Black Rose

have my suit for the wedding out in the car.”
    Her eyes stayed closed; her lips curved. “I like a man who thinks ahead.”
    “I wasn’t sure there’d be a place for a man in the house tonight. Wedding eve, female rituals.”
    “We started our rituals at the salon this morning, and we’ll pick them up tomorrow. They’re going to make a lovely family, aren’t they?”
    “They already do. I enjoyed watching those boys stand up to the old woman, and your elegantly executed shots. Followed by Harper’s base-clearing run.”
    “We were all wonderfully rude, weren’t we? Of course, she won’t speak to you again. Won’t help you with your book.”
    “I’m not worried about it. And—we’ll call it postseason play—she’s unlikely to be entertained by what I write about her.”
    “I will be. She knows. She knows who Amelia is, what happened to her. I suppose she always has. There’s a possibility she destroyed any journals with a mention of her—a small one, as anything pertaining to Harper House is sacrosanct to her. But it’s something we should be prepared for.”
    “We just need a few seeds. I can propagate from there.”
    She opened her eyes. “Aren’t you clever? I know I’m in love when my guy can talk in gardening terms.”
    “You haven’t seen anything yet. Rosalind, I’m seduced by your feet.”
    “My feet?”
    “Crazy about them. I just never know...” Slowly he drew off one of her thick socks. “What I’ll find. Ah.” He brushed a finger over her toenails, painted pale shell pink, with just a hint of glitter. “Surprise, surprise.”
    “They’re often one of my little secrets.”
    He lifted her feet, traced his lips down her arch. “I love secrets.”

    There was something powerful about pleasuring a strong woman, watching her, feeling her surrender to sensation. A tiny quiver, a quiet sigh was unspeakably erotic when you knew the woman yeilded to no one.
    From attraction to passion, from passion to love. It was a journey he’d never planned to make again. Yet here he was. When he touched her, he knew she was the woman, the only woman he wanted to spend his life with. He wondered how he’d reached this point in his life without knowing, and needing, her scent, the sound of her voice, the fascinating textures of her skin.
    When she rose up, locking her arms around him, fixing her mouth warmly on his, his heart nearly burst.
    “I can see you in the dark,” he told her. “I can hear you when you’re miles away.”
    The small sound she made was pure emotion as she sank into him.
    She held tight, tight a moment with her head on his shoulder, her heart knocking against his. How love could be so many different things at so many different times, she’d never understand. She could only be grateful for it, grateful to have found this love at this time.
    She would cherish it. Cherish him.
    She eased back to take his face in her hands, so their eyes met. “It’s harder when you come into something like this, knowing more, having more behind you. But at the same time, it’s more itself. Fuller, richer. I want you to know that’s how I feel with you. Full and rich.”
    “I don’t think I can do without you, Rosalind.”
    “Good.” She touched her lips to his. “Good,” she repeated and slid slow and deep into the kiss.
    She curled around him, breathing him in. His hair, his skin. Here, unbearable tenderness, and there, a simmering excitement. While her mouth clung to his, her fingers flipped open the buttons of his shirt, lifted her arms so he could draw her away and they could press together, warm flesh to warm flesh.
    He pressed her back onto the couch, let his hands and lips roam over her. Breasts and shoulders and throat, down to that impossibly narrow torso.
    There were signs of the children she’d borne, the men she’d made. For a moment he lay his cheek on her belly, amazed he’d been given the gift of a woman so vital, so potent.
    She stroked his back, gliding on the shimmer that coated her senses, lazily working her hands between them to unbutton his jeans. She found him hard and hot, and felt her own muscles bunch and quiver in anticipation.
    Now they tugged at clothes, and once again she rose up. This time she straddled him, staring into those bottle-green eyes as she slowly, slowly took him inside her.
    “Ah. God.” She gripped the back of the couch, her fingers digging in.
    With a brutal hold on control, she rode, hips moving in a tortuously gentle