he realization struck Sebastian, much as he suspected lightning might, on a cold, foggy March morning as he reconnoitered with Griffin for the first time since his wedding night.
Then again, it wasn’t so much a realization as it was a revelation. Or perhaps, to be more accurate, a fallacy. For it was improbable, foolhardy, and altogether wrong. He said it aloud into the mists anyway because he couldn’t contain the words in his mind any longer. Not for one moment more.
“I’m going to keep her,” he announced, aware that his awkward phrasing made it sound more as if he’d decided to keep a racehorse rather than a wife and mother to his future children.
But there it was just the same, poor delivery aside. Saying it felt equal parts alarming and freeing. And also right. So very, very right. Daisy was his. She was his, and she was innocent of any and all Fenian plots. She was kind and good, sweet and giving, and everything a woman who had spent most of her life being abused by her father should seemingly not be. She was the part of himself he’d been missing. The part of himself he hadn’t known existed until he’d recognized it in her eyes.
“Bloody hell, Bast,” Griffin bit out. “You know it’s impossible.”
Sebastian kept his eyes trained forward as he rode, pretending as if he hadn’t heard his friend speak. It was early, and Hyde Park was not yet teeming with the scores of horsemen and parade of the fashionable that would inevitably clutter it. Dawn rides had long been their habit—the perfect cover for relaying sensitive information that was best not entrusted to paper.
Impossible? No. Improbable? Yes.
But as it happened, Sebastian wasn’t inclined to give a damn. For the first time in his life, he felt… at peace. He’d dedicated his life to the League, but he had finally reached his limit. He would not send an innocent woman to gaol. He would not misuse her after she had given so freely of her body, mind, and heart. By God, he would not treat her as a pawn for another moment more.
Because she wasn’t a pawn.
She was Daisy, and she was strong against all odds, and her laughter was infectious, and she had changed him in a way he’d never imagined possible. She had opened a door into a life he might have, and God help him, he intended to walk through that door. With her at his side. He intended to take that life and make it theirs.
“Sebastian,” Griffin said again, and this time his tone was grim.
Grim because he could read Sebastian better than anyone else could. But Sebastian didn’t want to hear any of his friend’s sermons. He didn’t need any further reminders and warnings concerning Daisy. His mind drowned in them. The only thing keeping him afloat in this vast ocean of self-loathing and confusion threatening to consume him was the same person Griffin warned him away from.
Daisy.
And that was why he wanted her as his true wife, for the rest of their lives. She was everything he wanted, and nothing he’d ever imagined he’d needed. He’d realized that he couldn’t get her out of his life until he got her out of his blood, out of his head, and out of his bed. But he couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do that.
She was his, full stop.
“Sod off,” he said conversationally.
He didn’t want to hear what Griffin had to say. Not a word.
“You took her to the opera,” his friend countered. “A book shop, the museum, hell, Sebastian, you’re courting the chit. Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
He continued to ignore Griffin, urging his mount into a faster pace. Eyes and ears everywhere, he thought bitterly. Apparently, Carlisle’s little birds had been following him about with more dedication these days. Was Griffin one of those birds? The thought was akin to a knife to the gut. He was like a brother to Sebastian. The brother he’d never had.
Griffin’s gelding matched his mare pace for pace. “You’re bedding her,” he called out, “and it’s turning you into a fool. Do yourself a favor and find someone else to fuck.”
That was bloody well the wrong thing to say to him. The wrong fucking thing to say to him.
Sebastian reined in his horse and dismounted, forcing his sometime friend to do the same. They squared off like a pair of prize fighters, staring each other down. Rage coursed through him, tightening his jaw until his teeth gnashed together. Sebastian broke the uneasy silence first.
“Never speak of her that way again,” he warned in a voice that vibrated with barely suppressed fury. He had never before wanted to smash his fist into Griffin’s nose the way he did now, so much that his knuckles ached with it.
“You want to hit me, Bast?” Griffin sneered. “Over a set of skirts you haven’t even been bedding for the span of a month? Go ahead, you prick. Choose a treasonous tart over our brotherhood. Hit me. See what happens.”
A set of skirts. That was the phrase that did it. Or perhaps it was treasonous tart. Sebastian would never know for certain. All he did know was that in the next breath, his fist collided with Griffin’s jaw.
His friend’s head snapped back, and he stumbled before regaining his footing. “Jesus, Sebastian. What the bloody hell?”
