“Are you certain?” she asked cautiously. “I don’t want you to feel as if I entrapped you.”
“I’m certain, Roslyn. You are my only happiness as well.” His expression sobered. “I can’t believe how barren my life was before I met you.”
He’d suffered a cold emotionless existence until Roslyn had come along to warm him. She had touched a part of him no one had ever touched, a part he’d denied existed.
He had wasted so much of his life without love, Drew reflected. Roslyn had taught him that life wasn’t worth very much without passion, without emotion, without love.
Emotion welled inside him as he captured her hand, his long fingers twining with her slender ones. “So this means we are resuming our betrothal?”
Holding his gaze, Roslyn shook her head slowly. “No, Drew. I won’t hold you to our former betrothal. If you want to wed me, you will have to offer for me again. And this time it cannot be merely to save my reputation but solely because you love me. Because you want to spend the rest of your life with me.”
“Very well, love, will you please, please do me the incalculable honor of becoming my wife?”
Her warm smile made him ache with a sweetly intolerable pain. “Yes, my dearest love. I will, and gladly.”
Drew slipped his hand behind her head, capturing her nape. “Thank God…”
Bringing her lips down to his, he kissed her fervently, which sent fresh desire coursing through Roslyn’s blood. She knew Drew was feeling the same urgency when, with one deft and powerful twist of his body, he rolled her beneath him.
Cradling her thighs in his own, making her feel his swelling hardness, he stared down at her. Roslyn drank in his expression…his dark, passion-hazed glance, the blazing possession in his eyes. She saw love there. Hot, possessive, protective, arousing.
“Drew, I love you so much,” she whispered in reply, returning his look measure for measure.
“I won’t ever tire of hearing those words…”
He rasped her name, then took her mouth again. With the same passionate fire Roslyn opened to him and breathed him in.
Their ardor built as he worshiped her with hands and tongue. It seemed to Roslyn that she could never want more…Drew’s melting kisses, his hands cherishing her body. But then he fit himself to her, entering her with fierce strong tenderness, thrusting in hard and deep as his lips murmured words of love.
The rapture swelled, mounting, thundering. His wild kisses kept coming, interspersed with fervent declarations of love as he took her body. He wooed her to madness, then healed her again as he poured himself into her, body and heart and soul.
When their passion was finally spent, Drew cradled her in his arms lovingly, his face nestled in her hair, his fingers absently playing with her pale locks.
It was a long while before he spoke, though. “I was terrified that you loved Haviland.”
Deliciously sated and weary, Roslyn found the strength to press a kiss against his bare shoulder. “You had nothing to fear, Drew. I couldn’t fall in love with him because I was already falling in love with you. There was no reason for you to be jealous.”
“Of course there was. You had set your sights on marrying that bastard.”
She laughed softly. “You cannot keep calling a belted earl that disparaging word, Drew.”
“Very well, he isn’t a bastard. But can you blame me if I was insanely jealous? I think you should feel flattered.”
“Perhaps so, but you should never have threatened to kill him. I believe you owe Haviland a sincere apology.”
“I might give him one, now that I know you don’t love him. But if he ever dares look at you again with lust in his eyes…”
Her laughter was exasperated and satisfied at the same time. “He won’t look at me that way. He has too much honor. And hopefully, he will soon be occupied with his own romance. I mean to help Lord Haviland find a bride. In fact, he asked for my help.”
Raising his head, Drew gazed at her a long moment before finally chuckling. “I knew he wasn’t a total imbecile.”
“Drew!”
“All right…I will become his bosom friend, if it will make you happy. But if I might use him to make a point…” Drew gazed deeply into her eyes. “The next time you and I argue-which undoubtedly will happen again-you needn’t run and hide in the library. I’ll never stop loving you, Roslyn, even if I sometimes lose my temper and you want to throttle me for it.”
She winced. “We were not merely arguing. We were shouting at each other, fighting bitterly.”
“Even so, that doesn’t mean I don’t love you with every fiber of my being. And in the future if we fight, we can have the pleasure of making up.”