Silas stared down into his beloved’s lovely, sulky face as a tide of elation flooded him.
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” Caroline said huskily.
“But I am pleased with myself.” The understatement to end all understatements. He stopped trying to hold back his grin. She loved him. More astonishing, she’d admitted it. On a night of wonders, this was the greatest wonder yet. He felt like dancing around the room in triumph, whooping and punching the air like a lunatic.
She didn’t look nearly so uplifted. “Now you’ll think you have the right to choose my friends and criticize my clothes and tell me what to do, and you’ll turn into a growling bear if I smile at another man.”
“Probably,” he said cheerfully.
“And you’ll imagine I’ve made promises to you.”
“Haven’t you?”
She sat straighter and regarded him like an adversary. The wariness sat oddly on her features when her hair cascaded around her naked shoulders and her lips were red and swollen from his kisses. “I won’t be a chattel.”
“And I won’t be a tyrant.”
Her expression remained doubtful. “Easy for you to say.”
“Will you give me the chance to prove myself?” He moved in to kiss her. After an infinitesimal hesitation, she kissed him back with all the glorious passion he’d discovered tonight. By the time he raised his head, she was flat on her back and he curved over her in a damnably suggestive pose.
“If I listen to you much longer, I’ll give up my dreams.”
“Perhaps it’s time for new dreams.”
To his surprise, he saw she gave the idea serious consideration. “New dreams sound…appealing.”
“I’ll make sure they are.”
“So what do we do now?” she asked, sounding more confused than belligerent. She lay warm and soft and loose-limbed under him, his dream lover.
Suggestively he tilted his hips forward. “If you give me a couple of minutes, we can do it all again.”
She cast him an unimpressed look, although the pink in her cheeks indicated interest. “Not that.”
“Time’s a-wasting. You only offered me one night.”
Her lips quirked. “You don’t expect me to believe you’ll abide by that.”
He didn’t smile back. “Let me make a deal with you, sweetheart.”
He must convince her stay with him. Of course, he had the great advantage that she loved him. But that mightn’t be enough. Silas cursed that idiot Freddie for giving her such a sour view of marriage.
“What sort of deal?” She sounded mistrustful. Physically she’d given herself without reservation. And mentally she’d ventured a long way toward him tonight.
“You said one night.”
“I did.”
“Then let’s take our affair one night at a time.” He didn’t add that one night after another, year after year, totaled a lifetime.
She stared up at him, troubled. “Can you bear that? The uncertainty of it.”
If she loved him, he wasn’t uncertain at all. He was sure, and he believed that soon she would be, too. He shifted again, letting her feel his heavy readiness. “The compensations will make it worthwhile.”
To his surprise, her arms crept around his neck. “I look forward to seeing you win this war, Silas.”
Her lips were hot and ardent. By the time he raised his head, he was shaking with desire and poised between her legs.