He stared back at Griffin as pain seared his knuckles, and as a reddish-purple bruise blossomed on his friend’s jaw. “Fuck. I didn’t intend to strike you, Griff. I’m sorry. It’s merely that she’s… ”
He allowed his words to trail off for fear of where they’d been headed. She’s the woman I love. Had he really been about to say such a ludicrous thing? Of course not. There was a vast difference between desiring a woman as his companion and having her in his bed and loving her. He’d only been married to her for the span of a fortnight, Chrissakes.
“She’s colluding with the Fenians,” Griffin finished for him. “Tell me you don’t think she’s innocent, Bast.”
“Her father is colluding with the Fenians,” he corrected coldly. “Her father who beat her savagely from the time she was a wee, defenseless girl of four. Her father who she never wants to see again. Vanreid is the enemy we seek to bring to heel, not Daisy.”
Griffin’s expression remained hard as stone, unreadable. “I suppose we’ll find out the truth of that soon enough.”
There was something his friend hadn’t said, and he knew it. “Meaning?”
“It’s time, Bast.” Griffin rubbed his bruised jaw. “Carlisle wants you to proceed with approaching Vanreid about a dowry. He expected you to do it sooner than this, and he isn’t pleased. You’re to invite him to your home. We need to pin the firearms to him. We’ve word from our American agents that an attack is imminent. They’ve commissioned a bloody submarine, Bast. It’s built and seaworthy, and they have every intention of using it to bombard one of our vessels. This is war.”
Sebastian’s blood went cold. He knew what was expected of him, but he’d been hoping like hell that there would be another way. That Carlisle would change his battle plans and leave Sebastian with a more palatable option.
The thought of having Vanreid present in his home made his skin crawl. The son-of-a-bitch ought to be disemboweled for what he’d done to Daisy, and that was a bloody, nasty business. Sebastian had seen the aftermath of just such a killing, and though it haunted him to this day, even an end as ghastly as that would be too merciful for Vanreid.
Now he was to pretend as though all was roses and rainbows, to invite Vanreid to his study and play the part of dissolute rakehell. To bring the bastard close enough to Daisy to hurt her once more.
He didn’t know if he could do it. He needed time. Time to think. To clear his mind. He had hit the one man in the world who was like a brother to him. But Griffin had not hit him back. For some reason, that troubled Sebastian the most.
“Thank you for the message,” he said tersely, and then he spun on his heel and threw himself atop his horse once more before riding hell for leather away from the only person he’d ever believed he could trust. Away from unwanted duty. Away from everyone and everything.
Griffin’s words echoed in the staccato of his horse’s hooves.
This is war.
Yes, bloody hell, it was.
Daisy descended the stairs for dinner at precisely a quarter past eight that evening, just as she had every night since her first dinner with him. What had begun as a small assertion of her independence had quickly changed. She kept him waiting, and he took her to task, though increasingly with more sensual heat than genuine irritation. It had become rather a diversion of sorts between them.
He pushed, she pulled. He was inflexible and disciplined where she longed to experience life free of the constraints that had once contained her. She wanted to soak up every moment of every day in this new life she led, while Sebastian seemed somehow restrained. The sadness in him remained, haunting his beautiful eyes. It was only when she teased him that he came to life at last, shedding his armor and allowing himself to simply be.
She’d come to realize that her husband was a rigid and disciplined man. He woke before dawn, breakfasted early, devoted himself to his estates and other matters, took his exercise, and then awaited her at dinner. And she liked keeping him waiting, even if it meant she secretly paced the floor of her chamber, sneaking glances at the mantle clock, as she made certain not to be punctual.
But there was an undeniably different air about him tonight as she glossed her right hand lightly over the polished balustrade, holding her skirts slightly aloft with her left. She’d become adept at sweeping down the staircase as though she glided, and she’d chosen a seafoam blue silk evening gown trimmed with rosettes and a revealing décolletage, but none of those trivialities mattered when her eyes found him as she was halfway down the stairs.
He wasn’t pacing tonight. His back was to her, head bowed forward as though in prayer, hands clasped at his back. She didn’t know him to be a particularly pious man, and in the fortnight they’d been married, he’d never missed the opportunity to unleash his caged energy on the parquet floor as he awaited her.
Something had changed, and she felt it the same way she’d experience a chill running straight down her spine. She paused, on the fourth stair from the bottom, watching him. This was not the reunion she’d anticipated after receiving a library’s worth of books, all carefully chosen with her interests in mind. And especially not after an inscription that called her a favorite.
A favorite.
