Page 41 of Once a Scoundrel

A gasp tore from her as she turned to face him. She couldn’t believe— “You don’t...hate me? After the way I refused you, after all those horrible things I said...”

“I could never hate you, Faith.” He slipped his arms around her and pulled her against him, holding her close. “I know how hard my return has been for you.” He stroked his hands in small, reassuring circles across her back. “How much I hurt you before, how confused I’m making you now...I’m the one who needs to be forgiven.”

A soft sob fell from her lips. Her heart was too full to find any words to express how she felt, how much she loved him. All she could do was tighten her hold around his waist to keep him close. Always.

“I want a life with you, a home, and children.” He nuzzled his cheek against her hair, and the affection in that little caress made her tremble. “I promise you that I will be the husband you deserve and that I will be faithful in every way.”

Lifting her head from his chest, she rose up on her tip-toes to brush her lips against his. He closed his eyes against the tenderness of her kiss.

“Faith,” he rasped out, “my darling...I’ve made a mess of things...you, Mary, Jeremy...Daniel.”

“It isn’t your fault,” she whispered against his lips, each word a breath of absolution for both of them. “No one’s to blame, certainly not you.”

How could the past four years have been anyone’s fault? Mama was right. What power did a person truly have over his or her heart? Fools all, to think that emotions could ever be controlled. How well she knew that truth herself! Because if she could have controlled her heart, she never would have fallen in love with Stephen all those years ago, and she wouldn’t have tumbled back into love with him once he returned.

But thank God she had.

“I never meant to hurt you,” he confessed as he rained tender kisses against her cheek, her jaw, her lips—each one filled with regret, each one leaving her desperate to erase his pain. “I only wanted to make you happy.”

With a nervous stutter of her heart, yet undeniably certain of the love she felt for him, she cupped his face in her hands. “Then make me happy,” she whispered, touching her lips to his. “Make love to me.”

*****

Stephen stared down at her, his heart pounding and his stomach suddenly tying itself into knots. “I do, you know,” he murmured as he pulled the pins from her hair.

Her eyes closed as he combed his trembling fingers through her tresses, spreading the soft waves down her back in a silky curtain. “Do what?”

“Love you,” he whispered breathlessly.

Her eyes flew open. Stunned, she gazed up at him with parted lips, as if she couldn’t believe he’d said it, and that disbelief gnawed at him.

He’d given her so little reason to trust him over the years. But he resolved to prove to her exactly how much he’d changed, how much he needed her to heal his soul. And most of all, how much he loved her. Starting tonight.

“Four years ago, I took you for granted,” he continued, “and I was a damned fool not to recognize how much you meant to me or all I’d lost by leaving. Your friendship.” He placed a soft kiss against her cheek. “Your caring.” Another kiss to the tip of her nose. “Your brilliance and tenderness.” Two kisses on her eyelids, and his heart nearly shattered when he tasted the salt tears there. “Your love.”

He gently caressed his mouth back and forth across hers. She sighed beneath his kiss, and he knew then that she was finally his. His heart soared with joy.

“When Daniel died and Mary lost her chance at a future with him,” he murmured, staring down into her eyes, “I realized how precious life is. And I swore to myself that I’d make everything right. That I’d take care of Mary and protect Daniel’s son and his reputation, that I’d find a way to convince you that I’d changed. That I wasn’t the same boy I’d been before but a man worthy of you.” Nervous uncertainty flared inside him as he searched her face in the shadows. She hadn’t yet said...“Do you think you could find it in your heart to love me, Faith?”

“I do love you,” she whispered, each word a trembling admission. “I’ve always loved you.”

With a laugh of happiness, he lifted her into his arms and spun her in a circle, then captured her mouth in a kiss that left both of them gasping for breath.

Beneath her eager lips, his laughter turned into a groan of desire. Dear God, how long he’d waited for this, to hear those words fall from her lips and feel the softness of her in his arms, freely giving both the physical love of her body and the healing love of her soul. Faith clung to him, her arms wrapped so tightly around his shoulders that she seemed unwilling to ever let go. Which was perfectly fine with him.

He carried her across the room to the bed. As he laid her down gently on the mattress, he leaned over to suck at her bottom lip and drew a moaning sigh of pleasure from her that left him shaking so hard that his fingers fumbled to unfasten the row of tiny buttons on her bodice. There was no turning back now. There was only going forward into the future. Together.

He peeled the dress away, then relished in slowly removing each undergarment. As one layer after another dropped away and bared stretches of smooth flesh, he followed along in their wake with his mouth, murmuring continuously against her skin how beautiful she was, how much he loved her...

When only her chemise and stockings remained, he broke a lingering kiss to stand beside the bed and stare down at her. Sweet Lord, she was a vision in the slant of moonlight that fell from the window across the bed. So beautiful, so delicate...so much like an angel that she stole his breath away. She watched him curiously as he removed his clothes and tossed aside the dusty redingote and breeches he’d worn all the way from London, riding straight through to get here, never realizing that Faith would be waiting for him like a wish come true.

He pulled off his boots and dropped them one by one to the floor, followed by his neck cloth and waistcoat. When he pulled his shirt off over his head, baring himself from the waist up and leaving him in only his riding breeches, he heard her catch her breath, and her lips pulled into a soft O of surprise. Her gaze raked over him, and shamelessly, he let her look. She was still innocent, and the thought that she was giving that innocence to him sent his heart racing with both trembling nervousness and selfish pleasure.

Slowly, careful not to make her any more nervous than she already was, he unbuttoned the fall of his breeches and pushed them down and off until he was completely naked. How much could she see in the moonlight and shadows as her gaze traveled over him? He had no idea, but when he crawled back onto the bed with her and stretched his tall body alongside hers, her breath came in shallow pants not from fear but desire.

“You are so beautiful, Faith,” he murmured, trailing his hand over her hip and down her leg. When he hooked his fingers beneath the hem of her chemise and gently tugged it upward, she shivered.

“So are you,” she whispered breathlessly, her nervous misspeak earning her a low chuckle from him.