Page 90 of Ravishing Camille
She giggled at his feigned hurt and toyed with a button on his shirt. “You may still.”
He cupped her cheeks., the look of adoration in his eyes a joy she would recall until she died. “Ravishing Camille, will you marry me?”
“How could you ever doubt it?”
“Never.” He swept her up in his arms, took her to her bedroom and down to her broad bed. Securely pinned beneath his weight, she wiggled to become more comfortable. His kisses ensured more excitement than she planned. And her robe and negligee came off so easily. Naked, she let him have his fill of her skin as she tugged at his shirt and his trousers.
“We’ll not get anywhere quickly if you don’t help me dispense with your clothes and your shoes, sir!”
As if she’d set fire to him, he shot from the bed and disrobed with charming alacrity. She had only a second to admire his figure and his very virile desire for her when he climbed back beside her and cupped her chin.
He was well into a thorough laving of her breast when she curled her fist around his manhood. “May we dispense with those hideous French letters?”
He raised up on one arm, focusing on her question with a satyr’s leer. “We may.” Then he drifted lower and savored as he went.
She hated to intrude on his journey, but she had to know. “Do you think the end of September a fine date for the wedding?”
He seemed to hum his answer and she really did not mind that he had a tendency to focus on one thing at a time. She told herself to ask him that question again after…well after he finished bringing her to a delicious pulsing climax.
But then he added another delight of sinking inside her and this time, finishing his journey there. That done, she was quite lost to memory or logic.
He curled her beside him and made a practice of tracing a lock of her hair around her areola so that she squirmed, even in her lethargy. And of course, she was soon ready for another round.
But he sank his fingers into her hair and said, “Monday, October first at ten in the morning at Rue Haussmann, the minister of the American Church will preside over our wedding.”
Overjoyed, she gave a shaky laugh. “Have you chosen my gown as well?”
He pulled back, considering. “I can if you wish.”
She ground her teeth and rolled over him. Twining her legs with his, she grinned. “Should it be silks from Shanghai?”
“It can be burlap for all I care. I have one stipulation only.”
She sighed, feigning forbearance. “Which is what?”
He got up from the bed and cast about for his frock coat. When he found it, he dug around inside a pocket and returned to her to hand over a red satin pouch. “It must look good with these.”
She sat up, reached inside and extracted the longest strand of pearls she’d ever seen in her life. She checked his happy expression and, naked, scrambled from their bed. Standing she let drop the strand. The thing was as long as she was tall.
“I see by this,” she said as she put the strand around her throat and wound and wound and wound it up into layers of pearls, “that you expected to propose to me in grand style. I like all your organization, Mister Hanniford. Continue, do, with it.”
“Some other time,” he said and beckoned her waggling his fingers. “Come here. Show me how you like them.”
She took a good long time at that. Most of the night, in fact.
The sun climbed high in the sky when they awoke, laughing at the day before them.
“Tell me one thing,” he said as he pointed to the carved vault above their heads. “Is that a male lion on the ceiling?”
“It is.” She wiggled her brows and ran her palm over his honed muscles which were more enticing than that of the creature above them.
“And his lioness?”
“Indeed.”
“Mating?” He chuckled.
“They are.” She kissed his ribs and pecked her way down his torso to his other intriguing accoutrements.
