, careful to avoid the bandage. “Dominic.”
“I have dreamed of this.” He murmured the confession against her skin, his mouth trailing lower as his hands mapped the curve of her waist. “Every night since the maze. Sometimes even before.”
“Before?” She gasped as his lips found the sensitive underside of her breast, her head falling back.
“Since the first time I saw you.” He took her nipple into his mouth, sucking gently, while his hands tightened on her hips.
She gasped, her fingers tightening in his hair as her back arched off the linens.
“Since you threw that sovereign back at me.” He switched to the other breast, his tongue tracing slow circles around the peak. “I knew then.”
“Knew what?” She barely forced the words out, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps.
“That you’d ruin me.” He looked up at her, his eyes dark as midnight and his lips swollen from her touch. “And I wanted you to.”
She kissed him then, a hard and claiming thing.
She poured everything into the contact, the love, the fear, and the desperate need that had been building since the first moment she’d seen him in her shop.
Her hands found the hem of his shirt, tugging it upward.
He hissed when she pulled it over his head, the movement jostling his injuries and forcing his jaw to clench against the pain.
“Did I hurt you?” She froze, her hands hovering uncertainly over his bare chest.
“Don’t stop.” He yanked her back down, his mouth finding hers again, hungry and desperate.
His chest felt warm and solid beneath her palms. The scar from Waterloo was a raised ridge beneath her fingers, and the bandages wrapped around his ribs served as a reminder of how close she’d come to losing him.
She kissed the scar, tracing it with her tongue.
He groaned, a deep and guttural sound, as his hips shifted beneath her and his hands gripped her thighs.
“I need...” His hands fumbled at her drawers, desperate and clumsy in his haste.
She helped him, kicking the silk away until she was finally bare against him. His hand slid between her thighs, and his pulse kicked when he found her already wet and ready for him. His fingers parted her slick folds with a trembling touch.
“God.” He breathed the word, his eyes fixed on her face like memorizing her. “You are...”
“I know.” She rocked against his hand, the need coiling tight in her belly. “I have wanted you too. Every night since the maze. Longer.”
He slid a finger inside her, and she bit back a cry, her nails digging into his shoulders. “I need to taste you.” He tried to shift beneath her, his hands gripping her hips to move her toward his mouth.
“No.” She pinned him down, one hand flat on his chest to keep him still. “You will hurt yourself.”
“Nell.” He groaned in protest, his fingers still moving deep inside her.
“I said no.” She reached for his breeches, her fingers working the fastenings with steady intent. “Tonight, you stay still. Tonight, I take care of you.”
His eyes went black, his breath catching in his throat. “That might kill me faster than the fall.”
“Then die happy.” She freed him from his breeches, wrapping her hand around the hot, hard length of him.
He was straining, leaking at the tip, and when she tightened her grip, he choked out a sound, half groan and half sob, as his head fell back against the pillows.
“Nell… I cannot… I won’t last.” His hands gripped her hips, his whole body trembling with the effort of restraint.
“Then don’t.” She rose up, positioning herself over him until she felt the blunt head of him pressing against her entrance.
She sank down slowly, taking him inch by inch. She let her body adjust to the stretch and the overwhelming sensation of finally having him inside her. He gripped her hips, his fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks, his teeth ground together until a muscle jumped in his cheek.
“God.” He gritted out the word through his teeth.