Tangled (53 page)

"For this reason," he said. And he lifted her firmly by the waist and twirled her around and around until they were both dizzy and laughing.

"How foolish," she said when he set her feet back on the ground.

She was flushed and still laughing. He drank in the wonder of her happiness. "I thought you were going to kiss me."

"I was," he said. "I am. I was just warming up to it."

She laughed and tightened her arms about his neck. "Let's see how warm you are, then," she said.

He tipped his head back and grinned down at her. Rebecca being risqué? He could not have imagined it until this moment.

"Are you sure you want to find out?" he asked.

Her laugh gave place to wistfulness. "Yes, I do, please, David," she said. He watched her eyes grow luminous. "I want you so much. I did not know that love could be so very beautiful in its physical form until you taught me."

Tangled 383

She had never learned it with Julian? That was why she had been afraid of his lovemaking at first?

He lowered his head and kissed her. It was a sweet and a tender kiss for a long time, mouths molding to each other, caressing, tasting, tongues touching, twining, pushing, exploring, arms holding, tightening. There was all the wonder of their wedding day in their kiss and of the fact that they were together again after being so disturbingly torn apart.

It was a kiss that satisfied for a time. It was a kiss that told of affection and love and promise. But his mouth and his tongue were gone after a while and she opened her eyes to find him smiling at her from a few inches away. David. Her husband. Her friend. Her love.

"I am glad we came here," he said, "to discover alone together that we have married for all the right reasons." His smile deepened. "And for love too. We needed to discover those things here, Rebecca, where summer and roses are blooming. I knew you loved me and you knew I loved you. But it needed to be said."

"Yes," she said.

"But having said it," he said, "there is really nothing more to be added, is there?''

She shook her head.

"I love you," he said. "And I want to be your lover. Now."

"And I want to be yours," she said. "Now."

"In our bed," he said, "where we started Charles, the little imp.

Did you hear him in church this morning?"

She chuckled. "Who didn't?" she said. "I want another, David."

"Despite all the trouble and anxiety?" he asked.

She nodded.

"In our bed now, then," he said, taking her hand and lacing his fingers with hers again. "Just because you want my seed, Rebecca?"

"For that reason, yes," she said. "But not just for that."

"What, then?"

She wondered how many years would pass before he had permanent laugh lines in the corners of his eyes.
They were going to make him look impossibly attractive. Though he was already that.

"Because I want you," she said. "All of you, David. Everything you have to give."

He stopped briefly under the trellised arch to kiss her lips. "Can you offer a similar gift?" he asked.

She nodded. "Everything I have and am is yours from this day on,"

she said. "I love you, David."

"What more could a man ask for?" he said. But he grinned suddenly. "Perhaps that his bedroom was a great deal closer than it is?"

They both laughed as their hands parted and their arms slid around each other's waist.

To hell with what the servants might think, David thought. It was his wedding day.

She hoped there were no servants in sight, Rebecca thought. But surely they would make allowances for the fact that it was her wedding day.

Their wedding day. Hers and David's.

THE END

MARY BALOGH,
who won the
Romantic
TimeS
Award for Best New Regency Writer in 1985, has since become the genre's most popular and bestselling author. She has won four Walden book awards and a B. Dalton award for bestselling Regencies, and a
Romantic Times
Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. She is also the author of two critically acclaimed Onyx historical romances,
Beyond
the Sunrise
and
Deceived.