by a thousand blissful cuts, thank you for asking.”
Alex smiled to herself. He’d been so patient with her. So gentle. She thanked him by trailing light kisses along his neck and chest. She scraped her fingernails lightly down his arm.
His grip tightened on her backside. “For God’s sake, Alexandra. You’ll ruin my display of heroic restraint.”
She looked up at him. “Perhaps that’s what I’m hoping for.”
He pressed his forehead to the crown of her head and gripped her tight. Then he thrust hard and deep, wrenching a gasp from her.
“Yes,” she managed, worried he’d mistake her reaction for pain. “Don’t stop.”
She needn’t have worried. He didn’t even slow down.
If pleasure was a mountain slope, Chase was scaling its rocky face in determined strides. And Alex was slung over his shoulder, carried along for the ride.
He took her in strong, fierce strokes with an intensity that thrilled her. Even the gruff, desperate sounds he made were deliciously arousing. When he growled crude profanity in her ear, a naughty sense of excitement shot through her veins.
Yet the wilder he grew, the safer she felt. His need for her was so palpable, so raw. As though he would die before he let her go. She felt, for the first time in ages, truly, entirely protected. All the uncertainty she carried inside her—the constant fear she shrugged off as practicality or logic or common sense—it drained from her body.
The climax sent her soaring, weightless and free.
“God.” His rhythm faltered. But he never buried his head in her neck, or her hair, or the crook of his arm. He never went away.
He was here. With her. With her. With her.
“Alexandra.”
“I’m here.”
“Talk to me.”
“It’s me.” She stroked her hands down his back. “You’re here, with me. I love you. There’s no place you belong more.”
“Alex. God, I—”
As the pleasure racked his body, she held him tight. He clasped her to him afterward, pressing kisses to every part of her face. When he kissed her nose, she laughed.
He rolled aside, and they lay as they’d begun, holding hands and staring up at the stars. Could it have been only five or six hours ago?
Chase drew her closer, tucking her head against his chest. His fingers toyed with her hair. “I think the world is spinning.”
“The world is always spinning.”
He exhaled in a soft groan.
“Well, that’s the truth. It’s spinning all the time.”
“How about this. What if I say that you’re my world. You’re not spinning.”
“But I am. We all are. We’re on the earth, and it’s spinning, so we’re spinning, too.”
“You are ruining all my sweet nothings.”
“That’s just it.” She put her hand atop his chest, covering his fiercely beating heart. “To me, the truth doesn’t ruin anything. Why should understanding the universe diminish our sense of wonder at it? We are spinning around and around, at hundreds of miles an hour, on a rock in the midst of a fathomless universe. Isn’t that awe-inspiring enough?”
“If we’re spinning at hundreds of miles an hour, it seems a miracle that we stay on this rock at all.”
“That’s not a miracle. That’s gravity.”
He kissed the top of her head. “I love you. There. Have you some astronomical way to ruin that?”
“No.” She was grateful he couldn’t see her face contorting with elation. “That’s a miracle.”
“See, to me it’s the most logical thing in the world.” He gently eased her aside and rolled over to face her. His fingertips traced the features on her face and the contours of her body. “Listen, I could make some excuse about there being no coaches or boats at this hour, or say there’s a bridge that’s been washed out. We could find an inn where there’s only one room left and pretend we’re forced to share. But the God’s honest truth is this. I want to spend the rest of the night holding you, and I don’t care what anyone has to say about it.”
She smiled. “Then let’s do that.”
They made love twice more at the inn, with a scant hour or two of sleep between bouts of passion. After all that exertion, nourishment was a necessity.
“Do you want a long engagement?” Chase mumbled the question around a mouthful of fried egg.
Alex set down her cup of tea. Suddenly, she didn’t trust her fingers to grip it properly. “Wh . . . What was that you just asked?”
He buttered a point of toast, folded it in two, and downed it in one bite. “Waiting might spare you the worst of the gossip. You could return to your house, we’d allow some time to pass. Perhaps a wedding next spring.” He set down his knife and fork, then looked at her across the table. “Damn it, I don’t want to wait until spring.”
“Chase, what are you talking about?”
“Our wedding. What else should I be talking about?”
“I don’t know. Something that might actually happen?”
He pushed his plate aside, propped a forearm on the table, and leaned forward to speak in a low voice. “I told you last night, this means always. You said you wanted that, too.”
“Of course I want that,” she whispered back. “But marriage?”
“You said you wouldn’t be my mistress.”
“You said you couldn’t offer me anything more.”
“I changed my mind,” he said.
“So did I,” she replied.
He tapped one finger on the table. “I’m confused.”
“Consider this. If the comet is my comet, I can find someone who’ll pay to name it. Perhaps enough that I can be an independent woman with a home of my own. Your lover, not your mistress.”
“I’ve had my share of lovers, and several other men’s shares, as well. I don’t need one more.”
Alex sighed. “You can’t marry me. My father was an American who made his living in trade. My mother was an illegitimate mestiza. I was christened Catholic. I’ve no money, no relations. For heaven’s sake, you’re going to be a duke. I’m the governess.”
His eyes flashed with emotion. “After months
