The Redemption of a Rogue, стр. 73
He nodded. “I will count on your to help me slay my dragons then, fair lady. And I’ll slay yours.”
“That is a bargain.” She snuggled into his chest and he began to run a hand over her hair.
After a few moments he cleared his throat. “You know that wasn’t what I meant when I said things would change.”
She jerked her head up. “Then what did you mean if not us getting married and then living happily ever after, slaying dragons and perhaps expanding our family to include your siblings?”
He narrowed his gaze and the light there went dark. Dangerous. Her body twitched with response. There was the beast. He wasn’t gone, and she welcomed him back as he tugged her a little tighter against her.
“I meant here…in our bedroom,” he said, his voice suddenly low and rough.
She laughed despite the charged air around them. “I don’t think I want what we do in the bedroom to change.”
“Of course you do,” he said, and his smile fluttered at the edge of his lips no matter how he tried to loom and intimidate and challenge. “You’d get bored if I simply made sweet love to you. All tender and gentle like the last time.”
“I liked tender and gentle,” she whispered.
He nodded. “So did I, despite fighting you every moment that it happened. And sometimes I will be very tender and gentle with you, Imogen. Sometimes I will just hold you and touch you and tell you I love you with every thrust until we wash away on it.”
“But sometimes you won’t,” she urged as she slid a hand beneath his jacket and hissed at the body heat trapped beneath. She wanted that heat. Now.
“Sometimes I’ll hold you down and force you to orgasm over and over until you’re pleading with me to make the pleasure stop.”
She wiggled against him. “That sounds fun.”
He growled in response. “And sometimes…sometimes I’ll spank that arse of yours raw for being such a very naughty girl and then I’ll be gentle and loving.”
She smiled even as her body responded to all his wicked promises. “Good,” she whispered. “I’m here for all of it, Oscar. For all of you. For all of us. If I haven’t made it perfectly clear, I’m here forever.”
His eyes held her and she saw his faith in her, his love for her, his desire for her. Then he caught her hand and dragged her over his lap, flipping up her skirts and tugging down her drawers to reveal her bare backside. He rested a hand there, the caress before the sting.
“Good,” he said. “Then let us begin.”
Epilogue
Three weeks later
“And so you just…ran off to Gretna Green?” Aurora said with a laugh as Imogen stood beside her in the very fine parlor of the Duke of Roseford. Oscar’s brother had insisted in arranging this family gathering the moment she and Oscar had returned from their extended and very passionate honeymoon.
She’d had to be just as passionate to convince her husband to accept the invitation. Bargains had been made, promises collected. But he’d come to the party, as agreed.
Now she looked across the room at Oscar. He stood with Selina, Nicholas and Roseford, along with their other brother, Morgan. Oscar didn’t look entirely comfortable, but nor did he look upset. He was trying. So were they.
Imogen was completely certain one day they would all find their way. That one day this kind, if sometimes wild, group of siblings would one day be close as they should have been growing up. And it would be all the better for them all.
The only ones missing from the gathering were Joanna and Will, who had joined them in Gretna Green to witness their madcap nuptials and surprised them by staying for their own. They were still locked away together in Scotland, and Oscar couldn’t have been happier. The only father he’d ever had was now that in truth.
“Imogen?” Aurora said, squeezing her arm.
“I’m sorry. Once I start looking at him, I have a hard time focusing on anything else,” she admitted with a blush.
Aurora sighed and followed her gaze to her Nicholas, who she would marry within days. “I know the feeling. I can’t wait to be Nicholas’s bride after all this time apart.”
“Somehow we seem to have both found our happiness, despite a very bad beginning,” Imogen said. “I’m so happy for you. For me.”
Aurora wrapped an arm around her. “As am I. I would never wish on you what happened. But it created a path that led us both to love, and saved half a dozen women from Roddenbury’s wicked schemes.”
“Hearing how many were rescued and returned to their families or safe places to recover was satisfying. And retrieving records about the fate of the rest…at least it may some closure to their loved ones,” Imogen agreed.
Oscar had found out the final fate of Louisa a few days before. Remains had been buried properly. She was mourned by them both, and she would be for many years to come. That didn’t threaten Imogen’s happiness with her husband—it only deepened her love for him.
Oscar had pulled away from his siblings and was moving toward her now. His dark eyes snagged hers, and she pushed the sadness away and shivered with delight that this man was hers. All hers. Forever.
He reached them with a nod for Aurora. “Might I steal the bride?”
“You already did,” Aurora said with a giggle. “But I will forgive you as long as you keep that smile on her face.”
“I intend to try,” Oscar said as he took Imogen’s arm, and guided her out of the parlor and onto the terrace.
It was early evening and the bright pinks and purples of sunset cascaded over them both. He caught her hands and smiled at her.
Her heart melted. “Oh yes, please I love to see that.”
“See what?” he asked.
“That smile,” she clarified. “I live for it.”
He broke into a wider grin that could