He stretched his body over hers, covering her with his weight. She loved the feel of his body—hard and heavy and covered in dark hair. So very different from her own. As he kissed her, he slid one thigh between hers. It excited her to feel his bare skin against her most intimate flesh.

His tongue swirled lazy patterns over her breast, painting her with delicious, silky heat. He fastened his mouth over her nipple and suckled hard, drawing the whole peak into his mouth. She cried out with the sharp joy of it, shamelessly rubbing and bucking against the firm slope of his thigh.

As he transferred his attentions to her other breast, he adjusted his weight to the side. She whimpered at the loss of friction against her sex, but his fingers skimmed down her belly and found her cleft. He sifted through the soft curls, stroking over her swollen folds before parting her gently and sliding a finger inside. Just an inch at first, then working deeper in smooth, blissful plunges. The sense of fullness was exquisite. His thumb found that sensitive bud at the crest of her sex and worked it in devilish circles. Soon she was rolling her hips to meet each deep slide of his finger, loving the way his palm slapped lightly against her flesh.

“Samuel, it’s too . . . I can’t—”

The climax took her, fast and hard. She arched off of the bed, grinding down on his hand and crying out with pleasure. Her intimate muscles grasped at his invading finger, shamelessly begging for more.

As the last waves of joy rippled through her, he withdrew his touch. He settled his hips in the cradle of her thighs. His erection wedged hard and hot against her still-pulsing core.

“Do you want me?” he asked.

“More than anything.”

He positioned himself at her entrance. “You want this? You’re sure of it?”

“Yes.” She tilted her hips, eager to welcome him in. “Now. Please. Just take me.”

He took.

His first thrust was shallow—she burned a bit as her inner walls stretched, but nothing too terrible.

This might not be so bad, she thought.

“Katie,” he moaned. “You feel like heaven.”

Not so bad at all.

But then the second plunge—it was pure, stabbing misery. She buried her face in his shoulder to conceal her sob. As he rooted deeper in rhythmic, gentle thrusts, the pain eased a bit. But not so much that she could manage a convincing reply when he asked if she was well.

He swore.

“What is it?” she asked. “Have I done something—”

“You’re perfect. I just hate that I’ve hurt you. I hate that it’s done and I can’t take it back.”

“Well, I don’t hate any of it. The pain’s better already. I love the feel of you inside me. I love knowing I can hold you like this, so close.” She smoothed the hair from his brow and stared deep into his eyes. “Samuel, I love you.”

“Don’t say that.” But even as he resisted, he began to move again. Slowly, deeply. In ways she found tantalizing, rather than tormenting.

“Why not?” She gave him a teasing smile. “Are you afraid you might say it back?”

He flexed his thighs and slid deep, deep inside.

“I love you,” she whispered.

He pulled back, frowning. Hesitating. As though he were weighing the pleasure another thrust would bring him against the pain of facing words he didn’t wish to hear.

She wouldn’t let him intimidate her with those stormy looks. This was the bargain. If he wanted her body, he would have to accept her heart, too.

He grit his teeth and pushed into her, hard.

“I love you,” she gasped, clutching his arms.

He increased his tempo, battering her with desperate motions. As though he would force her to break, to recant.

Not a chance.

She wrapped her legs around his hips and clung stubbornly to his neck. The words became a chant in time with his thrusts. She would chip away at the stone all night, if that’s what it took to break down his walls.

“Love you,” she moaned. “Love you. Love . . . you.”

His face twisted into a tortured mask—of agonized pleasure, or perhaps pleasurable agony. His eyebrows rose in anticipation, then crashed down into a fierce, determined line.

And then he broke away.

He pulled free of her body, turned aside, and gave those last, beautiful moments of abandon to the linen sheets instead. She tried not to feel hurt. For a whole host of reasons, a pregnancy would be ill-timed. It was good of him to think of her health and reputation, even in that wild, passionate moment.

But she couldn’t hold back a whisper of disappointment. She wanted him all.

Spent and weakened, he slumped on the mattress. She turned and gathered him in her arms. She stroked his scarred, beautiful back, waiting to hear whatever he could bring himself to say.

After long moments he rose up on one elbow. He stared at her, still breathing hard. His eyes were dark and fathomless as he stroked the hair from her brow and trailed a gentle touch down her cheek.

Finally, he repaid all her nervous waiting with just one deep, resonant word.

“Katie.”

And it was enough. Enough to make her heart soar and her eyes burn with blissful tears. Enough to make her desperate for his kiss. She tugged him close, dragging his mouth to hers and reveling in the sweet possession.

With this man, there would never be poetry. Very few parties, and even less dancing. They’d never sit down to the pianoforte and play clever duets.

She could wait her whole life, and he might never find the words to say he loved her.

But the truth of it was written all over his skin. And that was enough.

Chapter Twenty

Afterward, she slept.

Thorne didn’t.

He couldn’t have slept, even if he’d wished to. Too many thoughts rioted in his skull. He lay awake, keeping one arm curled protectively around her shoulders and watching the smoke from the fireplace draw upward and disappear into the darkness overhead.

