“You can’t mean those things.”
“But I do. If you had not taught that silly, flighty Emily Riverdale to dream of love, I would have had no chance of believing in it, myself. I would not have come here. I would not have met you. Even if I had, I would have been too arrogant and hardheaded to ever let you close.”
He dropped his head, burying his face in her neck. “Izzy, I owe you everything. You are my heart. My very life. If you leave me . . . ”
His voice broke. Her heart swelled.
She slid her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “If you’ll only let me hold you, I won’t ever let you go.”
They kissed deeply, sweetly. And slowly. As though now they had all the time in the world.
“I’m so sorry for earlier,” he said. “The stupid things I said. I was a bastard.”
“I won’t argue.”
“I ruined all your work. Worse, I destroyed all the plans I’d been making.”
Her brow wrinkled. “What plans had you been making?”
“Well, to begin with . . .” He rose up on his elbows. “I’d been planning to seduce you in this bed tonight.”
Izzy swallowed. “Has that plan altered?”
Please say no. Please say no.
“Yes, it has.” He rose up and straddled her waist. “I don’t think seduction is called for. I think you’re overdue for a ravishing.”
A thrill shot through her.
Yes.
This was just what part of her craved—for him to take control. Just this once. She’d been the responsible person in the Goodnight household since the age of ten. All those years of feverishly scribbling stories, working to keep bread on the table and oil in the lamps. Then the constant tension of keeping the truth to herself—always counting her statements in any conversation, clenching her fists and holding her tongue. Making sure no one got close enough to guess. Because she needed to guard not only their family income but the dreams and hopes of thousands.
And all the while, she’d been yearning for someone to take care of her. She’d dreamed of this. A man strong enough to protect her, bold enough to see her for who she truly was. Willing to claim her for his own.
She was long overdue for a ravishing. A lifetime overdue.
But it couldn’t happen tonight.
When he laced his hands with hers and pushed her back against the bed, she protested. “No.”
He frowned. “No?”
“Not like this. I can’t let you ravish me.”
She took advantage of his surprise, turning and flipping their positions on the bed so that she lay sprawled atop him.
“Tonight,” she vowed, “I’m going to ravish you.”
Ravish him?
Ransom made a halfhearted attempt at demurring. He muttered a few incoherent words of protest. But his body betrayed him.
“I know you want it,” she whispered, hiking her skirts to straddle his hips.
And he did. He wanted this badly indeed.
She couldn’t know what it meant to him, to be pushed back against the bed, divested of all his clothing, and then . . . just touched. Caressed. And best of all, kissed. Kissed everywhere. With no reciprocation or compensation expected. Nothing up for barter or exchange. Just the outpouring of her sweetness, her passion. Her beautiful heart.
She kissed him everywhere. Everywhere.
He found it adorable, some of the places she chose to grace with her lips. The inside of his elbow. His knobby chin. His hairy, muscled calves. And all the while, her soft, sensual hair dragged over his skin, like a thousand caressing fingers.
She kissed his lips, of course, sliding her tongue deep to twine with his. She kissed his cheeks and temples—both the unmarked and the scarred. She kissed the tender place just beneath his ear, and she ran her tongue down the center of his chest and . . .
And stopped at his navel.
Damn.
He didn’t want to press her for it. But by this point, she’d put her mouth on him just about everywhere else, and his cock was getting ideas of its own. Straining for her touch, aching for her kiss. Even leaping, like a tethered beast.