The Bridgertons Happily Ever After - By Julia Quinn Page 0,51
sighed a little and said, “I would never lie to you.”
He kissed her soundly. “I certainly hope not.”
She looked up into his silvery eyes and let herself ease against the warmth of his body. “It seems no woman is immune.”
“How lucky I am, then, that I fall under the spell of only one.”
“Lucky for me.”
“Well, yes,” he said with affected modesty, “but I wasn’t going to say it.”
She swatted him on the arm.
He kissed her in return. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.”
“And how is the clan Bridgerton?” he asked, linking his arm through hers.
“Rather wonderful,” Francesca replied. “I am having a splendid time, actually.”
“Actually?” he echoed, looking vaguely amused.
Francesca steered him away from the house. It had been over a week since she’d had his company, and she didn’t wish to share him just then. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“You said ‘actually.’ As if you were surprised.”
“Of course not,” she said. But then she thought. “I always have a lovely time when I visit my family,” she said carefully.
“But . . .”
“But it’s better this time.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why.”
Which wasn’t precisely the truth. That moment with her mother—there had been magic in those tears.
But she couldn’t tell him that. He’d hear the bit about crying and nothing else, and then he’d worry, and she’d feel terrible for worrying him, and she was tired of all that.
Besides, he was a man. He’d never understand, anyway.
“I feel happy,” she announced. “Something in the air.”
“The sun is shining,” he observed.
She gave him a jaunty, single-shouldered shrug and leaned back against a tree. “Birds are singing.”
“Flowers blooming?”
“Just a few,” she admitted.
He regarded the landscape. “All the moment needs is a cherubic little bunny hopping across the field.”
She smiled blissfully and leaned into him for a kiss. “Bucolic splendor is a marvelous thing.”
“Indeed.” His lips found hers with familiar hunger. “I missed you,” he said, his voice husky with desire.
She let out a little moan as he nipped her ear. “I know. You said that.”
“It bears repeating.”
Francesca meant to say something witty about never tiring of hearing it, but at that moment she found herself pressed rather breathlessly against the tree, one of her legs lifted up around his hips.
“You wear far too many clothes,” he growled.
“We’re a little too close to the house,” she gasped, her belly clenching with need as he pressed more intimately against her.
“How far,” he murmured, one his hands stealing under her skirts, “is ‘not too close’?”
“Not far.”
He drew back and gazed at her. “Really?”
“Really.” Her lips curved, and she felt devilish. She felt powerful. And she wanted to take charge. Of him. Of her life. Of everything.
“Come with me,” she said impulsively, and she grabbed his hand and ran.
Michael had missed his wife. At night, when she was not beside him, the bed felt cold, and the air felt empty. Even when he was tired, and his body was not hungry for her, he craved her presence, her scent, her warmth.
He missed the sound of her breathing. He missed the way the mattress moved differently when there was a second body on it.
He knew, even though she was more reticent than he, and far less likely to use such passionate words, that she felt the same way. But even so, he was pleasantly surprised to be racing across a field, letting her take the lead, knowing that in a few short minutes he would be buried deep within her.
“Here,” she said, skidding to a halt at the bottom of a hill.
“Here?” he asked dubiously. There was no cover of trees, nothing to block them from sight should anyone stroll by.
She sat. “No one comes this way.”
“No one?”
“The grass is very soft,” she said seductively, patting a spot beside her.
“I’m not even going to ask how you know that,” he muttered.
“Picnics,” she said, her expression delightfully outraged, “with my dolls.”
He took off his coat and laid it like a blanket on the grass. The ground was softly sloped, which he would imagine would be more comfortable for her than horizontal.
He looked at her. He looked at the coat. She didn’t move.
“You,” she said.
“Me?”
“Lie down,” she ordered.
He did. With alacrity.
And then, before he’d had time to make a comment, to tease or cajole, or even really to breathe, she’d straddled him.
“Oh, dear G—” he gasped, but he couldn’t finish. She was kissing him now, her mouth hot and hungry and aggressive. It was all deliciously familiar—he loved knowing every little bit of her, from the slope