She couldn’t breathe anymore, she couldn’t think. “My true husband?”
Surely, her tone had never sounded this unsure before. Her eyes brimmed. Torn between rapture and terror that this enchanted instant would be ripped away from her, she didn’t recognize her own voice.
At her feet, his shiny gaze fixed on her, Garrett stroked her fingers before sliding his thumb toward her palm. “Yes, my love,” he said. “If you’ll accept me as a pauper and an exile, I fervently wish to unite my life with yours.”
She’d feed him if he was poor and also tie him down on her bed if he needed a place to stay. She’d do anything for the love of this man. Pulse in tatters, she watched his lips as he asked the question.
“Tracy, do you consent?”
She looked at him as though for the first time, across universes, across centuries. She stared at this strong, forbidding, resolute man who was renouncing everyone and everything he’d ever believed in for her.
For her.
“I do. Oh, Garrett, I do!”
Then he was by her side, cupping her face between his firm hands, kissing her brow, her cheeks, her quivering lips. She hiccupped while he seemed unable to control himself. She felt him trembling against her, the heady tension coursing through his body almost too violent to be contained.
Yet when he kissed her, when their eager tongues touched and joined, his mouth spoke only of passion and tenderness as if a new era had begun for both of them. He pulled away to take hold of her left hand and with the utmost reverence, he slowly slipped the diamond ring on her finger.
His profound love and commitment burned in his eyes when he raised a poignant face to smile at her.
“Miss Richardson, on my honor and on my faith, I hereby pledge myself to you. Until death lays its scythe on me, my heart and soul shall belong to you. Be it blessing or hardship, I’ll never again be parted from you.”
She cried. Hot, blissful tears tracing heartbreaking lines down her cheeks, she stared at him, unable to speak, unable to deal with the powerful emotion ravaging her.
She hugged him, she blathered in his ear. “But, Garrett, I heard you say yes to your mother.”
“I merely agreed to her unequivocal terms, therefore I am at present banned and penniless. Furthermore, I’ve informed Father and Mother of my impending and definite leave-taking.”
Against her chest, she felt the beating of his heart, strong, steady, unwavering. Her blood sang in her veins. She loosened her embrace to tenderly stroke his adored face and fix her gaze on his.
“Are you sure you won’t regret this?” she asked. “I mean I do want to marry you, but turning your back on your family is a huge deal. Besides you’ll be living in my world, and I’m afraid you might find it very different from here.”
She was afraid he’d change his mind once cut off from his roots and thrown into her world. The thought of Garrett forsaking her after some time petrified her. He might get used to never seeing his family again and living in the twenty-first century, but he might not.
What would she do then?
He smiled and her heart kicked as if the sight of his devoted adoration felt too much for her to bear. He took her hands to kiss the tip of her fingers before brushing her mouth with tender lips. “I love you, my lady. My place is by your side.”
Garrett stood then, hands on her back to bring her to him. With deft fingers, he unfastened the leather outfit, removed her clothing like a prince enthralled by an exquisite queen, and let it fall to the floor.
The glow from the lamp fondling her curves, his dark gaze glinting with passion, he looked at her naked body. “Never have my eyes contemplated so beautiful a bride. Shall you allow me to worship you, my love?”
She closed her eyelids, sweltering from anticipation. She gasped hard when his warm lips captured her nipple, when his tongue flicked the stiff flesh until desire had her wavering on her feet, when his fingers stroked her bare breast.
Unsteady, she opened her eyes as his mouth left her erect nipple. “My craving for you bests me,” he said. “I am naught but a bondservant committed to your tender care.”
He had to have her. She understood his words, his deep tone of voice, his strained features. And she needed to have him, too.
She undressed him like a priestess paying homage to her god. Each of her sensual movements sent fire down her belly, shivers along her spine, and quickened the rise and fall of his chest.
Soon he stood naked before her, his long muscles hard to the touch, his erection aiming at the split of her thighs and making her sigh with passion.
“Love me, Garrett.”
Barely a whisper, yet he took her in his arms to topple her onto the bed. His mouth a hot wire on her throat, breasts, and belly, he aroused each and every of her nerves until she began moaning.
