The Obsessions of Lord Godfrey - Stephanie Laurens Page 0,109
to end.”
Trapped against him, she huffed, her breath a heated gust across his chest. “So you understand how I felt.” She pulled back enough to look into his eyes. “You know why I had to try—why I had to save you.”
Some part of him raged No, you didn’t! Yet looking into her eyes, he saw the same power that gripped him and couldn’t look away. He couldn’t deny his truth or hers.
He released her so he could raise his hands and frame her face—so he could look into her eyes, into her soul, and see all he felt mirrored there. “I knew I loved you—that I had fallen in love with you—but until that moment, I didn’t realize… I had no clue what being in love really meant. Until that moment, I didn’t understand what love truly was—what a force it was, how powerful and compelling, how undeniable and irresistible it could be.” He paused, then acknowledged, “That it could—and would—control me.”
She searched his eyes. “And now?”
“And now, I know.” He looked inside and saw the whole truth. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Her smile lit the room. It was all he could see.
Ellie freed her arms and, dislodging his grip on her face, reached for his—so she could anchor herself and her giddy, whirling wits. “I love you. I fell in love with you…” She bit her lip, then confessed, “Virtually at first sight.”
He blinked. “When I staggered into the front hall and swooned at your feet?”
Her smile couldn’t get any wider. “Yes, then. I tried to tell myself my feelings were purely due to your survival and recovery being so important to the family, but my concern owed little to that. And through all that followed, you steadily gained in my estimation—you gained my respect, my trust, as well as my senses’ admiration.”
He smiled, but while his lovely hawklike eyes were clear, his gaze remained intent. After a second, it switched to the bandage on her arm, which he’d been careful not to jar. He raised a hand and oh-so-lightly skimmed his palm over the linen band. “When I saw you shot—wounded while protecting me—while a large part of me raged and reacted, another part recognized what your actions meant.” His gaze returned to her eyes. “That you loved me with the same depth and breadth—the same intensity—with which I had come to love you.”
He held her gaze and drew in a tight breath. “You are my heart, my sun—my life. Without you, I will shrivel and die. I will happily—joyously—spend the rest of my days loving, protecting, and caring for you.” He faintly smiled and shook his head—more, she sensed, at himself than at her. “It’s impossible, now, for me to even contemplate any other life.”
Unwaveringly, she held his gaze and let her smile reflect every last iota of her feelings. “I had never felt love—the type of love a woman feels for a man—until I met you. Know that, whatever you feel, I feel the same, too.”
A slow grin softened his face. He caught one of her hands and carried it to his lips. “We’re a matched pair. Just as well we’re getting married.”
She laughed, wrapped her arms about his neck, and tipped backward. He allowed her to topple them onto the bed. Back into an engagement informed by their desires and fueled by their passions, yet now, with the power that bound them acknowledged and embraced, that earlier sharp edge, that extra bite, had transformed into an irresistible heat that sent exhilaration and anticipation swirling higher and lent an extra dimension to every physical thrill, making each more exquisite.
She gasped and clung and tipped back her head, trying to find air to assuage her tight lungs as their combined passions, unrestrained, rolled through her, through him, and rendered them both mindless.
Mindless with hunger, each for the other.
Desperately seeking the sharpest thrill, the pinnacle of pleasure each could gift the other.
They rolled across the sheets, heated and wanting.
Desire turned ravenous and raked them with claws honed by need.
Until they joined and the power surged and filled them, and the sense of togetherness drew in as intimacy—true intimacy with no screens, no reservations, no barriers of any sort—unfurled, gripped, and in the inferno of their passions, forged them into one.
One in thought, one in deed, one in their drive to reach the beckoning peak and seize their due.
One in every way that counted, linked by so much more than passion and desire.