“I want to be married in a cathedral,” she said, and his heart soared with hope. She hid how serious she was with a flippant “But I suppose you would not want that.”
“That is what I want.” Scandal, gossip, his background exposed, jokes at her expense . . . nothing could touch them. “I will be there with you, and that is what you shall have.”
She pulled away, and his hopes began to falter . . . until she got to her knees, turned, and straddled his lap. The bathwater was now an ocean. Between their bodies, his arousal was hard, and her tight fist squeezed out his breath.
“I want a honeymoon that lasts a year,” Angelika told him as she lifted her body, aligned him, and began to sink.
“Fine,” Arlo choked out.
“I want to see the world. I will be extravagant in every regard, and I am a ridiculous traveler.”
“I already know that.”
She leaned herself back, to find the angle she liked best. “But I do not suppose you would enjoy that type of life, being taken everywhere with me, put into my bed, and bought anything I think you will enjoy. Ships, horses, carriages. Spices, tapestries, wine.” She was losing her breath. “Then, we shall return to Larkspur Lodge, where I will have our first baby.”
“That is all I want.”
He was having trouble thinking, but she deserved so much more. He angled his pelvis, and focused. “I was too much of a coward to say everything I want, because I feel like I could lose everything again. But it is no use; I simply must have you. All I have to give you is this, my body”—his breath stuttered in his chest as the water crested—“but even as I become completely myself again, I will still love you as I do now. Fiercely, violently, in ways that scare me. I vow to you that I will not change.”
He felt his composure begin to break down. How had he been so slow to reach this surrender? “I will kill for you. I will live for you. I will allow myself to be spoiled by you. From this moment on, you are my wife.”
“Father Northcott, performing his own wedding vows?” Angelika replied with a pinch of sarcasm and sweat on her brow.
She still did not believe him.
He did not know where the strength came from, and there was no longer any pain. He stood up slowly, feeling her gasp, and her body clutched him tight everywhere. With strange ease, he stepped out of the tub, and now there was the sound of rainfall and a cold chill. They did not notice. The windowsill was a promising height, and he didn’t lose his deep seat inside her as he put her down and crowded into her open thighs. His world was narrow and tight, dripping wet, and he felt himself changing.
Beyond this leadlight window was the forest where he’d found her on her back, sleeping as if enchanted, having cheated death by inches, and he was becoming that wild creature that had fallen to his knees, terror in his heart.
“I’m going to keep doing this until you say yes,” he said, moving his hips, and she uttered a rich, desperate moan. “I will spoil you in ways you cannot imagine.”
Her eyes rolled closed, but he did not feel that vise-tight sensation that usually gave away her overloaded passion. He put his hands under her knees, and continued pushing and pulling her. “I want to have you like this every day, showing you how I love you, how I am desperate for you. Every blink of your eyes, and every tart reply, makes me store this up for later, when I take you to our bedroom. Do you want that life?”
Her hands were slipping on his wet shoulders. “Yes. I want that. Harder.”
He put his hand to where they were joined, and added a new tension to her next moan. When they made eye contact again, everything turned desperate.
Words were not possible any longer, and now he used his body and his lips to explain to her what she meant to him; that she was exceptional in every way, the most gloriously gorgeous, rightfully vain, brilliant person he would ever meet. Memories of her began to splinter in his mind as he thrust again and again, and she began to break down in ecstasy.
Trousers tight on her thighs, a sea sponge in her hand, the fall of her loose hair on her shoulder, biting into an unusual apple, the spark of light in her green eyes, and how she always looked at him: like she loved him beyond any sense, sidestepping the natural order of the universe with a grin and a quip . . .
Now she was traveling into that private landscape of ecstasy, her limbs jerking, her pulsing and pulling causing him to follow. He clutched her to his heart, and he felt like a wild animal. “I love you.” It was the truest thing he’d ever said, even if it was growled. “Marry me, for God’s sake, give yourself to me.”