Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 102424 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102424 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Reluctantly, he ended it slowly to his disappointment and hers as well since her lips kept reaching out to his as he eased them away.
Purity rested her brow to his chest, their kiss having left her breathless and her heart racing. “That was amazing,” she said when able to catch a breath.
Something sparked in him, though it didn’t surface. Something foreign yet familiar.
“I agree,” he said and her head shot up to stare wide-eyed at him.
“You do?”
“Aye, I do agree. The kiss was amazing. It is good to know we will enjoy sharing kisses,” he said, silently warning himself to keep the kisses few until they wed.
“Maybe marriage to you won’t be so bad,” she said with a playful poke to his chest.
“Then you agree to wed me and won’t continue to fight me on it?”
Purity stepped away from him, a strange sense of loss falling over her as she did. She had felt a comfort in his arms that she had never felt in her life and leaving that comfort weighed heavily on her.
“I’m not sure what to do, Arran,” she admitted. “I don’t know what awaits me at home with my da. Whether I like it or not, he is my family and he decides my fate.”
“No, we are family, you and me, King, Princess, and Hope,” he said, surprising her and himself. “I will let nothing stop us from all being together.”
He might not love her but what he did offer appealed to her. She never thought she would wed or have bairns. She could have that with Arran and she could have her animals, something her father had always denied her. She could have at least part of her dream—she’d have the man she loved. And maybe just maybe he might learn to love her along the way.
She almost agreed when she recalled how the women had spoken about him. None believed he’d ever be faithful to a wife, but then none believed he’d ever wed. And he had said the same himself. She didn’t want an unfaithful husband. She didn’t want women talking and pitying her behind her back, or wagging tongues whispering that she wasn’t enough of a woman to keep her husband satisfied.
She blurted out what troubled her. “Will you be a faithful husband?”
“Aye, I will,” he said.
That he said he would without hesitation surprised her. He’d always kept his word, so why hesitate to trust him?
She couldn’t rush into this. There was more that she would share with this man than just intimacy. She might enjoy his kisses, but what of other things? He had said that all husbands expected obedience. At one time she was obedient to her father’s and brother’s every word. She would not be that obedient again, not after living and doing as she pleased. She didn’t want a marriage that would imprison her or her words and opinions. There was much she needed to consider.
“I need to think on it,” she said.
“It is good that you will think on it, since you will come to realize that what I propose is for the best and will be beneficial for you.”
He spoke with that commanding tone of his and with such confidence that she almost believed that she would come to that realization. However, she couldn’t help but ask, “What if I don’t come to such a realization?”
He stepped close to her, his hand cupping her chin and his thumb running faintly across her lips. “Nothing will change the fact that you will be my wife.”
She stepped away from him again, turning to gulp down the knot that had risen in her throat and to calm the tantalizing tingles his touch had produced. She couldn’t deny that she loved this man, but was that love enough to leave freedom behind?
“We can’t leave today,” Purity said the next morning and the annoyed glare Arran sent her had her quickly explaining. “Princess got a stone suck in her paw, probably a day or so ago. I just removed it, but it’s left a bit of an open sore that needs at least a couple of days to heal with some help from a poultice.” He looked ready to argue and she spoke up again. “Would you force Hope to walk if she was in pain?”
Hope had been in no condition to ride when he’d gotten her. He had walked alongside her for a week before he mounted her and rode her for only a couple of hours a day, until she was strong enough for him to ride her a bit longer. Still, he was careful of the distance he rode her.
“Will two days be enough for her to recover?” he asked and he thought his heart would implode when a wide smile broke out across her face. She had the loveliest smile he had ever seen. Or maybe it was because it held no pretense or lies. It was genuine and there was no hiding that.