But she didn’t care about any of that. All she cared about was seeing Thomas again.
“Josephine.”
The deep voice rained through her and replaced the tingle of excitement in her toes with a different kind of tingle, a different kind of excitement. She scrambled to her feet and faced him, stunned to find him in her room, leaning casually back against the closed door. Her heart leapt into her throat. She hardly dared to believe—
“Thomas,” she whispered, smiling happily to herself at the realization that he’d picked the lock on her door to sneak inside her bedroom. That old spy trick…her spy.
His sapphire eyes moved deliberately over her. “All ready for bed, I see.”
His words were a simple statement, surely not meant as a double entendre, but goose bumps sprang up across her bare arms and calves just the same. “Yes.”
“Good,” he murmured.
Oh, that wasn’t just a simple statement! The single word trickled through her, heating her from the inside out, and when she licked her suddenly dry lips, she saw his hungry gaze linger at her mouth.
He pushed himself away from the door and stalked toward her. He stopped in front of her, close but not yet touching, and she swallowed, her stomach already beginning to flutter with longing and anticipation. He’d broken into her house, stealing through the darkness to her room—risking his very life if her brothers found out he was there—and she leaned toward him to once again lose herself in his strength and his warmth.
The nearness of him was heady and dizzying, and she drew a deep breath to calm her racing heart. “I thought you’d left for London.”
“Soon.” He took her chin and lifted it to touch his lips to hers. Gentle, soft, but with enough promise to stir arousal low in her belly. “But I wanted to see you again before I left.” His lips caressed the corner of her mouth. “After all, we have a marriage to settle.”
Already her heart had begun to race, her mind growing foggy, and his kisses were still light and fluttering, with none of the passion she yearned for. Yet. “But I thought you settled everything with Papa.”
“Not everything.”
She stiffened despite the erotic sweep of his tongue between her lips and pulled back just far enough to stare into his eyes. “He told me you’d offered for me, and he accepted.” She paused, a stab of fear piercing her. “Have you changed your mind?”
“God, no! You belong with me, Jo. Nothing’s stopping that.” With a quick peck to her lips, he released her and knelt in front of the fireplace. “But your father isn’t you, darling. Your happiness is what matters to me, and I want to settle the marriage agreement with you.”
A thrill jolted through her. She was important enough to him that he not only wanted to marry her but also wanted to make certain the marriage terms were exactly what she wanted, exactly what would make her happy. As he stirred up the fire and added more coal until it cast a bright light and warmth into the room, she rested her hand on his shoulder.
“Leave that,” she ordered softly. His hard muscles quivered beneath her fingertips, and the small reaction thrilled her. She didn’t want his attention on the fire—she wanted it completely on her. She wanted him in her arms, kissing her, loving her.
“But we’ll need this, I think,” he murmured, brushing his hands down his thighs to wipe away the dust, “for what we have to do tonight.”
“What do we need to do that involves a fire?” she asked warily. The last time he’d been concerned with a fire, she’d thought he’d destroyed the book, and with it all chances at a future together.
“I told you. We’re negotiating our marriage.” He stood and shrugged off his jacket, then tossed it carelessly over the chair and deftly removed his waistcoat. “We’ll probably want to see each other well when we do it.” He voice lowered to a seductive growl. “And I certainly want to see you.”
As he stripped his shirt over his head, leaving himself tantalizingly bare from the waist up, she realized he planned on doing far more tonight than discussing their upcoming marriage. Sweet anticipation licked at her toes.
“First.” He tossed the shirt aside and bent down to pull off a boot. “When would you like to be married?”
Her eyes drifted shamelessly over him, and she answered a bit huskily, “As soon as possible.”
“Good answer.” He dropped the boot to the floor and grinned. “How soon?”
“Four months?”
“Two.” His heated gaze never leaving hers, he removed the second boot.
“But Mama wants a grand wedding, and I can’t cheat her out of the fun she’ll have planning for it, all that fussing over details.”
“Three?”
She nodded at the compromise, and he dropped the second boot to the floor. Oh, she was beginning to like this marriage negotiation business. A great deal.
He straightened and reached down for the fall on his breeches. “London.”
Her gaze shamelessly lowered to his waist and waited for a glimpse of his manhood in the firelight. “What?” she asked thickly. She was trembling now, all of this making her head swim. She marveled that she could understand anything he was saying.
His lips twitched with amusement at her befuddlement, his hand stilling provocatively with his breeches half-unbuttoned. “The wedding will be at St. Paul’s.” Then he shoved his breeches down and stepped out of them to stand naked in front of her, his body magnificent in the firelight. Hard, sculpted muscles in his shoulders, his chest sprinkled with just a dusting of dark hair that led down to…oh my. She swallowed. Even half-erect, he was impressive. And he was all hers, tonight and always. “You’ll look so beautiful there in your wedding dress.”
If anyone found them together now, he would be a dead man once her brothers finished with him, fiancé or not, and she would be planning a funeral instead of a wedding. But how glad she was that he was willing to risk his life for her tonight. She smiled, far more wickedly than a woman should when discussing a church. “St. Paul’s it is, then.”
