Burning Up

made a sound deep in his throat and thrust. She surged to meet him. And despite their differences, or because of them, all the parts fit. As if he had found the other piece of himself, the missing half that made him whole. His mind blurred as they moved together, two bodies with one rhythm. One flesh. His breath shortened. His heart raced. Her body rose and strained beneath his, matching him thrust for thrust. He plunged and withdrew, plunged and held himself still inside her until he felt her tense and go lax around him, softening at her climax. He pressed harder, deeper. The tremors that took her shook them both.
    She held him, held him close, as he turned his face into her hair and emptied himself.
    Slowly, Jack returned to his senses. His knee throbbed like a sore tooth. His thigh ached with strain. He was exhausted and sweaty . . . and more content than he could remember ever being in his life.
    He turned his head on the pillow. Morwenna lay half under him, her face perfect in the golden light, smooth and rounded, luminous as a pearl. She smelled like sex. Like sex and the sea.
    Webbed toes , his brain reminded him, but he silenced thought and listened to his heart instead.
    She was all beautiful. Beautiful and his. Every part of her was his.
    He threaded his fingers through her hair, combing the white gold strands from her brow. “Morwenna.”
    Her lips curved. “Major.”
    Silent laughter swelled his chest. “Under the circumstances,” he said gravely, “I believe you might call me Jack.”
    She opened wide golden eyes. “Jack?”
    “Or John, if you prefer.”
    “Jack,” she repeated. “I like it.”
    Tenderness raked his heart. He kissed her again, a long, slow, openmouthed kiss that stirred him all over again.
    He cleared his throat. “Your brother was right, you know.”
    She blinked. “I beg your pardon.”
    “It isn’t wise for you to live alone here. It isn’t . . .” Proper. “Safe,” he concluded.
    His weight still pinned her to the mattress. But already he could feel her withdrawing, regrouping, pulling away from him. “It isn’t your concern.”
    “I am concerned,” he said honestly. “You obviously haven’t been responsible for managing your own household before. You need help. Protection.”
    Her quick frown gave her mouth a sulky look. “I told you once I will not live with you.”
    “Not with me.” That would cause even more talk than her living alone. “Your brother is in the area, you said. You can stay with him.”
    “No.”
    “I will escort you.”
    “I am not one of your soldiers. You cannot command my obedience.”
    “I would call on him in any case.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “You wish to meet my brother.”
    “It is customary,” Jack said carefully. “When a couple is . . .”
    What? he wondered. Courting?
    Could he seriously be considering making her an offer? An unknown woman of dubious background living alone on the edges of his estate?
    Yes , his heart insisted.
    “Getting to know one another,” he said.
    She wiggled under him, making him acutely aware of her naked body. “We already got to know each other. Twice.”
    He smiled. “Which makes my introduction to your family the next—the only—appropriate course of action.”
    “My brother would not agree with you.”
    “Then give me the opportunity to change his mind. Let me ask his permission to court you.”
    There. He had said it. Certainty settled into his bones and lightened his chest.
    “That is not necessary,” she said.
    Not the reaction he hoped for.
    Or, truth to tell, expected.
    “I am well able to provide for a wife,” he assured her stiffly. “My father was a gentleman. Aside from my cousin’s estate, I have savings of my own which I am prepared to settle on you.”
    “Are you trying to persuade me of my great good fortune in attracting you as a partner?”
    “No. Maybe.” He rolled away from her, off the bed. “I sound like an ass.”
    “Merely human.”
    He turned.
    She sat on the edge of the mattress, her hair tumbled over her smooth shoulders, watching him. “You would make a good husband, I think. For someone else. I am . . . fond of you. But I have no desire to marry.”
    She was rejecting him. His hands curled into fists at his sides. He did not understand. Every woman wanted to marry. What other options did she have?
    “You must want security,” he said. “A family, a home of your own.”
    “I enjoy my freedom. I wish to keep it.”
    He stared at her,