She rose to her feet as she spoke and, with the tears still wet on her cheeks, she stood smiling at him the radiant smile of a rainbow across a clouded sky.

Still he did not move.

“I dare not touch you,” he said hoarsely. “If I do, all my resolutions will go to the wind. Think well before you decide. This is your last chance. If you tempt me now, it will be too late to be sorry afterwards. I want you, Skye, I love you. If you stay with me, I shall never, never let you go.”

“I shall never – want to go,” Skye whispered. “Oh, my darling, won’t you understand? I have never been alive until now.”

He came towards her then.

She felt herself tremble as he took her chin between his fingers and turned up her face to his.

“Say that again,” he commanded her. “Say those two words that you have never said to me before.”

The look in his eyes seemed to squeeze the very breath from her body, yet she managed to obey him.

“My – darling.”

“My little love, my heart, my own!”

She hardly heard the words for the glory and the wonder of a world that was too dazzling and glorious to be borne.

Then suddenly his lips were on hers and she felt his arms go round her. A flame rose within her to answer the flame within him. She felt his mouth drawing her very soul from her body and making it his.

She felt herself quiver and tremble with passion and happiness.

Her whole body ached for him. She wanted him as he wanted her and her mouth was very soft and yielding beneath the fierceness of his.

He held her closer and closer, kissing her eyes, her cheeks, her neck and again her mouth until it seemed to Skye that they were one, their hearts throbbing in unison, their breath a part of one another.

Then he picked her up in his arms.

She put up her hands to check him.

“Your shoulder!” she cried. “Be careful of your shoulder.”

But he did not hear her.

His eyes were aflame with passion and there was a wild triumphant look on his face, the expression of a conqueror, of a man who attains that which he most desires.

“You are mine, my love, my wife – my own,” he said, as, with his lips on hers, he carried her away.

OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES

The Barbara Cartland Eternal Collection is the unique opportunity to collect as ebooks all five hundred of the timeless beautiful romantic novels written by the world’s most celebrated and enduring romantic author.

Named the Eternal Collection because Barbara’s inspiring stories of pure love, just the same as love itself, the books will be published on the internet at the rate of four titles per month until all five hundred are available.