“And you?” He closed the distance between them with a single step and unfastened the half dozen buttons at the neck of her night rail.
“Me?” She closed her eyes as his hands opened her gown, revealing her neck and shoulders, the tops of her breasts beneath. Already her nipples puckered achingly against the soft cotton in expectation of his hands on her, of his body moving deliciously inside hers.
“What demands do you have of this marriage?” He tugged her sleeve down to bare her right breast, and she gasped.
“Babies,” she whispered as he tugged down the other sleeve, the night rail falling to her elbows and exposing both breasts to his hungry gaze. “I want a house filled with children.”
“Agreed, most definitely.” His eyes flashed like sapphires as he pushed the night rail off her arms and let it fall to the floor at her feet. She stood before him completely exposed, now just as bare and vulnerable as he was. “I certainly plan to do everything I can to fulfill that marriage demand. And often.”
She shivered as he looked her up and down, his eyes lingering with undisguised desire on her breasts and the patch of curls between her thighs, where even now she’d grown hot, moist, and aching.
“What else can I do for you, Josephine?” He slipped his arms around her and pulled her against him, warm body against warm body, soft curves against hard muscles. “What else can I give you to make you happy?”
Her eyes glistened with tears of happiness. “You.”
“Granted.” He lowered his head and kissed her, hot and openmouthed. There was no mistaking his desire and need for her. Sweet heavens, he shook with it!
Shoving his hands into her hair and pulling her head back to expose her throat, he moved his mouth down her neck and across her shoulder, nipping and licking and leaving a hot, wet trail across her skin. She bit back a moan. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders as his hands slid down her back to cup her bottom and lift her against him, his penis now fully erect, hot and hard as
it pressed into her stomach. He bit her earlobe, and when she gasped at the sweet possessiveness of the bite, he swirled his tongue inside her ear and sent a cascade of fire raining through her.
“I want you, Josephine.” His large hands slid around to her hips and brushed up her sides until his hands reached her breasts and captured them against his palms. His fingers spread out possessively across them, and he growled, “Tonight and always.”
He rolled her hard nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, and she moaned and arched herself against him. Liquid flames shot from her breasts straight down to the throbbing ache between her legs. Oh, the things this man could do to her with even such a simple touch!
Emboldened by his love for her, she ran her hands down his chest to the flat of his stomach, then lower still. He sucked in a mouthful of air between his teeth as her hand closed around him and began to stroke. She thrilled with this power she held over him, with the way she was able to make him tremble and lean into her so submissively. He wanted her, all of her, and she’d never felt so alive, so feminine, in her life.
He groaned out his pleasure, the words indecipherable in his arousal. She laughed lightly and tightened her grip as she stroked him. He grew impossibly hard in her hand, a rod of steel beneath soft, velvet skin. And every inch belonged to her.
His hooded eyes gazed down at her, dark with arousal and need, as if he could devour her by simply looking. Wanting him to do just that, she devilishly folded both hands around him, and as her palm circled over his enlarged head, made slippery from the droplets of his essence that gathered at his tip, he bit back a groan.
She laughed with happiness, and before she had a chance to stop him, he swept her into his arms and lowered her to the hearthrug in front of the fireplace. His body moved over hers as he kissed her, deeply and longingly, and she wrapped her arms and legs around him to pull him closer into the cradle of her hips, never wanting to let him go.
His hand stroked down between them, and she whimpered in response. She delighted in his touch, in each teasing circle of his fingers, each slow dip into her core, and she wondered again how he could make her feel this heavenly, both this excited and this relaxed at the same time.
“Marry me, Josephine,” he urged as he lowered himself into her and sheathed his manhood completely inside her warmth.
“Yes…oh yes.” With her arms clenched around his shoulders, she closed her eyes and rolled her head helplessly against the rug as he stroked inside her, each retreat and deep plunge an exquisite torture.
His lips brushed against her throat. “Come be my wife and live with me forever.”
“Yes,” she whispered, “I will.”
The intensity of his thrusts increased. As he leaned on one forearm over her, he grasped her calf and lifted her leg until her knee was bent between them, seating himself fully against her, shifting the angle of his penetration so he could slide even deeper inside her. With a soft whimper, she dug her fingertips into his shoulders and clung to him, as if she could keep him this close forever.
“I’ll protect you,” he whispered against her temple as he continued his heated slide in and out of her slick folds, stoking the growing heat licking at her belly. “I will love you, cherish you, and always care for you. There will never be anyone else, not inside my heart nor in my bed.” Not pausing in his steady rhythm as he made love to her, he held her gaze in the firelight, his blue eyes flaming and bright. “There will only be you, Josephine.”
He dipped his head to brush his lips over her cheeks, kissing away the tears as they fell from her eyes and swallowing her joy.
And then, so softly she barely heard him…“I pledge my life to you.”
His words flashed through her, his love filling every inch of her. Her body broke around his, not with a passionate cry but with a soft whisper of his name as she buried her face against his chest. The love she carried for him overwhelmed her, and she could barely hold on to him as she seemed to fly away, straight through the ceiling and into the blanket of stars above, carrying him with her in her arms.
