Chapter 40

Torie couldn't stop giggling as Dom ripped the top sheet from her bed, snatched her soap, and drew her down the stairs and

across the back lawn, through the willows that edged the lake.

"Nightgown," he ordered when they stopped under the shade of a huge tree, his voice as urgent and intent as his gaze.

"I can't be naked outside!" she protested, shrugging off her robe. "I swim in my chemise." She glanced down at the dimity

cotton of her nightgown. "This will do."

Watching her with hungry eyes, Dom wrenched down his breeches and threw them on top of his boots. "Why not take it off? I

am naked."

Torie's eyes drifted down his chiseled stomach to his tool, straining toward her. Desire surged between them like a living

presence.

"I'm going to wash the dust from my body," Dom announced. "Then I plan to make love to my wife in the lake. After that, I

shall make love to my wife on the shore, followed by making love to her in that rickety old bed, hopefully without destroying

the frame. Then I'm going to sleep for three days, except when I'm making love to her. Because without her, I can't sleep."

She managed a wobbling smile. "I haven't slept much, either."

"You broke my heart by leaving and then broke my heart again when I realized you hadn't shared your greatest passion with me—but none of that matters. Nothing matters except you." Dom swept her into his arms and walked straight into the water.

" You are my greatest passion," Torie said.

She squeaked as cool droplets splashed her legs, but Dom unceremoniously put her down in water up to her waist.

He dunked himself, standing up and rubbing his hands through his hair. Torie swallowed hard as streams of water ran down the

slabs of muscles that made up his chest. The light cotton of her nightdress billowed around her legs as she unraveled her

braid before she ducked underwater.

Just as she realized how fascinating it was to see morning light swirling through shallow lake water, her husband caught her

hands and brought her upright. Greedy eyes fastened on her breasts; a growl broke from his throat as he pulled her against

his chest. He wrenched up her sopping nightdress with his left hand as his right slipped over her breasts, then down her stomach,

between her legs.

"Are you sure no one can see us?" she gasped, blood thumping in her veins, her legs quivering.

"Even if someone were on the top of the turret, they couldn't see through the willow trees."

Torie threw her arms around his neck and kissed his jaw. "I love you, Dom. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about my paintings.

After this, I'll bore you to tears talking of them."

"Nothing about you bores me." The anguished words seemed torn from Dom's chest. "I keep thinking about ravishing you—when

I'm not thinking about arguing with you, because I love that too, Torie. You are my finest debating partner, the only one

who matters."

The next hour came back to Torie later in flashes, as if acute pleasure frazzled her memory. In the lake: her fingers skating over the hard curve of his arse, pulling him closer. On the shore: Dom's dark, wet head between her plump thighs as she lay back on the crumpled sheet. Her hands twining into his hair, holding him in place as filthy promises tumbled from his lips. The sound of his harsh breath in her ear as he pumped deep inside her, the sound of her own gasps. The moment when he said desperately, through gritted teeth, "Be mine, Torie. Be mine. I'm jealous and possessive, but damn it, I love you so much that I can't—"

He broke off, kissing her desperately, overwhelmed by his emotion.

Pleasure and joy seemed interchangeable: knit into her essence by his kisses, by his love for her. By hers for him.

"You're mine too," she whispered. " You , the most intelligent man in London, the most ethical and generous person I've ever known."

The sun was warming the surface of the water by the time he drew her to her feet and bundled her back into her robe.

He sank to his knees in front of her.

"Dom!"

"I can't atone for what I did, for the way I treated you."

"You needn't! I was wrong, too. We were both wrong."

She was surprised to see laughter in his glittering eyes. "I decided that the best way to exorcize my father's ghost is by

horrifying it."

Torie let out a startled giggle.

"I'm on my knees in this bloody uncomfortable pile of leaves because my wife owns me," he informed the air around them. "I am hers, and I always will be. If she leaves me, she takes my heart with her."

Torie smiled, her heart full. "Done?" she asked.

"Never." He drew her down to him, nudged her legs apart, and grinned at her, a pirate's smile. "I shall never be done with

you, love. One touch on my arm, and I'm hungry. You know what the worst is?"

She shook her head, feeling airy as a soap bubble.

"Turpentine," he admitted. "I smell it, and I get an erection." He lowered his head and kissed her thigh. At her giggle, he

served up a mock indignant scowl. "Not just any erection, Torie: the agonizing kind. The out of control, desperate kind."

The last word was muffled because he was kissing his way up her inner thigh, so Torie lay back and watched a cloud drift across

the pale blue sky far above. She was thinking dreamily that perhaps she would paint a sky with luminous gold edging around

the clouds, as if angels were lounging on the other side, just out of sight.

The thought evaporated because Dom licked her delicately, like a cat with a saucer of cream, so her eyelashes fluttered shut.

She could smell river water and healthy man and mown grass. Hunger washed over her even though they had just made love, and

she had been so replete . Satisfied.

He moved back, sitting down, and held out his arms. Torie curled her legs around his waist, discovering that making love twice,

not to mention exorcizing a ghost, hadn't quelled his desire. Waves of heat melted her from the inside out.

"Your generosity and your loyalty are at the top of the many reasons why I love you," she said.

His arms wrapped tighter around her. "Even I would have called my loyalty into question after Vauxhall."

"That was idiocy," she said impishly. "You see, I think it's fine to call an action idiotic, just not a person. Even when you thought I painted kittens, you strode into the Royal Academy to demand that they

put my felines next to Benjamin West's dying Caesars."

One side of his mouth curled up. "He's created more than the one dead Caesar he showed me?"

"He does them all the time," she said dismissively. "They sell in buckets to Americans. My point is that if you had known

I was an excellent painter, it would have meant less than you stamping into Somerset House and demanding that my rubbishing

kittens be recognized."

"I don't follow."

"I was used to my father belittling me and my work. He does it with affection."

He leaned forward and kissed her. "Mine did the same but without affection."

"But you fought with me. You only fight when the battle is important, and the opponents worthy. You fought for my kittens too, even though the cats didn't exist."

She drew his head down to hers, smiling through the shimmer of her tears. "You are the only man who has ever offered to defend

me and my ladylike paintings. That means everything to me, Dom. Everything."

"Consider my father exorcized," he said, his voice cracking. "I'll never hurt you again."

She shook her head. "We are both imperfect. I expect we will insult each other again—and forgive each other. That's what marriage

is."

"And what love is." Dom smiled at her, his dimples showing. "Because we do love each other."

"Dom, do you know what they call a baby rabbit?"

He was kissing her and didn't answer.

"A kitten," she whispered... and then burst out laughing.