Free Hot Basque: A French Summer Novel 2 by Laurette Long Page A

had ridden up, he pulled her closer to him, his hands cupped her buttocks, lifting her. She threw back her head.
    ‘This is what I wanted to do.’ His voice was low, slightly hoarse. ‘That day last year, the very first time I saw you. I wanted to hold you like this, take you, right here, under the tree. I had a demon in my head.’
    He raised her higher, his large strong hands cupping her hips, then lowered her, with infinite gentleness, until he was fully inside. As her body opened and became one with his they both shuddered violently, then stopped, not moving for a few seconds. Then those strong hands were lifting her again, controlling her movements, bringing her down close then raising her again, slow at first then with mounting urgency. She was encircled, possessed, lost on a tide of desire so strong that she felt she might drown.
    They climaxed at the same time. He threw back his head, and she fell forward against his chest. They were both panting as though they had run a race. He was holding her so tightly against him that she could hardly breathe. They stayed entwined in each other’s arms for an infinite moment.
    Finally Caroline managed to lift her head and look at him. He was leaning back against the tree, every muscle relaxed, eyes closed. Feeling her move, he opened his eyes and looked at her with such blazing tenderness the tears sprang from her eyes.
    ‘I love you Caroline.’
    She gulped, nodded, managed to say the words.
    ‘I love you too, my only darling.’
    He hugged her close, murmured in her ear.
    ‘You’re not going to believe me, but this was not exactly what I’d planned.’
    He reached out a finger and ran it delicately down the inside of her thigh, where a faint reddish mark was beginning to show against the tender flesh.
    Then he took her hand and slipped it inside his trouser pocket. She felt the outline of something hard and square.
    ‘The scenario I had in mind involved a certain dropping onto one knee, sort of the devoted knight before his courtly lady. I’d even rehearsed, my left knee’s killing me actually...’
    Mystified, she looked at him, then as her fingers closed round the object, her face changed.
    Slowly she withdrew a small black box inscribed with the words Michaud et Ferraud .
    Instinctively her right hand went to her neck, to the small Basque cross she never took off, gleaming gold against the whiteness of her bare breasts.
    ‘Aime-moi comme moi je t’aime.’
    The cross that he had given her last summer to seal their love.
    ‘Love me as I love you,’ he had said, coming to find her in Margaret’s garden, and she had given him her answer.
    She stared at the box. Her fingers were trembling so much she could hardly lift the lid.
    ‘Oh!’
    ‘I can change it. If you don’t like it. I know I should have asked you first. It was an impulse buy. I just thought, when I saw it, that’s the one for my girl.’
    The sapphire was in a simple gold setting. In the dim green light under the chestnut boughs the colour glowed dark and intense, a sombre blue shot through with flashes of light as she turned it in her fingers.
    ‘Like our ocean. Like your eyes.’
    She looked at it again, mesmerized.
    ‘It’s...oh Edward!’
    She flung her arms round his neck, kissed him with all her heart.
    ‘Truly, you really like it? You wouldn’t have preferred a diamond? I can get you a diamond my darling if you’d prefer, I know that’s the usual thing.’
    ‘I love it, love it, nobody is ever going to take it away from me. My piece of the sea. The colour of your eyes.’
    His face relaxed. He took it from her fingers, took hold of her left hand.
    ‘Maybe the down on one knee thing would have been nice.’ He kissed her naked breasts. ‘But I like this way better. Will you marry me, sweet Caroline, and make me happy ever after?’
    The sapphire disappeared in a blur as the tears fell from Caroline’s eyes. Unable to speak, she gulped, shook her head.
    ‘What? Is that a