He thrust deeply into her, then held his body pressed tight against her as he released himself inside her with a low groan. He poured his life’s essence into her and, with that, his soul.
He lay motionless on top of her, and she kept her arms wrapped tightly around his neck and shoulders, their two bodies still joined deliciously together. Slowly their racing hearts calmed, their breathing grew steady, and reluctantly she released her hold on him so he could rest on the rug next to her and pull her into his arms.
She snuggled her naked body close to his and nestled into the hollow between his shoulder and his side, the same side forever marked by the bullet that had nearly claimed his life. The same bullet fate had used to deliver him to her.
“I want to change one of our marriage settlements,” she told him as she traced idle circles across the warm skin of his chest with her fingertip.
“As long as it’s not the one about having children.” He lifted her chin to place a long, languid kiss on her mouth, and when she sighed, she felt him smile against her lips. “After tonight, that one might prove nonnegotiable.”
A warmth stirred low in her belly at the possibility that she might have gotten with his child. Thomas’s baby inside her! The thought overwhelmed her with sheer happiness. “Actually, I was thinking of a different one.”
“Hmm?” His lips brushed across her forehead.
Dawn was coming soon, and he would have to leave, but for now he was completely hers. Without warning she rolled over on top of him, straddling his waist and pinning his shoulders to the floor. She gazed down at him and smiled. “Three months is simply too long to wait.”
With a rakish grin, he raised his head to kiss her. “Agreed.”
Epilogue
Chestnut Hill
May Day 1820
The three men stood shoulder to shoulder at the bottom of the sloping hill and laughed as the women came running toward them, barefoot in the grass beneath their swishing skirts and the children clasping their hands beside them. The afternoon sun shone golden and warm as they raced toward the wide pink ribbon stretched across the bottom of the hill, and around them the scent of honeysuckle and peach blossoms lingered on the late-spring air.
Edward watched Kate lovingly as she plunged down the hill, their three young daughters surrounding her and holding on to her hands and skirts. Her bonnet had fallen away, revealing flame-red hair that burnished in the sun like fire. She caught him watching her across the lawn and smiled at him brilliantly, laughing with happiness and love.
“She’s an angel,” Grey commented beside him.
Edward shook his head, grinning. “With that hair? She’s a devil.”
“Not your wife, Colonel.” He nodded toward Emily as she brought up the rear, with their four-year-old son running freely beside her and their toddler daughter in her arms. His eyes lit up with love. “Mine.”
When the girl cried, Emily stopped to comfort her by rocking her in her arms, completely conceding the race. Immediately Edward’s aunt Augusta rose from the tea tables beneath the shading boughs of the nearby chestnut trees and hurried to help her while the boy ran on, diverted from the goal of the ribbon and racing instead toward Grey, who grabbed his son and tossed him up onto his shoulders. When Emily joined them, he kissed her passionately right there in the middle of the May Day games and made her cheeks pinken in a pretty blush.
Halfway down the hill, a blond little girl in a sky-blue dress waved at her three uncles as the Carlisle brothers held the ribbon at the bottom of the hill and urged her toward them.
“Run, Clara!” Thomas cheered his six-year-old adopted daughter.
Her golden ringlets bounced as she slowed into a loping skip and glanced over to send him a bright smile—the same smile she used to consistently escape punishment from her doting father for misbehaving. Behind her Josie waddled as quickly as she could, her hand resting protectively under the large, round baby bel
ly beneath her dress.
Edward’s youngest daughter let go of Kate’s skirt, and the toddler wobbled unsteadily for a moment, then plopped down in the grass with a scowling look of fierce consternation on her face making her so resemble Edward that a howl of laughter went up from both Thomas and Grey.
Edward ran up the hill and scooped his daughter into his arms, and with the girl giggling with laughter, he carried her down to the finish line and through the ribbon. Then his twin girls ran across the line, jumped onto their papa, and pulled him down to the ground beneath them, all of them laughing happily as they rolled together on the grass. When Kate stood over them, frowning sternly at their behavior, Edward grabbed her hand and pulled her down into the pile with them. Her laughter echoed across the garden.
Thomas watched them all, and his chest swelled—Edward and Kate as they kissed on the grass…Emily and Grey as they held their children in their arms…and his own beautiful, glowing Josie as she fended off well-meaning attempts by Miranda Hodgkins to help her into a chair.
“We made it, Grey,” Thomas commented quietly, taking in all the joy and happiness surrounding them, the safe homes the three men had created for themselves and their families far from the madding cries of war, and the love they’d fought so hard to secure for themselves. They had all been wounded, all of them scarred, but the wounds had healed, leaving them stronger than before and ready for the rest of their lives together with the women they loved.
“Yes, we did.” Grey rested his hand affectionately on Thomas’s shoulder. “We certainly did.”
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“But…but I don’t even like you…”
“I know,” his husky voice rasped out. “Damn curious to me, too.” His strong hands ran slowly down her back as if he couldn’t stop touching her. “You’re a puzzle to me, Josephine, and I love a good puzzle.”
How I Married a Marquess Page 30