As though she were someone to be cherished. Perhaps loved, though that was a finer emotion that she didn’t expect from him after only a fortnight of marriage. Hearts did what they would, and just because hers had stubbornly decided to fall for him didn’t mean his in turn could be expected to feel the same.
Still, those words had worked their way deep inside her to a place she hadn’t even known existed, making her smile all day long. Those words had been responsible for the soft hums of pleasure emerging from her as she made herself at home in the library. Those words were what caused the frisson of desire to glide through her even now, accompanied by the swift fluttering of her heart.
But he still hadn’t turned to face her, and he must have heard her footfalls on the stairs by now. “Sebastian,” she called softly.
He turned to her at last, his expression grim in the moment before he appeared to collect himself and don one of his many facades. A sensual smile curved his lips with ease. “Late again, buttercup?” he asked, but there was no bite to his words, only a bittersweet resonance.
Her heart clenched in her breast as she forced herself to descend the remainder of the stairs. “Forgive me for keeping you waiting,” she said tonight the same as she had each night before, taking extra care to maintain the flippancy in her tone. This time, she had a new explanation for her tardiness at the ready. “Someone sent me the contents of an entire book shop, and I spent the course of the day attempting to reconcile the shelves, the existing literature, and the new volumes.”
He strode toward her with a confidence that was purely his, all ducal, and somehow elegant and sinful at once. His dark hair was swept back from his high forehead, and he wore a black coat, black trousers, and a crisp white shirt beneath a gunmetal brocade waistcoat. He looked dark and lethal and delicious.
And hers.
He was hers, she reminded herself as he took her outstretched hand in his and guided her down the last step. The guidance wasn’t necessary. His touch, however, was.
She was smiling at him like a foolish girl, but she didn’t care. “Have you nothing to say, Your—”
“Sebastian,” he intervened, drawing her closer. He lowered his head, and their lips nearly met. His scent swept over her, pine and man and husband. “A one-half Your Grace is all I’m willing to allow tonight, Duchess.”
Her fingers tightened over his. He was ever an enigma, keeping a part of himself from her. The part she wanted the most. His eyes were blue, so blue, bluer than the brightest country summer sky of her childhood before her father had moved them to the city.
“Thank you,” she told him. “For the books.”
He raised her hand to his lips for a kiss, his gaze searing hers. “I would have far preferred for you to select them yourself, but you were stubborn as ever.”
His extravagance still did strange things to her insides. When he’d attempted to convince her to buy half the book shop, she had objected. Of course she had. What sane woman would want her husband to empty his coffers over her literary whims? Her father would never have allowed such a thing.
That thought had ultimately rendered her acceptance of Sebastian’s somewhat high-handed gift all the more acceptable to her. Sebastian wasn’t attempting to control her with his gift. He wanted to please her, and that was the difference.
“I’m a simple woman,” she said then. “I don’t require crates of books, fancy houses, or servants to satisfy me.”
He squeezed her fingers, his expression inscrutable. “What does satisfy you, Daisy?”
You.
She nearly said the word. She almost revealed herself to him, made herself as vulnerable as she could possibly be. Instead, she shook her head, unwilling to give him everything. Uncertain if she could. Her feelings remained too new and strange. The notion of telling him she loved him made her mouth go dry and her heart pound.
“I look forward to reading,” she told him instead. “Thank you. Thank you for listening to me, for choosing books to my liking.”
“Are they to your liking, buttercup?”
His question was unexpected. No one had ever been as concerned with her happiness and satisfaction as Sebastian was. Sometimes, his attentiveness threw her. Other times, it made her sigh.
In this instance, her smile broadened. “The selections were most judicious. You somehow know what I would want to read most.”
He hesitated, and she couldn’t suppress the sensation that he wanted to say more. Instead, he inclined his head and offered his arm. “Dinner, my darling?”
It was a tired phrase, she thought—my darling—as she clenched his muscled forearm. She wasn’t his darling, was she? That phrase, so easily rolled off his facile tongue, didn’t mean what her imprudent heart longed to believe it did.
The truth was that she hadn’t the slightest inclination of what, if anything, he felt for her, aside from desire. The way he looked at her, the way he touched her and held her, told her all she needed to know on that account. But though he’d warmed to her, she mustn’t fool herself.
And right now, he watched her in that way of his that was intimate and assessing all at once. While here she stood, wishing he’d meant to call her his darling in the truest sense. Wishing he’d forego all manners and formality, sweep her in his arms, and take her upstairs.
Oh, foolish, foolish heart.
“Dinner,” she forced herself to say, for it was far wiser than blurting her feelings. “Yes, let’s.”