His hard-on brushed her folds and she bit the inside of her cheek. When he penetrated her with all his might, she thought nothing had any importance but his long cock finding its rightful and legitimate place.
Wet to the brim, she let loose a cry when he struck home, his rigid length filling her body as his proposal filled her heart. He parted her lips with his tongue the same way his throbbing dick parted her welcoming folds.
Their tongues touched and caressed. A true lover’s kiss that left her aching with rapture, that left him murmuring against her mouth. “I so desire you, Tracy, it hurts my soul.”
Which man could ever talk to her this way, but him? Which man would ever have the power to turn her inside out with a few words, but him?
She clenched her inner muscles to draw his swelling erection even deeper in. As he groaned his pleasure, she quivered and arched her back, rejoicing at the sound of his erratic breathing.
He went in and out of her, slowly at first, but soon quickening his beat, each strike more powerful, each thrust more loving. Soon, he’d become her husband. Subjected to the passionate rhythm of his unyielding cock, she het herself drown, unable to tell where he ended and where she began.
Their flesh joined and parted, their bodies united in ardent love. Blind and deaf to anything except the raging fire he fanned inside her, she lost track of time, lost all sense of place.
A clear image of what their couple must look like suddenly flared in her mind and pinned her to the bed: a severe nobleman and an impulsive woman passing out of reality to become glimpses of memories from another era, at last freeing their true emotions to create a brand new future.
Her own cries burned her lips, his grunts of pleasure matched her every moan. Skin glistening, hearts pounding, muscles pushed to the limit, she merged into him until she couldn’t take more.
Until an irresistible sensation surged from her loins and burst into a myriad of orgasmic explosions. When the flaming blast hit, she shouted in the nook of his neck, he cried out in the curve of her shoulder.
The weight of his body pressing down on her, his panting obliterating all other sound, she understood the true meaning of happiness. Not by duty, but by choice, Garrett had become hers.
She had to fight tooth and nail against an old-fashioned society set in traditions and archaic beliefs, but her feelings and determination overcame all obstacles. Now after endless months of misery, loneliness, and grief, she’d finally reached a point in her life where love shone bright and pure.
A heavy cloak of sleep descended on her. She laced her arms around her man’s neck and he brought her closer to him, his hand caressing her back. She closed her eyes and held him, feeling his love flowing inside her. Like a gentle caress, his earlier words echoed in her drifting mind.
Until death lays its scythe on me, my heart and soul shall belong to you. Be it blessing or hardship, I shall never again be parted from you.
As if her brain unlocked cages, she realized her past had often been a puzzling if not
disturbing companion. But with Garrett’s hand holding hers, their future would now be an unquestionable ally.
She was damn sure of it.
Epilogue
Streetlamps lit the city of London, mostly deserted at this late hour. Horses’ hooves clattered in the distance while a few carriages still made their way from late night theatres to residential houses. A stray cat meowed, the barking of dogs taking over its mournful cry. Then quietness settled over the town.
In the Mayfair Burnes’ manor, a couple slept on a large bed, legs entwined. The woman twitched in her slumber and the man instinctively drew her closer to him. They lay in each other’s arms, lost in the land of dreams. An empty box sat on the nightstand, the engagement ring on the woman’s finger reflecting shards of moonlight.
A window rattled, betrayed by a gust of wind. In the dead of night, the bedroom door opened. Three shadows stood in the doorway, silent, motionless. Like ominous birds of prey, they watched the sleeping lovers, their naked limbs tangled.
One of the dark silhouettes shifted and a hypodermic needle gleamed in the moon’s pallid radiance. As one, the three shadows swooped down on the bed.
Also from Soul Mate Publishing and Chris Lange:
HEARTS OUT OF TIME
(Book 1 In The Trilogy An Era Apart)
Tracy steps into a futuristic device and plunges into a world she never imagined. Although flaming desire is a tempting pit to dive into, a life is at stake and evil is lurking. In an uncanny nineteenth century where incredible characters love and fight, vengeance and hate are never far away. Aboard a dream train, across a treacherous Nevada desert, down into dark hideouts and nasty secrets, passion, and duty struggle to conquer the worst enemy of all: love. For at the end of the line, one must win, one must lose.
Available now on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/o6plqtq
Chris Lange, Souls Out of Time
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