She lifted a palm and laid it gently against his cheek. “Douglas, if this is my punishment for flirting, I’m afraid I’m going to have to do it more often.”
He didn’t move.
“In fact,” she went on, “I may do it all the time. I might start flirting with Nick,” she informed him and his arms stole around her, his weight bearing heavily on her. “And even Carter,” she breathed, because his body on hers was taking her breath away, in more ways than one. “You’re crushing me,” she whispered softly in his ear.
She no sooner said it than she lost his arms and him as he pulled out of her and away, dropping to the side, half-on her, half-off, lifting himself on his elbow to look down at her.
She may have been teasing but she saw that he was not amused.
He watched her and then asked bluntly, “Are you going to marry me?”
His eyes were intense and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
She wanted to say something flippant.
She wanted to rush home to the safety of Indiana, her old house, her old job, her old life, her old grocery store where she knew where the cake mixes were, but she understood now that it was all too late.
“Yes,” was her simple reply.
There was no crowing in victory. Douglas simply rolled into her, gathering her in his arms and he kissed her. Gone was the passion and urgency and in its place was complete and surprising tenderness which left her a different kind of breathless.
Then he carefully pulled away and, nearly reverently, swept off her shoes and stockings, righted her body on the bed and pulled her under the sheets. He discarded the rest of his clothes and met her there, pulling her back into his arms.
She wanted to talk to him, for him to reassure her, for something to be said that would be a hallmark of this momentous occasion.
Instead, she asked teasingly, “So, you liked the dress?”
His response, “It’s obvious you think this is incredibly amusing but allow me to educate you. Men do not like to be teased.”
He was lying on his back and had pressed her against his side and she’d laid her head on his shoulder.
“I gathered that,” Julia mumbled, his hand drifted to her bottom and he may have been about to give her a smack but she didn’t feel it because the intensity of her cl**ax suddenly stole over her and she drifted to sleep.
Now, she was awake and she needed the bathroom, she needed a moment to herself, she needed a moment to think.
She shifted slightly and his arms tightened.
“Douglas,” she whispered, not knowing if he was awake or asleep, “I need to use your bathroom.”
Apparently he was awake for his arms loosened. She slid out of them and rolled off the bed.
Not entirely comfortable with ambling around his still-lit bedroom completely nude with him half-asleep, or not (she’d learned that lesson the night of the gunshot wound), she grabbed the closest thing at hand, which was his shirt. She shrugged it on, avoiding looking at him and scurried to one of the two doors she could see, hoping it led to the bathroom.
Thankfully, it did.
As with his bedroom, it was decorated in deep chocolate browns, dusky blues and sharp chartreuses. She quickly went about her business and, at the basin, after washing her hands, she stared at herself in the mirror.
She nearly laughed out loud.
Her hair hadn’t moved. It was still twisted in its elegant coils as if she hadn’t just been thoroughly satisfied by a rapacious baron.
She’d just lifted her hands to begin to release her hair from its pins when the door flew open.
She jumped.
“What are you doing?” Julia demanded, staring in the mirror at Douglas standing behind her in his glorious nakedness, his lean, muscled body nonchalantly exposed to her eyes, which were shining in disbelief at his intrusion. Her arms were lifted and her hands were stilled in the process of taking the hairpins out of her the hair at the back of her head.
He looked at her, also through the mirror. “You were taking a long time.”