Page 77 of The Devil in Her Bed

She told him so many things without speaking. She told him how deeply and desperately she’d missed him. That she was sorry for the secrets she kept… and even sorrier that she couldn’t be who he thought she was. Who he truly wanted. But she’d be her best. For him she’d be everything; anything. Anyone. His loss was her greatest tragedy, and his pleasure her greatest achievement.

His life her greatest joy.

She wished he could hear her, or read her, but his eyes were so intent. So full of lust and fire and primitive animal things.

There was tenderness there, too, she thought. Hope, just like he’d said.

Not love. Never that. The gods were not so kind. But hope she could live with.

Hope… was everything.

Francesca hadn’t known how affected she was by this momentous happening. Not until he leaned down and kissed away a tear.

She ran her cheek against his, savoring the scrape of his shadow beard. A pressure mounted within her, aching and rolling across her bones and dispersing into her blood. It never crested, but she didn’t need it to. She wanted to be here. Present. In this moment.

She wanted to stare into his eyes forever, to wonder what color they truly were. She wanted to feel everything, from the hot slide of his cock inside of her to the tickle of the fine hairs of his thighs against hers.

Could this moment never end? Could tomorrow never come?

Just as she had the thought, his movements became faster, more insistent, less careful though she knew he never unleashed the full force of his desire upon her. She could feel him growing against her intimate flesh. Pulsing and pressing against the channel that contained him.

And then he said her name the way dying men pleaded with the gods.

Francesca.

Her name. And not her name.

Warmth spread through her abdomen as his muscles bunched and strained to their capacity, building upon themselves with the excruciating consummation of his release. It lasted for an eternity, or only for seconds, she couldn’t be sure, so breathtaking was the moment.

Then he dropped his head beside hers, and stilledinside of her. This time, when he whispered her name it was framed as a question.

She shook her head and nudged him to settle next to her while she rolled over and doused the light.

He shifted, cradling her close “I—”

She reached up and pressed her fingers to his lips, lips that still carried her intimate essence upon them.

“Tomorrow,” she said. They could say all the words that needed saying then.

His mouth tightened as if he would argue, but then they relaxed. “Tomorrow,” he agreed.

They lay there and listened to the storm, and eventually his breaths came in deeper increments, and then soft, exhausted snores.

She wasn’t going to sleep, though. Not if it meant missing this. An honest, unfettered moment with Chandler.

The tempest died, never turning into rain. Eventually, moonlight pierced the chamber, and she watched it cast him in an ethereal glow. He was a man who belonged to hours such as this. He wore his darkness. He owned it. It was part of his blood.

“I love you,” she whispered. That much had never changed. Whether he was Declan Chandler, Chandler Alquist, Lord Drake, or the devil, himself. She loved him.

Still.

Always.

“Whatever souls are made of, yours and mine are the same,” she whispered.

In sleep, he’d melted away from the unyielding man into the boy she’d loved.

She murmured her name to him then, revealing her secret to ears that couldn’t hear her. She might be brave, fearless even, in some respects. But in this way, she was an ultimate coward.