She didn’t have to say any more, couldn’t have said any more because suddenly he was picking her up and carrying her towards the stairs.
‘You are the most beautiful woman on earth,’ Silas whispered extravagantly as he threaded his fingers through Verity’s hair.
Smiling lazily up at him in the aftermath of their lovemaking, Verity reached out and touched his face, wriggling appreciatively against the muscled warmth of his naked body.
‘Hey, don’t do that,’ Silas warned her as he slowly kissed the palm of her hand. ‘At least, not unless you want…’
‘Not unless I want what?’ Verity teased, deliberately moving even closer.
‘Not unless you want this,’ Silas told her huskily, taking her hand and placing it against his hardening body.
‘Silas, we can’t,’ Verity protested unconvincingly as her fingers stroked instinctively down the hard strength of the silky, hot-skinned shaft of male pleasure she was caressing.
It felt so good to be able to touch him like this, to know how much he wanted and needed her, to know how much he loved her.
‘Oh, no?’ Silas challenged softly, cupping her breast in his hand and bending his head to trail tiny provocative kisses all the way down from her collar-bone to her navel.
‘Don’t…’ Verity whispered.
‘Don’t what?’ Silas asked her as he circled her navel with the tip of his tongue, gently biting at her flesh.
‘Don’t…don’t stop,’ Verity breathed.
‘I’m not going to,’ Silas assured her as his head dipped lower and his hand slid between her thighs.
This was bliss, heaven, every delight she had ever known or imagined knowing, Verity decided shakily as she gave in to the gentle caress of Silas’ hand against her body and the slow, sensual search of his mouth as it homed in on the sensitive female heart of her.
The orgasmic contractions gripping her body were, if anything, even stronger this second time. Just for a second she tried to resist them, wanting to share what she was experiencing with Silas, but he wouldn’t let her.
‘Let it happen, Verity,’ he begged her, his voice shaking with male arousal. ‘I want to see it happen for you, feel it happen…’
‘Silas,’ she protested, but it was already too late. With a small cry she gave in to the urgency of Silas’ plea and her body’s own demands.
‘Have you thought…?’ Silas questioned her later, when they were sitting up in bed eating the smoked salmon sandwiches he had gone down to make for them and drinking the bottle of white wine they had decided would have to stand in lieu of celebratory champagne.
They probably looked more like a couple of naughty children, sitting side by side in the nest they had made of the duvet and pillows, Verity acknowledged, than adults, but she felt almost childlike, full of all the youthful hope and shining joy that she had lost when she had thought she had lost Silas. She felt, she recognised, like a girl again, only this time she was able to appreciate what she had, what they had, with all the maturity of a woman.
‘Have I thought what?’ she prompted, taking a bite of the sandwich he was proffering her and giggling when he withdrew it so t
hat her teeth grazed his skin, and then teasingly licking at his fingers as though she hadn’t known all along that that was just what he’d wanted her to do.
‘Mmm…’ he retaliated, bending to nibble on her own fingertips. ‘Tastes good, but not as good as—’
‘Silas,’ Verity reproved. ‘Have I thought what?’
‘Well, I don’t know about you,’ he told her seriously, ‘but I certainly wasn’t using any precautions.’ He shook his head. ‘To be truthful, that was the last thing on my mind, irresponsible though it sounds.’
Verity gave him a concerned look.
‘I’m not protected from conceiving,’ she admitted, adding semi-shyly, ‘I don’t…Well, there’s never been any need, not since…Not since, well, not since you and I…’
The sandwiches were pushed to one side as he took her in his arms and groaned.
‘Oh, Verity, I never expected…I couldn’t, and I love you just the same no matter what…Have you any idea just how much that means to me? It’s the same for me, you know,’ he told her quietly. ‘I haven’t…’
‘Not even with Myra?’ Verity asked him.
‘Most especially not with Myra.’ Silas grinned.