They lay together, red tattooed skin overlapping pale. She felt John let out a deep sigh. Dejah chuckled, lifting her head off his chest to look him in the eyes. "Well, John Carter, I'm impressed. That was…" She paused as if to find the right word.
His eyes crinkled at the edges. Dejah could feel his deep voice rumbling in his chest through those parts of her body that were still pressed against him. "Go on."
Coyly, she arched her eyebrows at him. "… an excellent first attempt."
His face fell with comic abruptness for a split second before smoothly resolving into an arch expression of disbelief.
Dejah, having expected more repentance, was thrown by this. She sat up."What?"
He luxuriously half-raised himself on his elbows before answering. His face crinkled even more with laughing confidence. "Nothing. Just… sounded like you were enjoying it well enough at the time, is all."
Dejah hissed through her teeth, smacking him playfully. "Oooh, John Carter, you Jassoomians probably speak such honeyed words to all the women you bed!"
John winced in mock pain at her slaps, making spurious attempts to dodge them. Both were laughing. Then, so suddenly it took her breath away, he caught her hand and looked up at her with those deep brown eyes of his. Those eyes she had looked into the first time they met, when he saved her, caught her right out of the sky. Now those eyes were blazing at her with all the devotion in the world, his voice low and raspy.
"No, not all the women. Only you." He kissed her hand tenderly, sending her heart rate skyrocketing."I never got a chance to say this during the battle or the wedding, so I'm saying it now. I have no words to describe how much you amaze me. I want to wake up beside you every day until the day I die. I love you, Dejah."
Dejah was speechless. As the daughter of the Jeddak and a great beauty besides, she had been courted by many men from all over Barsoom but never had she received such a declaration of love, nor the volumes and volumes more which his eyes were now sending her. Courtship among the highborn of Mars was a subtle and complex dance of politics as well as personal attraction. A Barsoomian noble would never show his hand in such an unabashed and upfront way as John just had. It touched her beyond words. There was only one thing to say in return. "And I love you, John." Gone was her earlier flirty, coy tone, replaced by sincere love and trust. They reached for each other, ivory skin and bronzed skin again colliding. Perhaps, Dejah thought, a second round might be even better than the first.