‘No, I shouldn’t do that. I can just imagine some of our future arguments. ‘Juliana’ comes trippingly off the tongue when I’m angry with you.’
‘All right,’ she said agreeably. She sighed and nestled closer. ‘That was nice, very nice. You can thrash me if you promise to end it like that.’
‘You didn’t think at all about Wilkes, or aboutJohn – ‘
‘No, not for a moment. My weak woman’s mind has quite recovered. After all, Michael, I did take off my own nightgown and toss it into the corner, with no help from you.’
‘No more derringers?’
She hesitated, but just a moment. ‘No,’ she said, shuddering a bit from reaction. ‘That was awful. I think I must have been somewhat deranged.’
‘No,’ he laughed, ‘just starved for your husband’.
‘You do have a lot to make up for,’ she said, slipping her hand between their bodies.
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‘Jules, you’re probably sore. You are quite small, you know, and I felt you stretching to hold me, to take me into you.’
‘You don’t know,’ she said, ‘you can’t imagine what it feels like, Michael. I think it’s much nicer to be a woman. You become part of me, you know. I possess you.’
‘Possess me?’ he said, grinning as he kissed her temple. ‘I’ve never heard a woman say that before.’
‘You, inside of me, filling me. I like it very much.’
He groaned, and she simply smiled up at him as he became a wild man. Until she became as wild as he. Her last thought before her body exploded into almost painful pleasure was that, at last, she was a woman, a wife, Michael’s wife.
‘Have I just been branded?’ she asked after he’d calmed her and settled her against his body for sleep.
‘Twice, branded twice. But,’ he added, his voice deep with satisfaction, ‘you’ve been pleasured three times.’
‘Such possessiveness,’ she said. I will make him love me, she thought, oh yes, I will. ‘MichaeP’
‘Hmm?’ ‘Did you enjoy making love to me?’
He was silent for a moment, and she could
’27Q
practically see the devilish grin on his lips. ‘It was all right, I suppose,’ he said blandly. ‘You could have shown a bit more enthusiasm, of course. But all in all, I didn’t fall asleep from boredom, did I?’
‘You’re impossible!’
She felt the deep rumbling laughter in his chest before it erupted from his throat. ‘You’re hairy.’ She slid her hand over his belly.
‘Dangerous, Jules, very dangerous. Have pity, sweetheart, I’m an old man.’ But not that old, he thought ruefully; he wanted her again, powerfully.
‘Do you know what I was thinking when you were over me, inside of me?’
He groaned. ‘I’m scared to know.’
‘How powerful you are, how beautiful, and your legs, so strong and – ‘
He slipped his hand between them to cup her breast, and she made a sweet, mewling sigh. He said, ‘Would you like to know what I was thinking when I was covering you, inside of you?’
‘You weren’t thinking a single thing!’ ‘Shut up. I looked at you, so small, so delicate, so very female, and – ‘
He felt her punch his ribs, and he laughed, a deep, satisfied laugh. ‘Don’t try to outdo the master, Jules, else I’ll continue with how I felt when you wrapped your beautiful legs
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around me, drawing me deeper ‘Michael!’
He eased her onto her back, kissed her breast, then said with all the triumph of a sated man who held a sated woman, ‘You’re mine, Mrs. Saint, and don’t you ever forget it.’
‘No,’ she said, so happy that she thought she would die from it. ‘No, Dr. Saint, I won’t ever forget.’
23
Lydia paused a moment in front of the closed bedroom door, started to turn the knob, then slowly drew back her hand. She walked to the smaller bedroom down the hall, saw that the door was open, and peered in. ‘Ah,’ she said, her eyes glittering as she took in the mussed bed and Jules’s nightgown, a rumpled heap on the floor. ‘It’s about time, Saint Morris. Yes indeed, about time.’
She decided to take her leave thirty minutes later, a pleased smile on her face. Upstairs, Saint, who usually woke quickly