Portrait Of A Lover (22 page)

“Yes. Most of London. Paris, too.”

He chuckled with disappointment. “That’s a shame. I would have liked to be the first to exhibit it.”

Annabelle smiled, but there was a deep sadness in her voice. “I’m sorry I didn’t give it to you first, but I wasn’t ready to show it to you, and I needed to…” She didn’t seem to know what to say, so she returned to the window again.

“You needed to do what, Annabelle?”

She sighed. “To be free for a little while,” she said. “I told Whitby and Lily that I needed to do something for myself, and they were happy for me and wished me well. So I went on my own to Paris and spent the past three months there, painting every day.”

He put the portrait down and followed her. “You went to Paris? Did you show your work?”

“Yes, and I spent time with other artists who shared my desire to paint in new ways. I was even included in an exhibition with Mary Cassatt.”

His lips parted in surprise. “Extraordinary. You did well, Annabelle.”

She shrugged, as if making light of it. “I’m surprised you hadn’t heard about it. I thought you might have been keeping up with what was going on in the art world.”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t keeping up with anything. I retreated from all that after I returned. I still own my galleries, but I haven’t set foot in either of them in quite some time. I suppose I needed a bit of a holiday.”

She sighed and faced him. “Magnus…”

All at once he wanted to touch her face, her lips. Everything about her was magical and vibrant. She was like no other woman he had ever met, and she had been brave enough to go to Paris and show her work with Mary Cassatt. Brava, Annabelle. Brava!

But he resisted that emotional outburst and the surging rush of his desires, for he could not let himself give in so easily. She had not given him what he’d needed last time. He’d even begun to believe that his love for her had been a fantasy all along, that she was not—and never had been—the daring girl he remembered from his younger days.

But then she began to speak, and all he could hear in his mind was the sound of her voice in that fishing boat on the lake…

“Magnus,” she said with her gaze downcast, “when you came back to London and I saw you for the first time at your gallery, I was not the person I am now.”

“That sounds familiar,” he said.

She smiled, but there were tears in her eyes. “I was so worn-out and unhappy, but you brought me back to life.”

“But I was the one who killed your spirit in the first place,” he said with regret.

“No. You just made me see that I had never really been living, and I really needed to explode four months ago. I needed to be pushed over the edge and be fearless with nothing to lose. I needed to learn that I could trust my instincts and take chances, that I could steer away from what was safe, and I did that through my paintings. Because of you. You unlocked something.”

The physical world around them seemed to almost fade away as his eyes held hers and his heart began to beat very fast. “What are you saying, Annabelle? Why did you come here?”

She strode closer. “I came here to finally take that blind leap of faith with you, Magnus, and I’m praying with all my heart and soul that you will take my hand and leap, too. That you will forgive me this time, and find it in yourself to believe that I do love you. That I’ve loved you every day of my life.” She walked to him and laid her open hands on his chest, and a shiver of need rippled through him. “And I would give anything to know that in spite of everything, you still love me. I want you back, Magnus. Please.”

She rose up on her toes and touched her lips lightly to his, and he was overcome by a love so potent that no amount of discipline or self-control proved powerful enough to stop him from taking her into his arms. Then he covered her mouth with his own.

Deepening the kiss, he pulled her as close as he could. Her lips were soft and warm and succulent as he swept his tongue inside, and all at once nothing mattered but his need to possess her. He picked her up and began carrying her out of the room.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked in a breathless voice, kissing his cheeks and mouth and neck as he headed toward the stairs.

“To my bed.”

Burning with desire after months spent dreaming of making love to Magnus again, Annabelle gave no argument.

She held tight to his strong, broad shoulders as he climbed the stairs. He carried her down a wide corridor and through to his bedchamber, lined with dark oak walls and furnished with a massive mahogany bed. The room glowed pink from the sunset outside the window.

He laid her gently onto the soft bed, then came down upon her, his body heavy and warm and insistent. She welcomed him with legs parted, thrusting her body close, sliding her hands down his back. She wanted him with every breath in her body, with every spark of passion coursing through her, and she couldn’t wait a single moment longer. She had to have him, on any terms.

“Make love to me now, this instant,” she pleaded. “Don’t keep me waiting. I’ve waited long enough.”

Obliging her reckless impatience, he didn’t even take time to get undressed. He merely reached a hand down to unfasten his trousers, tugged her skirts out of the way, and entered her in a smooth, silky thrust that stole her breath.

Annabelle tossed her head back on the pillows and gasped, as pure unadulterated rapture suffused her senses. She loved this man, she desired him beyond all else in the world, and a sheer, mad need for everything he offered compelled her to lift her hips to deepen the awesome, satisfying penetration of his arousal.

“Oh, Magnus, please say you love me,” she whispered, her breath coming short. “I can’t lose you again.” Leaning up on one elbow so he could look her in the eye, he drove into her with a steady pounding rhythm until her mind and body tingled with ecstasy, then at last he spoke, his voice a deep, husky seduction in itself.

“Of course I love you, you gorgeous misfit,” he said, pressing his lips to hers, kissing her profoundly with all the power of the thundering surf outside the window.

Annabelle smiled with wantonness. “Oh, thank God,” she cried out, squeezing her legs around him, meeting his deep thrusts with her own insatiable hunger for fulfillment. “You’ll never get rid of me now,” she said.

Magnus drew back and smiled in response, his eyes dark and impassioned with seductive teasing. “I should hope not.”

Then he drove deeper still, propping himself up on his hands. He was rigid inside her, filling her with exquisite sensual bliss, driving her to the ends of sanity. Annabelle dug her fingernails into the fine fabric of his waistcoat as feverish, orgasmic sensation raged and prevailed.

“Marry me this time, Annabelle,” he said, just as the wave hit—when a powerful orgasm pounded through her.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Then she felt the hot pulsing of his release, deep, deep inside herself. Magnus pushed hard and spoke her name, then he collapsed upon her, heavy and out of breath.

Holding him tight in her arms, delightfully exhausted, Annabelle marveled at the tears seeping from beneath her eyelids. “You forgive me?” she asked, her voice shaky with sentiment and love.

He gently withdrew and rolled to the side, resting his hand upon her cheek. “There is nothing to forgive, Annabelle. All that matters is that we’re together now. Finally.”

“Yes, finally.” She touched his face also, running a finger over his strong cheekbone. “I’ve missed you.”

“I have missed you, too—every wretched day of my life. But all that’s over now, because you’re here.”

“Yes,” she said with a tender smile. “I’m here, and I have never felt so happy, or so at home.”

“Because this is your home. It will always be your home. Here with me.”

“It’s what I always dreamed of,” she said.

Then he rolled onto her again and filled her once more with pleasure.