Page 83 of The Art of Sinning

One where he was hers forever. Where they could do this forever. Where he could love her forever.

Love her? She feared that would never be. If he’d balked at marrying her unless he was forced into it, then...

No, she wouldn’t dwell on that. For the moment, she would live in this dream of having him over her, around her,withher. Besides, he’d called her his “soul.” That meant something, didn’t it?

Now the pleasure humming down low had started to keen, then wail inside her, echoing through the hall of her body, which had felt silent and lonely for so... very... long. A decadent music now filled her, spurred her, made her reach for something just... beyond...

Yes!There!

An ecstatic cry tore from her, provoking him into a lunge so deep, she fancied she could feel it inhersoul. And as he gave a throttled groan and spilled himself inside her, she held him fiercely close and prayed to never wake up.

Because once the dream ended, she feared what might happen to her heart.

Twenty

As Jeremy descended to earth and the explosion in his brain subsided, he collapsed atop Yvette. His heart beat a wild rhythm in his ears, and his blood was on fire.

It had been so good, better than he’d ever dreamed it could be. It felt so right to be with her that it terrified him. Because he ought to be raging against the madness that had possessed him. He ought to be chiding himself for letting his iron control slip.

But he couldn’t. It had brought him to this point, this woman. A woman he still wanted. A woman he feared he’d never stop wanting.

“Jeremy?” she whispered.

“Yes, sweetheart?” He brushed his lips over her hair, reveling in its satiny texture and flowery scent.

“You’re... rather heavy. I’m having trouble breathing.”

He rolled off her with a laugh, an echo of the giddy joy he’d known in his childhood before everything had gone to shit. She’d brought him that, too. “Sorry, didn’t mean to smother you.” He tugged her into his arms. “I wanted you to feel ‘the little death,’ not the big one.”

She snuggled close. “What’s the little death?”

He drew back. “Don’t tell me that the Queen of Cant has never heard ofla petite mort.”

“I only know English cant, not French,” she said with a pretty pout.

“Well,la petite mortis what you and I just experienced—that culmination of our... activities.” He thumbed through his limited store of street cant gained from Damber, and added, “Perhaps you know it better as the term ‘to come.’”

She blinked. “Oh! I have heard of that. I always wondered what the definition meant, but the one time I asked a lexicographer, he blushed and ran out of the room, so I never asked again.”

Jeremy threw his head back against the pillow and laughed heartily. “I would dearly love to have seen you questioning a man aboutthat.”

“Stay around, and you may get to see it again,” she said lightly.

Just like that, everything turned more serious. Nothing like blunt honesty to sober a man up.

He shifted to face her. “I fully intend to stay around. Now that I’ve taken your innocence, I in­tend to marry you.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said hastily. “I told you I don’t expect that.” She cupped his cheek. “I just don’t want you to leave quite yet. Stay. Finish your paintings.” Her voice turned halting, ragged. “And then, when you’re ready to go—”

“I won’t leave you ruined. It’s unacceptable.”

A frown knit her brow as she pushed up onto one elbow. “And it’s unacceptable to me to have a halfhearted husband.”

“I suppose you’re waiting for an ardent profession of my love,” he said, unable to keep the bitter note from his voice.

Something flickered deep in her gaze. Anger? Disappointment? He wasn’t sure, since it vanished almost as soon as it appeared. “I’m not waiting for anything from you,” she said. “You’ve told me often enough that you have no intention of taking a wife—a second wife, that is—and I took you at your word.”

Her seemingly blithe disregard for what he’d viewed as a certainty unsettled him. “I also said that if I ruined you I knew I’d have to marry you. Did you think I lied?”