Page 54 of The Hellion is Tamed

Where he poured every ounce of love, desire, fondness into the kiss, the most important of his life. Of hers, perhaps. Catching her hard against his body, he brought her into the nook created for her and her alone. Lemon and the faintest hint of lavender drifting free, tempting him with every breath he took.

Bouncing up on her toes, she offered herself with a ragged moan that blazed like one of Ashcroft’s fires through his body. Her hand snaked into his hair, tugging the strands until his knees threatened to buckle and send him to the paint-splattered floor.

His cock stiffened, a rigid presence she surely felt against her hip. Grasping her shoulders, he inched her back enough to witness her undoing. Her eyes wild, the color of the sea before a storm. Her hair, absent of order and tumbling past her shoulders. Her lips parted, moist, pink.

Lewdly, it made him wonder what other parts of her were moist and pink.

Then she called him back, her mouth hard and hot. A kiss born of freedom, passion, possession. Telling him what she wanted, what she needed. He was backing her in the direction of the bed when he remembered, his brief glimpse of the blistering sunrise reminding him.

He hadn’t asked her yet.

He’d never told her how he felt.

“Come,” he murmured against her lips. Taking her hand, he led her across the room, her stumbling step twice his to keep up. “I’ll make love to you until you can’t compose a suitable sentence, can’t think, can’t breathe. I’ll put us both under, days spent in slumbering recovery. I promise, dear God, I promise. But first, this. What I should have said already.”

Stopping briefly to toss his coat over her shoulders, he led her to a staircase in the back corner of the loft. It was crooked but surprisingly sturdy, iron like the window frames, and extending to a roof that had one of the best views in the city.

Even if the view originated in the slums.

The stench of the river and burning coal hit hard when they reached the tarred surface, the wind tearing at their clothing and hair. Nevertheless, his heart lifted. The sight of London waking was gorgeous.

His one wish at that moment: to share the view, to share hislife, with the woman he loved.

“Oh,” she sighed and got so near the edge and the insubstantial wall reaching her knee that he shuddered and looped an arm around her waist, pulling her back against his chest.

“Not too close. You want to scare me to death, woman?”

“Simon, this ismagnificent. I can see Tower Hamlets. See that spire? My little street is right next to it.” She stretched her slender arm and pointed into the distance.

He grinned, pleased to the tips of his toes, gazing over her shoulder at his community. “It is, isn’t it? But once you get down there, among the people, traveling the alleys and lanes, it’s different. Better. Life shows itself, like a roll of the die at the hazard table. A neighborhood reveals itself when you walk the streets. That’s why…” He swallowed, nervous, now that he’d come to it. “I’d like to live here.” He nodded toward the stairs they’d just climbed. “In this loft, once I get her ready. I’ve done most of the repairs myself. But for the rest of what I’m planning, I need help. There are craftsmen all over this township who need work. We’ll put in a proper kitchen and sitting rooms and parlors or whatever we require on the floor below. Another bedroom or two. We have more space than we need. Although it won’t ever look like a Mayfair townhouse. Won’t look like anything this town has ever seen. Of course, my office is at the Blue Moon, and I’ll work there. But I…” He sighed, letting out the breath and the admission. “I want to livehere. In St Giles. With you. Unconventional, to utilize an abandoned warehouse like this…”

She tilted her head down with a shy laugh, her stomach quivering beneath his hand.

He made her turn into his arms, even if they were both embarrassed to acknowledge the future blossoming between them. Proposals had to be presented face-to-face. “I want to save this community. Or try. My pack of haunts will help me. You’ll help me. I’ve finally found a way to use my gift. And maybe you have, too. We can travel together safely, reach those in circumstances before the circumstances break them. But we have to live here, not at the Alexander family home or above the Blue Moon, to gain their trust, to make any association work. Besides”—he shrugged and glanced at the sunrise setting fire to the sky, wishing he had a coin in his hand to settle his racing heart—“I want to be here. I pray you do, too.”

She settled her hand on his jaw, tilting his gaze to hers. “Is this a proposal, Simon Alexander?”

He felt the blush light his cheeks. She laughed and pulled him into a kiss, lingering until they were breathless. Until the air crackled with passion. Intent. Promises. Desire.Love.

Emma did a delighted spin on slippers that had seen the worst of eighty years, the ends of his coat slapping her hip. His nerves stretched taut, waiting for her response.

Her smile grew, plumping her cheeks. “Paint. In the loft. On the floors. Was it once a factory?”

“Previously, yes,” he whispered, his heart hammering. “Now, whatever we want it to be. A reinvention, as it were. Of lots of things.”

“Such an unconventional garret. A spot that suits you so well. I can tell from the glow in your beautiful brown eyes that you love it. As to us living here together, I want you to know, marriage, that’s not necessary because—”

“Oh,no.” His hand went to her wrist to halt her nervous swaying. “We’re getting married, Emma. Don’t reject me because you think I don’t need it. Needyou. I long for you to be my wife more than I long for my next breath. I’ve talked to my solicitor about securing a license if that’s the route we go. Or we’ll have banns read and do this properly. We’ll have an intimate ceremony or one tasteless enough to make society’s teeth ache. A duke and duchess in attendance, among others. Your parish is St Anne’s, isn’t it? Years after you left, but it’s still there.”

She pressed her lips together, smothering her amusement. His mood lifted to see she was pleased with this cheerless production. He was no romantic, though he wished he were. “There’s a fee for banns to be read, you know, darling man.”

Laughing, he trailed his thumb down her throat in a prolonged caress that made her purr. “Fifteen shillings and sixpence. I checked. Costly, but you’re worth it. Even if I’m not.”

Her eyes were shining when she lifted them to his. “If this is because of what happened in the conservatory and the other times, I promise you, no babe resulted from our…interludes. I’m without a child; you’re safe.”

His heart stuttered, a deafening thump in his chest. “I don’t want to besafe, Emma. I want to have children with you.Ourchildren. I adore you. You and only you. I adore your strength, your wit, your intelligence. Your kindness. I want you because you and I understand each other in a way no one elsecan. I never thought to utter words of love to anyone outside my family. I never thought to have myownfamily, that I would be given the chance.” Leaning, he kissed her cheek, her jaw, the delicate arch between neck and shoulder, taking her frayed groan and letting it enliven his soul. “I love you. Do you hear me? So much is held on the shoulders of those eight letters. Letters that don’t seem appropriate to their weight. To express them should require volumes, a library of emotion. Not the world, to be left to eight simple letters.” Capturing her lips, he kissed her quickly, passionately, then let her go. Took a step back to allow a slice of London’s dense but welcome air to settle between them, clear his mind. “But that’s the flawlessness of the sentiment; perfection in the simplicity.”

“The weight of eight letters,” she murmured and gazed out over his city.Theircity.