By the loin of mutton à la Brétonne, Sebastian realized that it was no stroke of chance that all his favorites were being served in the course of one dinner. And he knew instantly that it wasn’t the redoubtable Mrs. Robbins who was solely responsible. Though Mrs. Robbins had been a retainer for his entire life, she had never in all her years of service orchestrated such a dinner on his behalf unless he had specifically requested it.
He met Daisy’s gaze over the lovely table setting—fresh hothouse blooms carefully arranged amidst new table linens, silver, and china, candles flickering with a pleasant glow, all of which he was certain was her doing as well.
“Leave us,” he told the servants dancing attendance upon them without ever taking his eyes from her.
They remained silent until they were blessedly alone.
“Buttercup,” he said then, his throat going embarrassingly thick. He would have said something else, but he didn’t wish to further embarrass himself by wearing his heart on his bloody sleeve.
His heart on his sleeve?
Christ.
From what hell had that rogue thought emerged?
The answering smile she gave him was so blinding that it robbed him of his breath. For a moment, he stared, basking in her beauty, forgetting all about the untenable mire in which he currently found himself. Submarines, dynamite, and the Fenian menace—not to mention the goddamn League itself and his unwanted mission—dissipated like a storm chased away by the sun.
“Is the dinner to your liking?” she asked him, repeating his earlier question to her.
Jesus. He devoured her with his gaze, from her golden hair carefully plaited and styled high atop her head to her high forehead, the dainty slashes of her brows, her elegant nose, and those wide, luscious lips he loved to bite and lick and crush beneath his, then lower for just a beat, over her full, creamy breasts. Suddenly, he was no longer hungry for dinner.
“You arranged this.” If his voice sounded rusty and deep, it couldn’t be helped any more than his reaction to her could. He hadn’t bloody well wanted to marry her. He hadn’t wanted the all-consuming attraction he felt for her. He hadn’t meant to burn whenever he looked upon her. To want—nay, need—her so much that he was willing to do damn near anything to keep her at his side, as his duchess.
But he did.
She tilted her head, considering him and—he feared—seeing far too much. “With the aid of Mrs. Robbins, of course. You’ve been unfailingly kind to me, and I wished to convey my gratitude in some small way.”
The beast in him instantly thought of other ways she might convey her gratitude as well. None of them involved mutton or potatoes à la Lyonnaise. Fighting a groan, he shifted in his chair as discomfort settled in the vicinity of his trousers. A familiar affliction whenever he was in her presence.
And then he thought of how she didn’t owe him her gratitude at all. She didn’t owe him a bloody thing, and if she knew the half of it, she’d never speak to him again. Over the past fortnight, he’d done his best to compartmentalize his duty and the way he’d begun to feel for Daisy. But eventually, the twain would meet, and his meeting with Griffin earlier had made that stark fact all the more real.
He had a duty. Even if he’d fallen in love with the woman he was duty-bound to distrust. Even if he was still trapped in the emerald depths of said woman’s eyes. He couldn’t tell her the truth. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.
Guilt sliced through him with the precision of a bayonet. “You needn’t feel beholden. I’m not the Galahad you think me.”
It was as much of a warning as he could issue to her without giving himself away and putting his mission and the League at risk. The reminder of what he was expected to do—lure in her bastard of a father, pretend as though he’d married Daisy for her fortune, bring him close enough to hurt her once more—made a swift stab of nausea ride through his gut. The mutton was delicious, and it was his favorite dish, but he couldn’t stomach another bite of food.
“You’re a good man, Sebastian,” Daisy said, her cheekbones flushing a charming pink beneath his scrutiny. “It’s futile to try to convince me otherwise.”
“A good man wouldn’t have ruined you in the moonlight without a care for your reputation.”
Bitterness unfurled. How could she be so innocent and good, so blind in her trust of him, she who had been only mistreated and used for her entire life? He had kissed her, ripped her bodice, in the gardens of a ball where they could have been seen by anyone. He had shamed her, used her, all in the name of duty, and without a care. From the beginning, he had deceived her. Knowing that she was suspected of treason, he had still lusted after her, had taken her bloody maidenhead while he was meant to annul their marriage. And he had done all this as he knew there remained a chance she could be cast into prison.
He hated himself. Hated lying to her. Even now, he couldn’t tell her what he so desperately longed to tell her. He had sworn an oath to the League before he’d ever sworn an oath to her. But now the two were hopelessly at war with each other.
