That assessment seemed to amuse him. "A pagan god?"
"Um-hum." Aurora was still floating on a pink-tipped cloud where nothing existed but the shimmering aftermath of their union. "That was how I first viewed you when we met at Dawlish's."
Julian arched a brow. "Did you? Why?"
"Oh, many reasons. Mostly because you were sinfully handsome in a dark and forbidden way that made everything inside me melt."
"Ah. Now that notion is even more appealing than the one in which you likened me to a stallion." His lips brushed her neck, swept over the sensitive hollow behind her ear.
"I thought it might be." A tiny shiver ran through her.
"And now?"
"Now … what?" Aurora's head was already swimming with sensation, everything inside her weak and trembling, reawakening to Julian's touch.
"You said you viewed me as a pagan god." His hips pressed forward, his body responding to her signal, swelling to fill her. "How do you view me now?"
"The same way," she admitted. Her breath broke as he withdrew, surged deeper. "You're powerful, unconventional, turbulent, seductive."
Julian caught her face between his palms. "And you're a fire in my blood." His thumbs caressed her cheeks. "One that nothing can extinguish." He held her gaze, keeping his rhythm slow and deep, watching her face as she arched to meet his thrusts. "God, you're beautiful," he ground out between clenched teeth. "So damned beautiful." His burning eyes bore into hers. "Do you feel it?" he murmured. "Do you?"
"Yes—oh, yes." The world was spinning away, and Aurora had no desire to recapture it.
"Tell me. Tell me what you're feeling."
Something profound and wonderful was unfolding inside her—something that had nothing to do with passion. "I love you," she whispered.
Julian went rigid.
The pink cloud disintegrated.
Oh God, how could she have blurted it out like that?
Aurora squeezed her eyes shut, willing the floor to swallow her whole. Damn her impulsive tongue. Damn her unmitigated candor. Damn her inability to think beyond Julian's touch. Damn, damn, damn.
"Aurora, look at me."
She complied reluctantly.
"Say that again."
She searched her husband's face, looking for a sign, any sign, of his reaction to her declaration. But all she could see was intentness, a wary anticipation as he awaited her reply. Well, it was too late to retract her words now. "I love you," she repeated. A pause. "Are you very angry?"
"Angry?" Julian caressed her face, tunneled his fingers through her hair. "Why in God's name would I be angry?" He lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her with a wealth of tenderness, a touch of awe—and a fine tension that hadn't been there before. "No one's ever given me those words before," he admitted quietly. "I'm humbled." He buried his lips in hers. "I'm honored." He slid his arms beneath her thighs, raised them to hug his flanks. "And I'm more profoundly touched than I can say."
"I'm … glad." Aurora desperately needed to think, to understand what Julian's words truly meant. But she couldn't, not when he was making love to her; transporting her to that extraordinary place she ascended to only in his arms.
"Let me show you," he was breathing into her lips. "My dazzling Aurora—let me show you."
In contrast to his earlier abandon, this time Julian was achingly tender, his body moving in exquisite strokes that seared through her body, delved straight to her soul.
Afterward, lying quietly in her husband's arms, Aurora's thoughts tumbled forth, tripping over each other in their desire to be heard.
Julian's reaction had been neither the anger she'd feared nor the arrogance Courtney had suspected. Instead, he'd felt honored, humbled, touched—emotions she'd never have attributed to Julian Bencroft.
But then, why not?
Hadn't she seen glimpses of his warmth, his ability to feel—not only in the way he treated her, but in the way he'd spoken of his brother? The answer to that was an unequivocal yes.