Page 138 of Texas Glory
Quickly stepping forward, she pressed her shaking fingers against his warm lips. “My God, don’t you know that I love you? Why do you think I’m leaving? I’m leaving because I do love you—so much. Dallas, I want you to have your dream, I want you to have your son.”
Closing his eyes, he laid his roughened hand over hers where it quivered against his lips and pressed a kiss against the heart of her palm.
“I can’t promise that I won’t have days when I’ll look toward the horizon and feel the aching emptiness that comes from knowing we’ll never have a child to pass our legacy on to …” Opening his eyes, he captured her gaze. “But I know the emptiness you’ll leave behind will eat away at me every minute of every day.
“When I was a boy, I went to war searching for glory. I didn’t find it. I came here, thinking I’d find glory if I built a ranching empire or a thriving town.” He trailed his thumb over her lips. “Instead I discovered that I didn’t even know what glory was, not until you smiled at me for the first time with no fear in your eyes.”
His gaze swept beyond her, to encompass all that surrounded them. “A hundred years from now, everything I’ve worked so hard to build will be nothing more than dust blowing in the wind, but if I can spend my life loving you, I’ll die a wealthy man, a contented man.”
Tears overflowed and spilled onto her cheeks.
“Stay with me,” he said.
Nodding mutely, she wrapped her arms around his neck. The flowers floated to the ground as he lifted her into his arms and carried her into the house.
“Your back,” she said as he started up the stairs. “You shouldn’t be carrying me.”
“My back’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine. It would forever carry the scars he’d earned trying to protect her. A hundred times she’d wondered what she might have done differently to prevent his suffering. A hundred times, she could think of nothing.
Inside their room, she slid along his body until her feet touched the floor.
With infinite patience and tenderness, as though they had a lifetime to fill, he removed her clothing, pooling them at her feet. His knuckles skimmed the inside swell of her breast as he gathered the heart-shaped locket he’d given her for Christmas within the palm of his hand.
“I didn’t know you were wearing my gift,” he said huskily.
“I thought wearing it was the closest I’d come to ever holding your heart.”
“You’ve held my heart for so long that I can’t remember when you didn’t, but I didn’t know how to tell you. I thought if I gave you this, you’d figure it out. Discovered today that the words aren’t that hard to say. I love you.”
His mouth swooped down to covers hers, kissing her deeply, warmly. He had kissed her before, so many times before, but never like this ? as though her mouth were the only one he’d ever known, as though her lips were the only ones he’d ever teased, as though her kiss were the only one that would ever satisfy him.
He loved her, and as he carried her to the bed, she wondered why she’d never realized it before. He had shown her in so many different ways, enticing her into the sunlight until she cast her own shadow.
He shrugged out of his clothes and lay beside her. She trailed her fingers over his chest and his eyes darkened. She guided her hands to his back and felt the uneven ridges that he would forever carry. Tears welled in her eyes.
He cupped her cheek. “Don’t cry.”
“I hate that they did this to you.”
He kissed her cheek. “You have scars, too. I’d take them away if I could.”
But he couldn’t. They both knew it. His scars on the outside. Hers on the inside. They had both hovered near death. The scars would serve as a reminder of their triumph.
She braced her palms on either side of his face and held his unwavering gaze. “Dallas, are you sure you can give up your dream without coming to hate me?” ’
“You were my dream, Dee. I just didn’t know it. The part of me that I was always searching for.”
His lips found hers, hot and vibrant, full of life, desire. His hands touched and fondled, stoking the dying embers of her passion to a roaring blaze.
She kissed his neck, his chest, running her hands over his chest and lower, boldly stroking, relishing the deep guttural sounds that vibrated within his throat.
They had made love, trying to fulfill a dream. They had made love to celebrate the promise of the dream.
Now, at long last, they were celebrating what they should have gloried in all along: their love for each other.
He captured her gaze as he sank his body into hers. She marveled at the perfection of their joining. Then he began to rock, the brown depths of his eyes smoldering, the fire raging through her, burning brightly until it exploded with a glorious burst of sensations, colors, and sounds, unlike any she’d ever known.
