What would daylight bring? Might he wake, and remember his past, and leave forever?
He lay thinking in the darkness, his fingertips swirling on her arm in endless loops. “But I am not that person. Not yet, anyway.” The touch was giving her goose bumps. “You know that Father Porter will come for me. This is only the beginning, and it may be something you cannot talk or pay us out of.”
“But I talk and pay so well.” Her reply was cute, but she knew he was right. A dead man could not just walk up to his own grave with no repercussions. “We’re going to have to tell Victor.”
“That’s what worries me most,” Will said to the ceiling. “I know you’ll love me no matter what”—he squeezed her—“but Victor’s reaction is unpredictable. If he finds out he has been sheltering a clergyman, he may toss me out on principle.”
“He loves you as a brother.” She paused. “But he hates contradicting himself and making exceptions. But you are correct. I will always love you, exactly as you are. What do you want tonight?”
Her new life philosophy was to try to notice the lovely moments she was living in, knowing how quickly it all could end. His body was aroused, his hands were on her, and the hem on her borrowed shirt was riding up.
“I want to use my hands on you.” He began to unbutton the shirt she wore. He struggled with the task, but she lay patiently. “I am losing sensation in my fingertips, and I think soon I won’t feel anything at all. And to think I might never—” The sound he made in his throat was choked and emotional. He folded away the fabric, and passed his palm down her spine. “I want to feel you, while I still can.”
“Is my hair soft?” she asked. “Am I sweet-smelling, and pretty?”
He huffed a laugh. “Adam tells the truth.”
She tipped her face up to kiss his throat. “Am I completely naked in your bed?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’d have to use your hands to find out.” She felt him go still. “Forget what we have ahead of us. Forget the morning. We have tonight, and we still have your fingertips, don’t we?” Her own hands were beginning to stroke him: the satin of his shoulders, the line of stitches at his neck. His hair felt like owl feathers. “Can you feel me tonight?”
“I feel you,” he said with a tremor in his tone, sliding his finger along her collarbone. “Do you feel me?”
“Since the moment we met.”
“Say my name,” he said in the dark, and he began using his hands in earnest. “I want to see how it fits.”
It took the brave, bold Angelika Frankenstein a few moments to muster the courage.
“Arlo.”
The spell was not broken. His hands continued to move, cataloguing her shape and smoothness under his bedsheets. The way he touched her was like a reverent savoring, like he was committing every rib and curve as memories he would hold sacred.
“I’m not sure,” he said, and put his mouth on hers in a kiss. “I’m not sure it suits me.”
This was the kiss that had hung between them in the air for every taut moment, retort, admiring glance, and endless night. Being trusted had imbued Angelika with power and pride; being loved like this did the same. There was no doubt for her. There was no one else. In a world full of options, where she could dip into her purse for anything and enchant any unwed military man, this was her only choice.
She would bring him back to life. “You say I’m more than beauty.”
“You’re energy,” he said, reading her mind, understanding her in a way no one ever had. “And you’re all I will ever need, for the rest of my life. I promise you.”
Kissing was a wonderful way of sharing this close, connected sense of destiny that was enfolding them now, but touching was just as nice. “Oh,” Angelika said when he swirled a palm across her nipple. “Arlo. Will. There’s a lot of things I want to try.”
“Really?” he said in the dark, pressing his lips onto her, dragging his tongue, finding her tight twisted part below her heart. “Really? Tell me.” He tugged, and teased, and nipped words out of her.
She told him everything.
“Behind, I crave it from behind, bend me over things and step in between my feet and just—” She flexed forward, and now her thighs were curled against his arousal. He wasn’t finished, and she gave him more. “Outside, I’ve always wanted to be licked between my legs under the stars—” She only caught her breath for as long as it took for him to kiss across to her other nipple. “I want to stay naked. In your bed, just like this, every night.”