Page 104 of A Rogue to Watch Over Me
Tonight.
And every night.
“Ye’ll still be a beauty then. Waiting for me there with your hair lying loose over the pillow.”
She blinked and took a step closer. “By then, my hair will be more silver than ginger.”
The sounds of familiar voices cut over the clatter of a carriage rumbling along the street. Logan glanced up. Finn and Mrs. Langford sat on the driver’s bench of the carriage. The coach slowed to a stop, and Finn offered both a tip of his hat and a word of advice.
“Be a man, ye dolt,” he grinned. “Tell her.”
Cocking her chin in that fetching way of hers, she regarded him for a long moment. “And what might it be... that you need to tell me?”
Steps from the place where he had spent his first night with her, a night during which he’d slept on a torture-rack of a chair while a cheerful dust-mop of a dog licked his hand rather than leave her unguarded, Logan met her keen-eyed gaze. Blast it, he should’ve brought his whisky flask. He had never been a coward. But at a moment like this, a man could surely use a gulp or two of emotional fortification.
Finn was right. It was high time he spoke the truth in his heart.
“No matter if we’re both old and gray and creaky, I will never be able to take my eyes off ye,mo chridhe.”
Had he ever spoken truer words?
Her eyes softened with emotion. “My heart.”
“Amelia, my sweet, I’ll want ye until I take my last breath.”
“But...” Her plump lower lip quivered. “Do you love me?”
He couldn’t help but grin. “Aye. How could ye doubt it, lass?”
Her eyes widened, seeming to drink him in. Glimmers of pure joy danced in her gaze as a smile played on her tempting mouth. “I must say, I’ve never heard the words directly from your lips.”
“Amelia, I was a fool.” He searched her eyes, as if in their depths he would find the answer to the question he desperately needed to ask. In his life, he’d faced down cheats and killers. He had not cowered in the face of danger. Yet now, looking at the beautiful face of the woman he would cherish until his last breath, he felt tongue-tied. At a bloody loss for words.
“Tell me again, Logan.” Amelia’s eyes glistened with tears.
“If ye will have me, I want ye by my side for the rest of my days. For the rest of my nights.” He caught her hands in his. “With every breath... with every beat of my heart, I love ye, Amelia.”
*
I love ye,Amelia.
Waves of emotion crashed over Amelia. Her pulse raced, and she struggled to find her voice. The man she adored had spoken with raw feeling and honesty. Logan was not a man accustomed to flowery words. He was not a man who crafted smoothly spoken seductions.
His gravel-edged declaration had come from the heart. From his soul.
How she’d longed for this moment. Her love for him would hold strong for every moment she had breath. And beyond.
She drank in Logan’s warm gaze. Was that a trace of uncertainty in his eyes? Could it be he truly did not know the depth of her love?
Slowly, he drew the pad of his thumb over her hand, tracing small circles against her skin. “I do not expect ye to make any promises. Not just yet,”
She edged closer. Smiling with all the joy in her heart, Amelia wove her fingers through his sable-brown hair. She didn’t care a whit that curious onlookers had stopped in their tracks, eager to take in the scene.
She didn’t care that Finn and the ladies were hanging on their every word.
At this moment in time, all she cared about was the man who’d spoken the words that made her heart sing.
She cupped her palm against his jaw, delighting in the feel of his skin against hers. “I am not inclined to utter any promises. Or any vows. Truth be told, I don’t really want tosayanything.”
