Regency Surrender: Passionate Marriages: Marriage Made in Rebellion / Marriage Made in Hope. Sophia James

had always held a healthy appetite for the women he had coupled with, not too numerous, but not a puny number, either. Always before he stayed in charge and detached, as though at any moment he had the capacity to pull away and leave. Only momentary. Only casual. He never lingered to hear the inevitable tears or pleadings, preferring instead to depart on his terms, before closeness settled.

      Until here and now in the shifting allegiances of war when it was both impossible to stay and dangerous to leave.

      His hand cupped Alejandra’s chin and he slanted his mouth across the fine lines of her. He wanted to mark her as his, in a primal demarcation of possession. Just as he wished to plant his seed in a place where the quickness might take and grow and be.

      The very thought made him come, hot into her, the pulse of desire, the sating of want. He pumped the heart of himself into her womb and held her still so that there might be a chance that part of him would live in her and she might remember. Him.