Page 80 of Forgery, Love, and Other Lies
“Of course.” A kiss rumbling with laughter this time.
“And I’m here because… I need to know.” He tipped her chin up with his knuckles, and the gaze he raked her with was rawer than any he’d given her before. “I need to know if you’re done with me.” He looked away, let loose her chin. “We have found what we set out to find, after all. And though you might be with child, you also might not be, and me being me, I would not wonder if you wished to… part ways.”
She sat up right, slapping her palms on his chest to do so and keeping one hand there to pin him while the other forced his chin center, forced his gaze back to hers. “Part ways?”
He nodded, closed his eyes. “It’s best for you, naturally. After we’re sure there’s no child. But I confess I am having a difficult time reconciling with the idea. I keep finding ways we can make do. Live with Raph at Briarcliff. You designing and I traveling a bit to authenticate pieces. It might be safer for us as well, in the country. Closer to the ocean too if we have to make a dramatic getaway because Baron Balantine’s lips have loosened. And who knows. Perhaps one day, I’ll accidently create something of value and earn my inheritance. But, Fiona…” His eyes opened.
“Yes?” The only word she could muster, her brain so full of his little speech, his words building a story so like the ones her imagination so constantly spun.
“I am here because I realized you’ve chased and chased after me.”
“I’m not so sure that’s complimentary.”
He laughed and wrapped his hand around her hip. “It is. I needed chasing. Wanted you but didn’t feel I could do the chasing myself. And there you were, always telling me exactly what you want, never hesitating to ask for it. And I’ve given in because I want it, too. But you shouldn’t have to do all the chasing. And I don’t want to run from you, no matter how difficult life might get. I want to love you, and I do love you, and maybe if I chase you long enough, I might convince you to love me back.”
She gave a little huff. “I do not think you’ll have to chase me very long.” Not long at all, in fact. She let her body melt, meld to his, and she kissed the tip of his chin. “Just out of curiosity, do you have any qualms against a woman secretly running a jewelry shop?”
“No, not particularly. Wait… does she dislike it? Because if she’d rather be doing something else, then—”
“No.” She kissed his neck this time. “It’s her dream.”
“Are we talking about you?”
“No. My sister. Seems we need a business-minded fellow so Posey, and I of course, can continue doing as we please at Frampton’s. Someone who can provide a male face of propriety.”
“Do you mean you need a husband to pretend to be a jeweler so you and your sister can actually be the jewelers?”
“Pricisely.”
“Sounds diverting. Are you accepting applications? I’m in the market for a new position, and—”
She kissed him, stopping all sound but those sounds of hunger for one another.
He returned the kiss, hard, and stroked his knuckles down her cheek then flipped them. Her belly erupted into the tiny flutters of hundreds of butterfly wings, and he kissed her again as his big body rested on top of hers, and he braced his weight above her on his elbows, using his hands to clear the hair away from her face, to stroke the soft skin at her temples, to rub a thumb over her winged eyebrows. He dippedand kissed the very tip of her nose. “Make love to me.”
“Finally,youaskme,” she breathed, parting his lips with her tongue. She arched her back to press her breasts against his chest.
He let his hand trail down her neck and over her shoulders, pulled at the neckline of her bodice, while his other hand stretched lower to lift up the hem of her skirts. When he had them pooled above her hips, she sat up, forcing him upright onto his knees. She tugged at the hem of his shirt, freeing it so her fingers could slip beneath it, could rake down his warm skin and taut muscle. She traced the lines of his abdomen and felt other parts harden. Ah, yes. Other parts of him beckoned, and she reached with curious fingers for his fall, hearing an unfamiliar squeak from her own throat, an odd little sound of desire.
He rubbed his hands over her shoulders and kissed her neck, a small chuckle rumbling through him and into her. “God, you amuse me to no end. I want to hear little squeaks like that the rest of my life.”
She wanted to hear words like that for the rest of hers. The buttons of his fall proved numerous but trifling, and she flicked them all open with little difficulty. When he sprang free, she took him in hand, as she had with such boldness their first night together, and rubbed her thumb across the tip of his shaft. He groaned and caught her up in his arms once more, stroking his fingernails up and down her back before he slid palms flat against her ribs, then cupped her breasts in his hands and squeezed. Her head fell back with a moan.
“You are perfect,” he said. “Every inch perfect. The only perfect thing in my life I’ve ever coveted.”
She scattered kisses along his neck and jaw as her hand, between their bodies, played with him still. She loved holding the pulsing length of him, looked forward to learning in more detail what to do with it. She’d tell him what she wanted, listen to his desires, too.
“Will this differ from what we’ve done before?” she asked. “Making love?”
“There is a bed this time. Other than a bit more softness, no. Did you not know,” he whispered into her ear, “that it was love then, too? I did not want it to be, but that does not stop it. Does not make it any less dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Her fingertips made indentations in his back.
“It damn well is. No one runs from something that is not dangerous, and nothing is as dangerous to a hardheaded man as love. You, my dragon, have always been a danger.”
That pleased her, so she kissed him to show him, pressing her lips to the heavy muscle of his chest above his beating heart. “Thatisa compliment.”
His dark eyes glinted wicked in the firelight, and he slid a hand over her thigh between her legs, and inside of her.
