The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance by Candice Hern, Bárbara Metzger, Emma Wildes, Sharon Page, Delilah Marvelle, Anna Campbell, Lorraine Heath, Elizabeth Boyle, Deborah Raleigh, Margo Maguire, Michèle Ann Young, Sara Bennett, Anthea Lawson, Trisha Telep, Robyn DeHart, Carolyn Jewel, Amanda Grange, Vanessa Kelly, Patricia Rice, Christie Kelley, Leah Ball, Caroline Linden, Shirley Kennedy, Julia Templeton

body. She felt made anew. She felt ready to conquer the world. She felt tired and languorous and ready to sleep for a week.
    So this was what a man’s possession could be. She’d had no idea. No idea at all what she’d been missing.
    With sudden desperation, her fingers dug into his back. Oh, dear heaven, don’t let fate be so cruel as to take Sebastian away from her now that she’d discovered him again. Not now that she was finally woman enough to be his wife in every sense.
    He’d undoubtedly wanted her when he’d taken her, not even the most inexperienced woman could have thought otherwise. But had Sebastian meant what just happened as a last goodbye to a bitter, unhappy past? Or was it the first step in a long, joyful journey together?
    Kinvarra gasped for breath, his heartbeat drumming in his ears like a wild sea.
    An ocean of satisfaction flooded his body. He’d intended to take his time, prepare Alicia, raise her to peak after peak of ecstasy before he found his own pleasure. But when he’d touched his wife’s naked body and read desire in her shining eyes, he couldn’t hold back.
    He’d been as hungry as ever the eager young man had been, although at least this time, praise the angels, she hadn’t closed away from him in misery. Instead she’d achieved her own delight in his arms. He’d felt the way she tightened, and he hadn’t mistaken her broken cry as she’d arched to take him.
    His big body still pressed her into the mattress. She must feel crushed, suffocated. He was a brute not to move away from her.
    But how sweet it was to lie here in the aftermath, to let his hands wander her silky skin, to listen to the soft music of her breathing, to rest surrounded by Alicia.
    Heaven couldn’t offer an eternity of bliss purer than this moment.
    What had just happened offered a profundity of experience he’d never known. He’d mourn forever if this was all the happiness allotted to him. If he was to possess her only this once.
    Tonight they’d moved from hostility to a brittle trust to a conflagration of joy. But was this truce only a pause in their warfare? Or could it form the foundations of a future? He prayed for the latter, but ten years of yearning had taught him not to trust the promise of happiness.
    Just like that, reality descended. He and Alicia had found shattering pleasure tonight, but he needed more. He needed her commitment beyond one tumble between the sheets, no matter how earth-shaking that tumble was.
    He’d wanted this woman since he’d first seen her. He wanted to build a family with her. He wanted to grow old with her. Nothing in ten years of separation had changed that.
    But he was wise enough now to know that wanting wasn’t enough.
    He could probably compel her to return to him. After all, the law was on his side. But for all his faults, he’d never been a bully. Could he bear to let her go if she rose from this bed and announced she would return to London alone? He might not be a bully, but the primitive savage inside him howled denial at the prospect of losing her again.
    Slowly he raised himself on to his elbows. He smoothed the dishevelled blonde hair away from her face. She looked beautiful, replete, weary. In spite of his good intentions, he’d used her ruthlessly. He’d wanted to cherish her, but passion had swept them up into a whirlwind where all that mattered was the endless drive to blazing fulfilment.
    Piercing tenderness overwhelmed him and he bent his head to kiss her gently on the lips. Not the hard, demanding kisses of earlier, although the ghost of desire lingered in the soft touch. “Are you all right?”
    She smiled up at him and he struggled against believing that the radiant light in her eyes was love. “Better than all right.” Her slender throat worked as she swallowed. “That was … that was astonishing.”
    “Yes.” He fought against saying more. She was tired and defenceless. It wasn’t the right time to harangue her about the future.