Chapter 12: Mated

Ansley never answered me.

She said she felt faint, and Hortense took her out, and Alastair let her go without a word.

I would ask again in the morning. Tonight I let the question wait.

We didn't speak on the stairs.

Caleb walked half a step behind me with his hand not quite touching my back.

At my door I turned around.

"Your terms," he said, very low. "I'll keep every one of them if you ask me to."

"Rule one. You wear the engagement until I say it ends."

"Yes."

"I say it doesn't end."

He drew a breath.

"Rule three," I said. "No claims and no marks."

"Rosalind."

"Break it."

He didn't move.

I took his hand and put it flat over my heart, over the place that only ever quieted under his hand.

"For six years someone decided what I could have," I said. "Now I'm deciding.

"I want you. I want it to be you for the rest of my life, and I want to start tonight."

His eyes went gold.

He kicked the door shut behind us.

He kissed me against the wood with his hands in my hair, and there was nothing careful in it this time.

I got his coat off him, and he got my pins out, and my hair came down around both of us.

"Slowly," he said against my throat. "You deserve slowly."

"I've had six years of slowly."

He laughed into my skin, rough and helpless, and swung me up and carried me to the bed.

He unlaced my dress one hook at a time, and every hook he undid, he kissed the skin it uncovered.

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