Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
“I warn you,” he said, tugging her closer to him. “This is a recurring fever.”
“With me having the cure, what does it matter?”
“You will forever tend me?” he asked with a whispered kiss.
“I will always make certain to tend your fever.”
“I think my fever is quite high right now.”
Her hand moved beneath the water to grasp hold of him. “Higher than I have ever felt it.”
“We must do something immediately.”
“Here?” Aliss asked, uncertain.
“A perfect spot,” he insisted. “It is cool and the water offers privacy.”
Suddenly a rapid current caught their feet, tearing them apart.
Aliss nearly panicked when she could not right herself and struggled to gain control.
She was grabbed around the waist and drawn up out of the water so quickly her breath caught.
“Breathe!”
His shout frightened her and it took several moments before she was breathing normally.
“We drifted too far from shore, where the current is sometimes unpredictable,” Rogan explained while her breathing calmed.
She looked past his shoulder to see that he was moving them closer to the river’s edge. She held tightly to him.
She rested her cheek to his. “I feared for you.”
“Never fear that,” he whispered in her ear. “Know that I will never let nature, beast, or man take you from me. You are mine forever and always.”
Her breath caught and held. Was he about to claim his love for her? His strong declaration certainly seemed a prelude to declaring his love. She waited, her breath suspended.
He cupped her face in his large hands and kissed her lips ever so gently. “The reason I married you—” He stopped and kissed her again.
She welcomed his kiss but ached to hear his words.
“I love you. God help me, I love you.”
Her heart felt near to bursting. “Then God help us both for I love you.”
He rested his forehead to hers with a shake of his head.
“Do not worry, all will turn out well,” she comforted, and reached out for his lips.
Their lips locked firmly together, chasing away doubt and fear and enflaming their passion. Before she knew it, she hungered for him like a woman who has just discovered she loved and was loved.
Her soft sighs soon turned to gentle whimpers as his fingers teased, touched, and tempted her beyond reason.
“I want you,” she heard herself beg.
“And I you,” he said, nibbling down her neck to take larger, more playful bites along her shoulders.
His hands went to her waist and he lifted her over him, easing them together in a perfect fit.
Her eyes rounded in delight when Rogan set the tempo to their joining, and with her hands grasping his arms, she threw back her head and reveled in the pure pleasure he created for them.
He did not rush them and she was glad. It felt too wonderful for it to end too quickly. She wanted to enjoy every thrust and every sensation until she could not stand it another minute and then, only then, did she want to surrender in climax.
He obliged her without a word being exchanged and she knew then that he understood her much better than she ever thought any man possibly could, and she felt grateful he was her husband.
Her sighs spilled into his mouth, he having captured her lips as she burst with a shivering climax. He followed soon after, tossing his head back and with a rumbling groan released into her.
They clung to each other until both their stomachs rumbled in unison.
They laughed.
“Time to eat,” Rogan declared and scooped her up as they neared the water’s edge.
Rogan offered her his shirt to dry off, insisting he did not need it. Besides, the day’s heat would dry it in no time.
She took it and when she finished dressing, she hung his shirt from a tree branch to dry, then joined him on the blanket. His plaid was damp from his wet body though his naked chest was near dry from the hot sun.
He sat amid the food he had unwrapped, munching on a piece of cheese.
“You must have worried we would starve.” She laughed, lowering herself to sit beside him.
He handed her a piece of cheese and tore a chunk of bread from a crusty loaf. “I have a large appetite.”
“My sister claims the same.”
“You would too if you gave yourself time to eat.”
“You sound like Fiona,” Aliss said. “She always argued that I would eat just as much as her if I took the time.” She tore off a piece of bread. “I am looking forward to seeing my sister again. I have missed her.”
“Be prepared for not so warm a welcome,” he warned.
“Perhaps at first, but you are returning me home and once it is known you abducted me to heal your people and that I chose to wed you, all will be well.”
“That easily, you think?”
She rested her hand on his. “What else can they do? Tarr advised me time and again that the choice of a husband was mine. I made that choice and he will honor it as he has promised.”