Daisy held up her hands, palms facing the ceiling, a teasing smile flirting with the lips he longed to claim. “Ruined and yet here I sit, perfectly well. Your conscience may feel otherwise, but believe me when I say that my ruination was my saving grace. I don’t regret that night, Sebastian. I wanted it, and not just because I wanted to be free of Lord Breckly, but because I wanted you.”
Her words sank straight through him, leaving a path of fire in their wake. By God, he wished he were free. For the first time in his life, he was no longer content to be a part of the League. For the first fucking time, he wanted to be… Sebastian. Simply himself. With no secrets, no lies, no danger, no worry, no allegiance to anyone other than the woman facing him across the expanse of snowy linens and gleaming cutlery and delicious-smelling mutton.
And that was when he recognized it in full, this restless feeling sliding around within him, this sense of incompletion and confusion. The life he led—secrecy, collusion, danger—had ceased to fulfill him long ago. He wanted something more, something real.
He wasn’t going to bring Vanreid into his home or within striking distance of Daisy. Not today, not tomorrow, not the next day. On this—the safety of his wife—he wouldn’t hesitate to defy Carlisle. He wouldn’t risk her. She was too precious to him.
And when this mission was over, he was going to retire from the League. If Daisy forgave him after he told her as much of the truth as he was able, they would go to Thornsby Hall and raise half a dozen children.
Children with Daisy.
Something warm settled in his gut. The thought of planting his seed in her, watching her grow with his babe, took his breath and made his cock even harder than it already was by being seated across from her, in her charmed presence.
“Sebastian?” her voice was hesitant, questioning. “Won’t you say something? I fear I’ve shocked you with my confession.”
He shot from his chair so quickly that it thudded backward, tipped on its side on the carpet behind him. He didn’t give a damn. “You could never shock me, buttercup,” he assured her as he stalked around the table.
Being in the same space as her without having her in his arms was suddenly insupportable. He had to have her. Right. Bloody. Now. Everything else could be dealt with another day—the League, her father, his mission, the lies between them. But here, in this moment, he was going to give her the only honesty he could. It wasn’t what she deserved, but it was all he had.
Her eyes went wide as he hauled her from her chair before making a thorough swipe of the table behind her with his arm. China, silver, and the fourth course all went crashing to the center of the table. He didn’t give a damn if every last monogrammed plate was smashed to bits. Didn’t care if the mutton went to waste. His hands went to her waist, spanning it easily.
She ought to eat more, he thought absently as he lifted her up and deposited her on the table at her back. Her hands went to his shoulders, and she still hadn’t said a word, her shock rendering her speechless.
When her derriere settled on the table linen and he caught her billowing skirts in his fists, she found her tongue at last. “Sebastian! What are you doing? We haven’t even finished dinner or had dessert. Cook has prepared cocoa biscuits and strawberries.”
She was breathless, flushed, and she smelled better than anything ever had. He wanted to inhale her, trap her bergamot and vanilla and ambergris in his lungs so that whenever he wasn’t in her presence he could still breathe her.
His gaze fell to her mouth. “You don’t like strawberries.”
“You do.” Her fingers tightened on his shoulders. “How did you know I don’t like strawberries?”
He didn’t answer her. Instead, he rucked her skirts up to her waist, pooling their voluminous layers on the table. And that was when he made the most astonishing, delicious revelation. His duchess wasn’t wearing any drawers. Nothing but silk stockings and garters and well-curved legs.
And the most tempting cunny he’d ever seen.
She was his.
“To hell with the cocoa biscuits and strawberries, love.” He sank to his knees in appreciation, his hands on her hips, gliding over warm silk until they reached warmer flesh. “All I want is you.”
“Sebastian.” She sounded equal parts scandalized and breathless. “You mustn’t. We’re in the midst of dinner. The servants… ”
Mine, he thought as he kissed the tempting skin above her garters. First her left leg, then the right. “No one will disturb us.” He had made it clear to his staff after their first dinner. There would be no discreet knock, no hesitant interruption.
He had all the time in the world to savor her. And savor her he would. Sweet Christ, but her thighs were glorious. There was something delectably carnal about all that ivory: garters, silk, skin, and the way she attempted to press her legs together to preserve her modesty. Mine. There it was again, unbidden, the claim he staked upon her.
He’d meant what he said to Griffin. He was firm in his decision. This woman, who was soft and kind and beautiful, who made him laugh as much as she made him lust, she belonged to him now, just as he belonged to her. There would be no annulment.
“Sebastian.” Her hands flitted to his shoulders first, then to his hair. But instead of pushing him away, her fingers tunneled a path to his scalp. “This is wicked.”
