Come Lie With Me - Linda Howard [78]
After Serena and Richard had left, Blake helped Dione up the stairs with a steadying arm around her waist. He was laughing softly, and she leaned into him, letting him take most of her weight. “What’s so funny?” she asked sleepily.
“You are. You’re half-drunk, and you’re beautiful. Did you know that you’ve had the sweetest, sleepiest smile in the world on your face for the last fifteen minutes? Don’t you dare go to sleep on me, at least until after you’ve kept our date.”
She stopped on the stairs and turned fully into his arms, winding herself around him. “You know I wouldn’t miss that for the world,” she purred.
“I’ll see that you don’t.”
She let him talk her into wearing the scandalous teddy that Serena had given her, and he made love to her while she had it on, then even that scrap of fabric seemed to get in his way and he stripped it off her. “Nothing’s as lovely as your skin,” he whispered, stringing kisses like popcorn across her stomach.
She felt drugged, her mind a little fuzzy, but her body was throbbing, arching instinctively to meet the rhythmic thrusts that took her to bliss and beyond when he left off kissing her all over and possessed her again. When they were finished she lay weak and trembling on the bed, protesting with a murmur when she felt him leave her side.
“I’ll be right back,” he reassured her, and he was, his weight pressing the mattress familiarly. She smiled and moved her hand to touch him lightly, all without opening her eyes.
“Don’t go to sleep,” he warned. “Not yet. You haven’t unwrapped your last present.”
She propped her lids open. “But I thought that you were…when we made love, I thought that…” she mumbled in confusion.
He chuckled and slid an arm behind her back, urging her into a sitting position. “I’m glad you liked that, but I have something else for you.” He placed another long, slim box in her hand.
“But you’ve already given me so much,” she protested, awakening at the feel of the box.
“Not like this. This is special. Go ahead, open it.”
He sat with his arm still around her, watching her face and smiling as she fumbled with the elegant gold wrapping, her agile fingers suddenly clumsy. She lifted the lid off and stared speechlessly at the simple pendant that lay on satin lining like a cobweb of gold. A dark red heart, chiseled and planed, was attached to the chain.
“That’s a ruby,” she stammered.
“No,” he corrected gently, lifting it from the box and placing it around her neck. “That’s my heart.” The chain was long, and the ruby heart slid down her chest to nestle between her breasts, gleaming with dark fire as it lay against her honeyed skin.
“Wear that forever,” he murmured, his eyes on the lush curves that his gift used as a pillow. “And my heart will always be touching yours.”
A single, crystalline tear escaped the confines of her lashes, and rolled slowly down her cheek. He leaned over and caught it with his tongue. “An engagement ring wasn’t good enough for you, so I’m giving you an engagement heart. Will you wear it, darling? Will you marry me?”
She stared at him with eyes so huge and deep that they drowned the entire world. For a month she’d shared his bed, trying to prepare herself for the day when she was no longer able to do so, savoring every moment with him in an attempt to store up pleasure as a squirrel stores acorns as insurance against a hard winter. She’d been certain that he would lose interest in her, but every day he’d turned to her and taken her in his arms, told her that he loved her. Perhaps the dream wasn’t a dream, after all, but reality. Perhaps she could dare to believe.
“Yes,” she heard herself say shakily as her heart and hungry yearnings overruled her head, and her head instantly tried to recover lost ground by adding, “but give me time to get used to the idea…. It doesn