Free Reckless Heart by Madeline Baker

would say that. Shadow was a proud and honorable man, and I knew he would not let me disobey my father nor take me away unless my father consented. And Pa would never consent.
    Still, Shadow wanted me. I knew he did, and the sliver of an idea started in my mind as I pressed myself shamelessly against him.
    “Why didn’t you go home last night?” I asked, caressing his cheek with my fingers.
    “Because I had a feeling you would need me this morning,” he answered ruefully.
    “You always seem to know what I’m thinking, or what I’m going to do,” I said, pouting a little. “It isn’t fair.”
    “I know what you’re thinking now, too,” Shadow remarked with a wry grin. “And it isn’t going to work.”
    “Don’t you want me?” I murmured. Boldly, I pressed my breasts against Shadow’s naked chest.
    “Hannah, listen to me…”
    “I love you,” I whispered as, pulling his head down, I kissed him—gently at first, then with greater intensity.
    I was not prepared for Shadow’s quick response. With a sudden rush of passion, he crushed me close, covering my face and neck with kisses that seared my skin.
    A quick flame of desire sparked in the deepest core of my being, and what had started as a game now turned abruptly serious. Shadow’s dark eyes burned with a fierce inner fire as he began to stroke my quivering flesh in places he had never dared touch before.
    My breathing grew rapid, and I began to tremble with delight and longing, confused by a jumbled tide of emotions I had never known or dreamed of.
    Shadow’s breathing was also erratic, and when I grasped the lithe muscles in his arms, I was surprised to find he, too, was trembling.
    Abruptly, he drew away. “No, Hannah,” he murmured in a ragged voice.
    “What’s wrong?” I cried, stung by his rejection. “You want me. I know you do!”
    He did not deny it, and I was suddenly drunk with the power I had over him. Taking his hand, I laid it over my fiercely beating heart.
    “I love you,” I whispered fervently. “I want to be your woman, your wife.”
    “Hannah, please,” he groaned. “I am not made of iron.”
    “Prove it,” I challenged, and pressed myself wantonly against him a second time.
    With an animal-like cry of defeat, Shadow wrapped his arms around me, squeezing me so tight I thought my ribs would break. His kisses, long and hard, were filled with passion and desire and I knew I had won. He would not turn back now.
    And then he was rising over me, and I gasped aloud at the visible sign of his aroused desire.
    I had never seen a naked man before, and a sudden fear cooled my passion so that I lay rigid beneath him.
    “No,” I said, trying to push him away. “No, don’t.”
    But it was too late, and I shivered uncontrollably as Shadow thrust into me. A sharp pain caused me to cry out, and Shadow groaned low in his throat as he shuddered to a halt.
    “You hurt me!” I accused. “No one ever told me it would hurt.”
    “It will never hurt again,” he promised, and then he was moving deep inside me, evoking sensations and feelings that I had never imagined.
    Once I opened my eyes, and I marveled that the earth had not changed, that the sky was still blue and the grass green, for it seemed as though the whole world should be enflamed with the glorious passion that forged Shadow’s flesh and mine into one being.
    With a sigh, I closed my eyes and drew Shadow closer, until there was nothing in all the world but the two of us, bound together by our love.
    I would have been content to lie in Shadow’s arms forever, and I dared not speak, for fear of breaking the magical spell between us.
    Shadow sighed as he sat up, as if he, too, were reluctant to end the peaceful silence between us.
    “I am sorry, Hannah,” he murmured.
    “Don’t be. I’m not.”
    Shadow’s dark eyes held a faint hint of merry laughter as he said, with mock resignation, “I suppose I shall have to marry you now. That was your intent, wasn’t it? To