“Mmm.” He hummed his satisfaction as he kissed higher, caressing her thighs with slow, languorous strokes as he urged her to open to him. “I want to taste you, love.” Another kiss, then another, and she allowed him to nudge her legs apart.
A noise emerged from her throat as well, half moan, half mewl, and he’d never heard a sweeter sound than Daisy losing the tight grip she attempted to keep on her control. Slowly, he spread her legs, inch by torturous inch. He kissed each inner thigh. Mine. Nipped her with his teeth, making her jerk as her fingers tensed in his hair. Mine. Licked the soft skin to soothe it. Mine. Higher he went, his mouth dragging over her, worshipping, loving.
And then she was open to him completely, and he slid his hands to cup her bare bottom and drag her closer. He was like a man lost on a desert plain who had just stumbled across a babbling stream, sinking to his knees to cup that life source and bring it into his body with a desperation borne of pure necessity. He ran his tongue over her seam, once, twice, again and again. Teasing. Tasting. She moved beneath him, moaning, twisting, her legs clamping down on his head.
He removed a hand from her bottom to stroke her thigh, calming her, letting her adjust to the onslaught of sensation. Sweet. She was so bloody sweet. Musky and feminine and something else uniquely her. She filled his senses, surrounding him, until there was nothing else that existed. There was only Daisy on his tongue, Daisy’s breathy sounds of helpless desire, Daisy’s fingers in his hair, her thighs soft against him, the wet, delicious heat of her.
Mine. He found the prize he sought, his tongue probing through her slick folds to discover her pearl. He flicked over that exquisite bundle of sensation, working it with his tongue. Mine. He blew a stream of hot air over her.
“Oh,” she said, and then, “oh, Sebastian.”
Very gently, he bit, catching her between his upper lip and his teeth before raking over her pearl again and again. He sucked her, looking up to find her watching him, her expression slack and unguarded, her lush mouth partially open, her chest heaving with each labored breath.
Their gazes clashed and he allowed her to slide from his lips with a lusty pop. “Spend for me, Daisy. I want to make you come with nothing but my tongue.”
This was all he could offer her until he was free of the League: his body and her pleasure. He could make her fly, could give her release, and he wanted that for her now more than anything. She deserved so much more, so much better. She deserved his honesty and his love, and he would give her both as soon as he was able.
For the moment, he could only run his tongue over her slit again—once, twice, five times, more—before sinking it inside her as deep as he could. Pointing his tongue, he thrust it inside her again and again. His hand traveled up her thigh to the skin revealed beneath her corset, directly above her womb. Here, she would carry their babes. He flattened his hand over her. Mine. And her hand came to rest upon his, their fingers tangling.
“Please,” she said.
Her plea spurred him on. Back to her pearl he went, licking, sucking, nipping, learning what she liked best. The particularly sensitive spot below that sweet bud and slightly to the right made her buck and go wild. He closed his mouth over her, raking her with his teeth until finally, she exploded. He watched her as she came, her back arched, head thrown back in ecstasy to reveal the graceful column of her throat, her breasts straining against her bodice.
“Sebastian,” she cried. “I love you.”
The rush of her release was liquid and instant, and he lost his ability to form coherent thought.
Mine. Bloody, fucking hell. Mine.
Had she said that? Those three words? He didn’t dare to hope, to believe. Just when he was convinced he’d been mistaken, he heard her low moan, and it was undeniable. I love you, I love you, I love you.
Ah, Christ. This woman would be his undoing. He tore his mouth from her at last, hauling her into his arms for a tight embrace. If he’d been able to pull her inside himself, he would have, so fierce and unexpected was his reaction to her words and his need of her.
“Thank you, my love,” he said into her ear. “Now let’s get the hell upstairs so we can finish what we’ve started.”
She kissed his jaw, her arms tightening around him. “Yes,” was all she said.
He withdrew and helped her restore her dress into a semblance of order. Wordlessly, he took her hand and led her to her chamber. Once there, he made love to her twice, once with frantic abandon and once with slow, tender passion. With his body, he told her the words he wasn’t yet free to say. Words he wouldn’t say until this godforsaken mission was over and he could be truthful with her. Words she deserved to hear after he was freed of the shackles of his oath, and his only duty was instead to her.
When at last he lay in the darkness with her curled against him, both of their bodies spent, Daisy’s even breathing indicating she was asleep, he kissed her bare shoulder.
“I love you, too,” he whispered into the night.