“I believe you,” he said, laying his palm along her cheek. He loved to look at her. Loved to touch her. He’d known there was something special about her from the moment they’d met, and now…now he understood that there was something special between them. They were good together. Meant for each other.
Trailing kisses from her lips and along her jaw, he enjoyed her quick intake of breath. He whispered words of love and promise against her ear and felt the shudder of pleasure that cascaded through her body.
“Is this all right?” he asked, slipping the gown from her shoulder and touching his lips to her silky skin.
“Definitely all right.”
“What about this?”
“I love your hands on my skin like that.”
“Like this?”
“Yes. And…oh…like that.”
Ben kissed her with all the emotion and need he’d held back for a lifetime. Lorabeth framed his face with both hands and met every kiss with wholehearted abandon. How he loved this woman. He turned and took her hand, tenderly kissing each of her fingers, then the inside of her wrist. With slow deliberation, he worked his way up her arm, across her chest, bringing a flush to her skin. Her pulse throbbed at the base of her throat.
“No holding back, Lorabeth.”
“No holding back,” she agreed with a smile that told him his promises and actions pleased her.
Much later, after the fire in the stove had dwindled and the wicks in the lamps had burned low…after Ben had made Lorabeth feel like a real wife, he said to her, “I think there’s just one thing you were wrong about.”
She smiled sleepily. “What’s that?”
“You are the perfect wife—for me.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-0249-2
THE PREACHER’S DAUGHTER
Copyright © 2007 by Cheryl Ludwigs
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The Preacher’s Daughter Page 23
