Page 64 of The Lord's Compass
Faith looked up at him, her blue eyes soft and dreamy, a lazy smile playing on her lips. Eric had to tell his heart to be still when he saw the emotion in her eyes as she stared up at him – an adoration that, until this point, she had kept hidden.
He nodded, his fingers lazily tracing circles on her hip as he pulled her closer to him.
“It was,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before continuing. “Because it was with you.”
She dipped her head as she nodded against him, and even though she didn’t go anywhere, he could feel her slipping away.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Faith,” he said as sternly as he could. “I am your husband now, so if I ask, you must tell me. You are to obey me, remember?”
When she looked up and caught his eyes, he couldn’t keep it in anymore, and he started to laugh. She joined in with a chuckle, although she sobered more quickly than he.
“The truth is… itwasamazing. I suppose I just can’t help but think that it was so amazing because you have such a great deal of experience in all of this.”
An ache began in Eric’s chest that, after what they had shared, her thoughts would go to his past.
He pushed himself up to a sitting position, lifting her so that he could clearly see her face.
“Faith,” he said, all levity gone. “I need you to understand something.”
She said nothing, looking at him with some suspicion from beneath her lashes as he continued.
“Yes, I have been with other women,” he said as her eyes narrowed. “But none of them mattered. That was just a physical coming together. You and I… well, it’s more than that. It has meaning to it. This was us binding ourselves to one another. A promise. A commitment. A?—”
He was about to tell her a show of love, but the thought shocked him enough that he wasn’t sure what it would do to her.
She lifted a brow, waiting.
“A beginning,” he finished instead. “A beginning of a new life together. One which is just you and me, against whatever comes our way. Before you came into the room, you know that I was thinking of you, do you not?”
She nodded nearly imperceptibly.
“You are all I think of. You are all I want. I cannot change my past, but my future is yours.”
He reached out and took her hands in his, which, to him, was nearly as intimate as what they had shared before. “Now, I have tired you out. Time to sleep.”
He saw her hesitation and wondered at it, until she asked, “Should I sleep here or in my room?”
He grinned as he swept an arm around and pulled her to him. “Here, of course. What kind of question is that?”
“Very well,” she said, her smile evident just before she hid it.
“Now, I have one more problem.”
“Which is?”
“I never did find that tickle spot.”
She gasped and began to scootch back away from him, but he grinned and chased her on hands and knees across the bed.
He caught her, clasping her wrists in one hand when she lifted them to defend herself. He ran the fingers of his other hand up and down her sides, searching for that one spot that would make her squirm.
She wriggled in his arms, giggling uncontrollably as his fingers danced across her skin. Her laughter was like music and he smiled at her unrestricted show of joy.
When he used both hands to tickle her sensitive sides, she suddenly grabbed them and pulled him towards her. Their lips met in a fiery kiss, filled with the passion and desire they had been holding back for so long and finally released tonight.