It was done now. There could be no undoing it. Now he was resolved to give her everything she deserved. As close to it as he could manage, anyway.

Beside him, she stirred, rousing halfway from sleep. She rolled toward him, nestling close and throwing her arm over his chest. Her fingers toyed idly with the hair there, sifting through the springy tufts and lifting them playfully.

Then her touch swept downward. If he hadn’t been already hard before she started petting him, he was rock solid now.

She whispered, “Make love to me again?”

He stared at her, amazed, and stroked a wayward lock of hair from her face.

Was that what they’d done, just an hour or so ago? Make love? She’d certainly uttered the word enough times, like some kind of incantation. The idea was in him now, and he didn’t know what to make of it.

He rather liked her phrase for bedding, though: “make love.” It made the emotion sound concrete. Comprehensible. Like a product that could be manufactured from whole cloth. Take two lusting, yearning bodies and rub them briskly together, and this substance called love would simply result—simple as striking two flints to make a spark.

Unfortunately, Thorne didn’t think it worked quite that way.

“It’s too soon,” he said. “You’ll be tender. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I am tender, I’ll admit. But aren’t there other ways?”

He lifted a brow, skeptical. “What could you know of other ways?”

She laughed. “Really, Samuel. Women do talk among themselves. And more than one risqué novel has made the rounds of the Queen’s Ruby.”

Thorne choked back a derisive noise. There were heroes of novels, and then there were men like him. Whatever those bawdy stories had taught her, no doubt it was some genteel, delicate imagining of lust—as evidenced by the way she trailed light, sweet caresses up and down his stiffened cock right now.

He fought the urge to take her hand, take control. He could show her how to grip him tight. He could guide her into stroking him hard and fast, relentlessly, until he snarled and bucked like a wild beast. He could put her on all fours and take her like an animal, savagely pumping her from behind.

He doubted any of those scenes were in her risqué novels. They certainly had nothing to do with “making love.”

His own crudeness concerned him, as it never had in the past. Unlike any other woman he’d bedded, Katie had a way of demolishing his self-control. When he’d been inside her, pushing closer and closer to release—he’d felt himself slipping closer and closer to some precipice, too. That was the reason he’d withdrawn. He’d come too close to that divide, and he didn’t know what waited on the other side. It might be a dark, shadowy place. If he fell into it, he worried he could lose himself.

He could hurt her.

He folded his arms behind his head and laced his fingers together, just to forbid them from wandering. Her light, teasing touch was already more than he should hope for. He’d content himself with this.

“Go back to sleep,” he said.

“I can’t. I’m a newly engaged woman, and I’m too busy making plans. Do you think we can be married in St. Ursula’s? It’s such a beautiful church. I always dreamed of being married there.”

He chuckled. “I don’t suppose I was the man standing at the altar with you.”

“I’m not certain. Maybe you were. His face was always rather shadowy. But exceedingly handsome.” She propped herself up on one elbow and faced him, eyes bright and inquisitive. “Did you ever dream about me?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted reluctantly, only because it was obvious she hoped to hear him say yes. “I tried not to.”

“Why would you try not to?”

He stared into the darkness overhead. “Because my dreams didn’t have anything to do with marriage or church.”

“Oh,” she said, drawing a coy touch down the center of his chest.

“It didn’t seem right, to use you that way.”

“That’s absurd.”

She flipped atop him, belly-to-belly, stacking her arms on his chest and replacing his view of the looming shadows with her own radiant, smiling face. Her hair tumbled about them both, making a draped, hidden room to house their kiss.

God. He couldn’t believe this was real. That she was here, and his. He was almost afraid to touch her for fear she’d vanish, so he kept his hands tucked beneath his head and allowed her to kiss him, just as long and as deeply as she wished.

“Samuel,” she said at length, “you have my express permission to dream about me however and whenever you like.” She sat tall, straddling his torso, and jabbed one fingertip into his breastbone. “With one condition—you must tell me all about it when you wake up, so I can make the fantasies real.”

“Don’t say that. You’ve no idea the depravities a man’s imagination can supply.”

“Then enlighten me.”

She braced her hands on either side of his body and leaned on them. Her slight breasts swung forward, taunting him, and the downy curls between her thighs brushed against his belly. His cock arched and strained upward, seeking her softness and heat. With one brisk tug on her hips, he could have her sex cradling his. Then sinking down to sheathe him, so very tight.

He groaned a little. But he kept his hands firmly pinned beneath his head.

“Tell me.” Her voice was a smoky whisper. “Tell me your every last depraved, wicked, carnal desire.”

“We’d be here a week.”

A coy smile tipped her mouth. “I wouldn’t mind.”

He shook his head. No matter how smugly pleased she looked with herself, he knew she was just a few hours past the first blush of innocence.

She sat up straight, tossing her hair back over her shoulders and looking down at him. “I’m serious, Samuel. I won’t have you treating me like some untouchable, delicate lady. Saving your truest, deepest cravings for dreams that feature someone else. I’m jealous. I don’t want to merely appear in your dreams. I want to be the only woman in them, from this day forward.”