. with you . . .” She trailed off, then whispered, “I could be happy tonight.”
He remained still, but when he spoke, the words came like gravel, pulled from somewhere deep and dark inside him. “Say it again.”
She shuffled her feet, feeling like a child on display, suddenly uncertain of her words.
“Please, Sophie,” he begged. “Again.”
As though she could resist him. “I love you,” she whispered.
And then that fist released, and he moved, reaching for her, tangling his hand in her hair, pulling her to him for a long, wicked, wonderful kiss, stealing her breath and her sanity until he pulled back and pressed his forehead to hers, his thumb raking over her jaw as he met her gaze. “Again.”
“I love you,” she said, the words lost in another wild kiss, this one accompanied by his hands stroking down her back, pulling her tight against him and lifting her high off the ground, encouraging her to wrap her legs around him as he backed away from the door and kicked it closed with one long, muscled leg.
He carried her to his bed, following her down, pressing her into the soft mattress, the weight of him welcome between her thighs. She gasped at the sensation, the pleasure of him there, where she’d wanted him for days. He rained kisses over her face and neck, speaking as he went. “Christ, Sophie . . . I shouldn’t want this . . . I shouldn’t take it . . . I can’t be what you desire.”
Except he was what she desired.
He was the only thing she’d ever desired in her life.
“I shouldn’t accept your love,” he said between soft, drugging kisses, his fingers working at the sash of her dressing gown, his lips on the soft skin of her neck. “I’ll never be good enough for it.” He paused, lifting his head, meeting her eyes. “But Christ, I want it.”
“It’s yours,” she said, leaning up and catching his bottom lip in her teeth, sucking at it until he groaned his pleasure and gave her the kiss she desired. “As am I.”
He cursed, the word a benediction in this, and released the belt of her dressing gown. “I’ve never seen you naked,” he said, working at the pearls of the nightgown beneath. “I want that. I want that before you leave. Before you go and find a life more perfect than what I can give you. I’ll spend an eternity in hell for it,” he vowed, “But I don’t care. I want to see you naked. I want to worship you until you remember nothing but my name. But my touch. But this place.
“I want to worship you until I can’t close my eyes without seeing you. I want the memory of you, Sophie. Forever. So when another man loves you and gives you the life you deserve, I can torture myself with it.”
Tears threatened at the words. There would be no other men. No other love, she wanted to scream at him—she was his alone. Forever.
She wanted it, too, and she loved the feel of the silk sliding off her, baring her skin to the candlelight and his gaze. He pulled back, lifting off her, sitting up, and she was instantly nervous at the loss of him, moving to sit up herself, to cover her nudity.
“No,” he said, pressing her back down to the bed flat against the crisp linen sheets, open to his gaze and his touch. His attention lingered on her shoulder. “How does it feel?”
She smiled at his care. “I barely notice it.”
“Liar,” he said. “Let’s see if we can make it truth.” His hands spread over her skin, down the sides of her torso, over the swell of her belly, down her thighs, and she forgot she even had a shoulder, let alone one that had been shot. “You’re so beautiful,” he said again. “So beautiful.”
His hands ran down her legs to her slippers, and he slid off the bed to kneel there, at her bare feet. He took one in his hands, running his thumbs over the sole, sending waves of unexpected pleasure through her. “I still think of you in slippers on that road,” he said softly, pressing a kiss to her ankle as he made her wild with decadent pleasure. “I hated that you mistreated yourself.”
He switched to her other foot and offered the same treatment as she shook her head. “They don’t hurt now.”
“No?” he asked, kissing at her ankle, his tongue slipping out to find