Page 44 of Captured By the Cold Duke
“Thomas,” she murmured again, and he pulled away for a moment and looked down at her. His eyes were shining, and a radiant smile was playing over his lips. She had never seen him look so happy, she thought, in all the years she had known him.
“I have wanted this for so long,” he murmured, and the words once more set her on fire. She grabbed him—most unladylike, but she didn’t care—and pulled him back to her lips. For a long while, they stayed like that, lost in one another’s kisses.
Sometime later, they broke apart.
Cherie wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It could have been hours, maybe even weeks. Maybe they’d passed their tenth anniversary while lost in the kiss.
The kiss had had a strange effect on her: she felt weak and powerful at the same time. Her legs seemed as if they were about to give out underneath her from how heady, delicious, and surreal it had been to kiss her husband. At the same time, she had never felt so full of energy. Thomas’s kiss had given her a strength she’d never known she had.
Thomas drew back slightly. He smiled down at her—a soft, hazy smile—and caressed her cheek with his thumb.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, his eyes raking over her face. “It astonishes me.”
Cherie felt her eyes well with tears. “You really think so?”
“I know so. I have known since the first moment I saw you.”
She laughed. “I was a child then.”
“Yes, and I didn’t think of you romantically then. But I knew you would grow into a beautiful woman.”
“When did you start to see me romantically?” she asked.
Thomas tilted his head to one side, thinking. “When you were around fifteen. My father insisted that I move to India full-time to work on the family business. I’d only just returned to England, and I was devastated to have to go back. I came to see Aidan, but when I arrived at your family estate, he was out riding. Thebutler showed me to the parlor, and I was waiting there when the most beautiful young lady I’d ever seen walked in.”
Cherie’s eyes went wide. “I remember that day. I’d been out riding as well, but I’d come back early because my horse had lost a shoe.”
“And you were still wearing your riding clothes.”
“I came into the parlor not knowing you were there, and you gave me quite a fright.”
They both laughed at the memory. Cherie’s mind was full of the image: a younger Thomas, standing by the French windows that led out to the terrace, his hands behind his back, holding his hat, and a very serious look on his face.
“You looked so serious,” she said, touching his cheek lightly. “I wasn’t used to seeing you so serious.”
“A preview of times to come,” he said, chuckling.
“I do remember you looking at me strangely,” she said, screwing up her eyes as she tried to remember. “I thought that I had mud all over me, for you to look at me with such a shocked expression.”
Thomas threw his head back and laughed. “I believe that is what the poets refer to as alightning bolt.”
“A lightning bolt?”
“Of desire,” he said, and his cheeks heated.
He is blushing!
“And not just desire,” he amended quickly. “A lightning bolt realization that the person standing in front of you is the person you have been looking for all along. You had grown up, Cherie. I’d been in India for several years. The last time I’d seen you, you had been just a girl. And of course, I’d always been fond of you. You were my favorite person to spend time with. I used to tell your brother that he was lucky to have a sister like you. He used to tease me that I preferred spending time with you than with him.”
He laughed again, and she giggled as well. “I never knew that.”
“Yes, I think sometimes he was a bit jealous. I’d bring you gifts and spend time playing with you instead of shooting and riding with him. But you were still just a girl. And then suddenly, you were a woman.”
His finger slid up her cheek and touched a lock of her hair. The sensation sent another shiver down her spine. “And I saw you walk in, flushed from riding, happy, your eyes sparkling, and I almost didn’t recognize you. Because the little girl I had known was gone. And it hit me so suddenly and so powerfully: the realization that you were the woman of my dreams.”
Cherie felt as if her head was spinning. She had never felt so happy in all her life.
“I don’t know why it took me so long to realize I felt this way,” she whispered. “You were always my favorite person in the world. I looked forward to your visits so much. But I never thought of you romantically. Well, perhaps deep down, but I could never acknowledge it. To me, you were older, so smart and kind and handsome… not someone who would ever pay attention to a little girl like me!”
