Page 76 of A Problem Princess

He smothered her cry with his mouth and drank up the sound. Then he raised himself away from her just far enough to slip his hard length free of her tight warmth. He pressed it against her abdomen between their bodies and gathered her tightly against him in his arms. With a jerk of his hips and a groan, a warm wetness spilled across her lower belly.

He held himself still for a moment, then fell onto his side next to her and pulled her over into his arms. Perspiration slickened his body, and his bare skin was hot everywhere it touched hers. His heart pounded so hard that she could feel the echo of it inside her own chest. But it was the whispers that fell from his lips that undid her, repeating over and over again how beautiful she was, how brave and utterly special, as if he didn’t even realize he was saying them.

Unable to put any words herself to the turmoil of emotions she felt for him at that moment, she silently placed a kiss to the center of his chest and right over his heart. She blinked hard, thankful that his eyes were closed so he wouldn’t see what a goose she was to be on the verge of tears.

She couldn’t help it. Despite the joy he’d given her tonight, nothing had changed between them. When dawn came, she would still be a princess, her future still destined to belong to another man.

But her heart knew she would never be the same again.

Twenty-Three

Cordelia sat in her shift on the thick rug in front of the hearth in the main room of the cottage, her shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She took a dried apricot from the food basket sitting on the floor next to her and nibbled at it while she watched Clayton stir up the fire with the iron poker in one hand and a mug of wine in the other.

“You’re staring,” he said into the fire.

“Of course I am.” She smiled and held the apricot coyly to her lips. “The view’s too spectacular to ignore.”

Truly, it was. He’d pulled on his trousers when they’d decided to come downstairs for a late picnic dinner in front of the fire, but nothing else, and the growing flames cast flickering shadows across his warm skin.

It should be illegal for a man to look that good, she decided as she slowly chewed the apricot. And the way he felt…thatwas surely a sin.

Before dawn came, she hoped to sin again. Repeatedly.

“You’re still staring.”

“Your fault,” she countered.

“How is that my fault?”

“If you don’t want me to stare, then you shouldn’t look so handsome in the firelight.”

He chuckled and tossed in another piece of wood.

After making love, he’d suggested they come downstairs for fortification and the warmth of the fire, although she was perfectly happy with the warmth of the bed. Yet she’d agreed. They were both famished, and after all, they couldn’t spend the entire night making love…could they?

“I’ve ruined your sleep schedule, haven’t I?” she commented, feeling not at all sorry. “Before you met me, you were probably set in your ways, early to bed and early to rise.”

His lips curled in a faint smile, and he murmured, “Something like that.”

“Or are you the Home Office’s resident night watch who prowls the city streets after midnight, looking for spies and ruffians?”

“That’s closer to the truth, I’m afraid.” He stirred at the coals again. “My schedule is not my own. I do whatever needs to be done, whenever I’m needed.”

She watched him curiously. “What would you have done when you came back from the wars if not for the Home Office?”

He leaned the poker against the side of the hearth, then sat back on his heels, still watching the flames. “I’ll find out soon enough.”

His comment puzzled her. “Pardon?”

“I’ll be…retiring. Sooner than I’d planned.”

That wasn’t at all the answer she’d expected. “What will you do then?”

“I have no idea.”

She inexplicably felt a distance grow between them, even though they remained right where they were, less than three feet apart. What had she said wrong?

“Well, youarea viscount now, so there is that,” she reminded him. He hadn’t been happy to be granted the peerage, but it might be helpful in retirement. “No more worries about money or rank.”