Ruvon stopped breathing again.
"Who are you," he said, "and what have you done with my blushing bride?"
She laughed. "I might still blush, but I'm no longer shy. Not with you. You make me feel beautiful, safe, and cherished. I don't feel the need to hide."
The tears gathered once more at the corners of her eyes, but she wasn't going to cry and alarm Ruvon. Her eyes were stinging, and she had to blink several times before she trusted herself to speak again.
"I thought tonight I would face the greatest relationship hurdle I had to overcome, but thanks to you and your infinite patience, it turned out to be as easy as breathing."
He stood there in his trousers that were soaked from the puddle, his wedding shirt that was opened at the collar, and the sleeves that were rolled up from the bath, and he looked at her like he didn't know what to do with what she'd just said.
His mouth opened, then closed.
She smiled. "Now it's your turn, my handsome husband."
"My turn?"
"Take off your clothes. I want to see you. I've been waiting a long time for that."
"You have?"
"Of course I have." She propped herself up on one elbow and let the line of her body settle along the bedspread. "What did you think? That I haven't been thinking about this? I'm impatient to see you. All of you."
He arched a brow, and his lips lifted in a cocky smirk that she hadn't seen on him before.
Her Ruvon liked to be told that he was handsome and desired, just as much as she liked to hear him say that to her.
He started on the hidden buttons of his tux shirt, undoing each button slowly, working his way down, and teasing her on purpose. He'd decided to make her wait for it.
She approved.
The shirt came open. He shrugged it off his shoulders and let it drop to the carpet.
He was magnificent. She'd seen him shirtless before, the same night they had gotten adventurous, but he'd been training, and he'd filled out since then.
She made a small appreciative sound.
His smirk became more pronounced. "You approve?"
"Very much so. Keep going."
His hands went to his belt.
The belt came off and dropped to the carpet beside the shirt. The button at the top of his soaked trousers came open, and the trousers came down. He stepped out of them and kicked them aside, and they landed somewhere with a wet sound.
He was standing in front of her in nothing but a pair of black undershorts.
For a second, she forgot that she was supposed to act confident. She felt heat rise up her chest and into her face, but she didn't try to hide it, because hiding it would have suggested she was embarrassed, and she wasn't embarrassed.
She was hungry.
She'd never been hungry like this before, and he could probably smell her desire, but she wasn't embarrassed about that either.
Her eyes traveled over him without attempting to disguise anything.
"Now the last piece," she said.
He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his undershorts, hesitating for a fraction of a second, and then he pulled them down and stepped out of them.
