Page 124 of The Marriage Method

The fire in the hearth was still blazing, the lamp on the dressing table still lit. There was no hiding under cover of darkness. They could see each other clearly. Shyness intermittently assailed her, most noticeably when he helped her out of her chemise, and then again when he removed his trousers. But it didn’t last. It couldn’t. Not when Miles was caressing her and praising her, whispering that she was beautiful, perfect, that he adored every inch of her.

He was endlessly gentle, endlessly patient, seeming to know just where to touch her. Just how to move.

She soon felt the same exquisite restlessness she’d felt when they had embraced that night in the library. It coiled tight within her, making her pull at him with unladylike insistence. This time, rather than calm her wildness, Miles encouraged it with gruff words and coaxing touches.

Nell had imagined, when the moment finally arrived, she would overthink it. That instinct would be overcome by maidenish insecurity. Academy girls were taught to prize self-control over everything else. To lose one’s composure was to lose one’s dignity. It was a weakness. One to be avoided at all costs.

But when Miles came to her, there was no indignity in her response to him. No insecurity or weakness. They were equals. Partners. Even the fleeting glimmer of pain Nell experienced at the ultimate moment was nothing compared to the infinite closeness.

Miles gazed down at her then, his face taut and his eyes brilliant with heat. “Are you all right?” he asked hoarsely.

She touched the hard line of his jaw. “Are you?”

His breath was ragged. “No,” he said. “But I soon will be, so long as you keep holding me.”

After that, there were no more words. There was only heated gasps and urgency.

And pleasure. So much pleasure.

Nell didn’t know how to catalog it. She had never examined her individual wants or needs. Never succumbed to selfish desire. For as long as she could remember, she had been a part of the whole. The needs of the Academy had always come first. Her mentors. Her sisters. Her students. But not now. In this, she came to him alone. Fully alone.

And he came to her—only her.

Nell kissed him and held him, and she thought mine, mine, mine.

She hadn’t realized she’d given voice to the sentiment until Miles’s deep voice breathed a husky promise in her ear.

“Yours,” he said. “Always.”

• • • • •

Miles held Nell in the dwindling firelight. She was warm and pliant in his arms, snuggled against him, skin to skin, deep beneath the heavy blankets that covered the bed. He’d drawn them up over them at some point. He couldn’t recall when. His brain wasn’t yet functioning at its full capacity.

Nell idly traced his bare chest. “Where did you get these?”

Miles’s muscles jumped under her questing fingertips. Even now, after all the intimacies they’d shared, her touch still made his breath quake. “The bruises are courtesy of Silas.”

“Not the bruises.” She found an old scar under his breastbone. “This.”

“A memento from the Rookery. Another lad stabbed me when I was twelve.”

Nell flicked him an appalled glance. “Why on earth would he do that?”

“He was a young villain trying to make a name for himself. He came for Gabriel one day in an alleyway and I got in the way of his knife.”

“Heavens.”

“It looks worse than it was,” Miles said.

“Was the boy arrested?”

“No. At the time, Rookery disputes were settled within the Rookery.” Miles refrained from describing the punishment Gabriel had meted out to the lad. Even Miles hadn’t known about it until later.

Nell’s fingers slid to the even bigger scar on his abdomen. “What about this one?”

Miles’s blood simmered with renewed heat. He stopped her hand before she could delve further. “A stabbing incident in a tavern brawl in Marseille.”

She met his eyes with wry humor. “You got in the way of another knife?”