Triumph flooded through Rion’s chest as he realised the depth of her capitulation. She was saying she wouldn’t ever be able to fight it.
Instantly, what was left of his plot to take revenge went up in smoke. It would never have been satisfying enough anyway. The only thing that could satisfy him was her, returning as his wife, for good. ‘Then you’ll stay?’ he growled. ‘After tomorrow?’
Libby stared at him and felt her heart swell to double its normal size.
He was asking her to stay. After the election. When the reason he needed her here would be gone. And the only reason remaining would be because he wanted her to.
Hours ago she’d been sure that leaving was the only sane thing to do. That he would never love her… Now she still had no guarantees, knew they had a mountain to climb, but he had just given her every reason to hope that it was possible.
She stood up and walked towards him, emotions washing over her. ‘Yes, Rion, I’ll stay.’
Rion stared at her in amazement. He’d done it. He’d actually broken her, made her realise that their desire for one another did transcend all else. And he didn’t hesitate. Suddenly, definitively, he dropped his head and found her mouth.
Libby revelled in it, roving her hands up his back, hungrily raking her fingers through his hair, then sliding his tie from beneath his collar. She tossed it to the floor while Rion’s hands stroked up her arms and then straight back down again, taking the straps of her dress with him and exposing her to the waist.
He let out a growl of pleasure at the discovery that she was not wearing a bra, and stilled for just a moment to watch as her nipples peaked under his gaze. God, she wanted him to look at her like that for ever.
She let out a moan as he lowered his head and began to slick his tongue over her nipples, nuzzling her, caressing her. But the aching need between her thighs made her impatient for more. She ran her hand up his leg, towards the waistband of his trousers, feeling his arousal jump as she skimmed over it, and then encouraged him back towards the bed.
‘Wait,’ he said, placing his hands on hers and returning them to her. ‘Just a second.’
He moved quickly to their bags, which had been neatly placed in the corner of the room, and swiftly unzipped a pocket to extract a condom.
The second Libby realised what he was doing she knew she had to stop him this time. Yes, it might result in a few moments of awkward explanation, but she understood now that honesty was essential if their marriage was ever going to work. ‘No.’ She shook her head, gnawing on her lower lip and praying that it wouldn’t destroy the moment completely. ‘That’s not necessary.’
Rion stared down at the foil packet between his fingers, then looked up at her face in astonishment. No, he thought, as the full extent of her capitulation truly sank in. Now she’d agreed to return as his wife permanently, he supposed it wasn’t necessary, was it?
But the soaring triumph that accompanied the realisation that she’d just suggested the one thing he’d always wanted was curtailed by the look of resignation on her face. Because it was perfectly clear that she didn’t deem him any more worthy to be the father of her children now than she had done then. The only difference was that now she understood she was never going to want another man the way she wanted him, and that, unless she was prepared to live without desire like that, his lack of breeding was something she was just going to have to try and forget.
And, whilst his instinct was to pull down the remainder of her dress, spill his seed inside her, and prove that class was irrelevant to Mother Nature, the thought of doing so in such a way that would remind her of his uncivilised roots, of the concession she was having to make, was utterly repugnant to him.
Instead he dropped the condom, inwardly vowed to keep his philistine urges on a tightly coiled leash, and slowly stalked back to the bed to focus on her pleasure.
‘Lie down.’
Libby felt her desire rocket at his husky command and stepped back, slid off the remainder of her dress, and stretched out on the bed in answer. She was surprised that he asked no questions, levelled no accusation of infidelity, but she was glad. She took it as proof that his feelings mirrored hers, that he saw whatever had happened in the intervening years—not that anything had happened on her part—as history.
He quickly came to join her on the bed, and Libby felt him run his eyes downwards, over her breasts, across her scrap of underwear and down her legs. But as she looked up into his face to savour his appreciation she was surprised to see that his expression wasn’t the one of urgent need she’d expected, instead he looked—detached. The way he did when your marriage was on its last legs, a voice taunted in the back of her mind.