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“Your hands aren’t cold.” She smiled like an animal awaking from hibernation. “And your cheeks—” She brushed a finger to the deep flush of his face.

“Oh, curse my cheeks and my dreadful skin.” He tossed his head away, but returned for a kiss a moment later.

“I love your coloring.” She wouldn’t tell him the color extended well beyond the high planes of his cheeks. A reddish tint suffused everything from his hairline to his throat. He wore his feelings on his skin.

His cock was hard against the side of her thigh, and she turned her body into his, angling herself to let the head of his sex nudge between her legs. Heat pooled low in her belly, sensation daring to be awoken again.

His breathing changed. She wasn’t sure what it had been like before, but everything slowed. Hot, heavy breaths against her nipples, and then the circling of his tongue drew a moan from her. Reverence had entered into things, now. A silent agreement between body and mind and lover-to-lover to savor each second ahead.

She fingered the thick bands of muscle on his back and found his skin slightly sweat-dampened. Her leg inched higher, slipping over top of his and increasing the promise between them.

“Rafe,” she said, and kissed him. “I would very much like to have you inside, now.”

It was likely there would be nothing left of him, after this. That he might turn to ash—or treacle, more like—in her bed. No running, no searching, no saving the world or saving up coin, either. It sounded a delightful proposition, to disintegrate here in Sophie St. Quinton’s arms.

She kissed him with parted lips, and the tip of her tongue brushed his. He inhaled sharply, drawing her close. Her breasts pressed against him, full and soft. In this moment, he could believe they were his, that she was his. That the problems outside of this room were imagined.

She nudged her hips closer until they touched his, and her leg came fully over him, her knee hooking just above his hipbone. Bloody hell. The head of his sex was against her now. One thrust might see him inside, and the realization alone sent unquenchable ripples of want through him.

He adjusted the angle between them, brushing against her until warm dampness made itself known. She began to whimper, and he to moan, and so he captured their mingled sound in a beseeching kiss.

“You must tell me, if I begin to hurt you.” His brain was emulsifying. If he had anything to say, any rational thought left about him, he better say it now. “I’ll be sure to”—oh, Lord, he was at her entrance now—“not give you my seed,” he bit out on a rushed breath.

She nodded; quick, little nods of impatience. Her beautiful mouth opened, lips parting to form an O. He tugged her lower lip gently with his teeth, kissed the little mole, wrapped his arms around her waist, placed one hand on her plump backside to help guide her down over him.

The dark arches of her brows smoothed and lifted. Her eyes—even in the darkness, even in their rich honey color—took on a translucent quality. Like someone seeing a glimpse of the hereafter, and allowing their soul to break open to it. He must have looked equally bewildered, for he had never been so single-minded in his life as he slid inside her in a painstakingly slow ascent.

Her small, inner muscles eased around him, granting him access. Wonderful wouldn’t begin to describe the feeling of her slick heat, the knowledge of mutual possession, for she surrounded him just as much as he filled her.

Their hips met. For a moment they continued to stare at one another, bewildered and unhurried, but she began running her hands over him, raking her fingers through the hair on his chest and moving just enough to send him to the verge of madness. He cupped her backside and pulled her closer, closer, until she gasped.

Tonight. All they might have was tonight. What had before been a fact now seemed a cruelty, a false declaration he ought to disprove. He began to move inside her, filling her with gentle thrusts until he could be certain she was comfortable.

He was staring at her breasts, thinking of how long their shape had taunted him behind cloaks and stays and rows of too-civilized buttons. He pumped a little harder. His eyes went to her face.

Sophie’s lids had gone heavy, black lashes trembling against white skin, and her teeth sank into her bottom lip. “More,” she breathed.

Rafe’s forehead beaded with sweat. His loins were on fire. He nuzzled her neck and kissed her there, drinking in her toasty, feminine scent. Almond and sweet powder. The pores of her skin were finer than dust, like pressing his face into air itself.

She pressed her front into him, harder. He maintained his pace, but the angle was all askew. His hip began to cramp, but when he slowed, she beat a light tattoo on his back with the heel of her hand. “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t slow.”

He almost rolled over top of her, but it seemed limiting, a discounted experience, to go that way. In an instant’s decision, he hauled her body against his torso and pulled her over him.

He thought to ask if it was all right, if she might like to try some other way, but he hadn’t the time or the cursed words. She didn’t miss a breath, but began to ride him—a bit tentatively at first, but once he spread his knees wider and followed her movements with his own hips, she tipped her head back and smiled drunkenly. She was chasing something. Her own pleasure, he hoped.

He filled his palms with her breasts. Flicked his thumb over her right nipple until it hardened beneath his touch, and he feared more stimulation might heighten the volume of her whimpers. He needed to check his own sound, too—he scarce knew he was making any, but felt the rumble of his own voice in his chest, mixing with the heady pleasure that had settled low in his groin and was building rapidly.

Sophie nodded and tightened her thighs against his sides. It was only then he realized he’d said Soon aloud.

She lowered herself over him, the sweet ringlets of her hair curtaining his face and tickling his ear. He tipped his head back on the pillow, meeting her mouth with equal ferocity. Everything was heat and lightning, fingernails digging into salty skin, desperate urges being brought to fruition—not by coaxing, but by command. How very like …

She cried out, the sound muffled by the pillow beside his head, her thumbs pressing hard against the underside of his jaw. She found her release, pulsing forcefully around him.

Rafe tensed every muscle in his body, just able to keep the edge at distance until Sophie rolled off him. He finished in the next instant, pleasure blinding and seizing him.

The world looked different on the other side of crisis. Softer, and muted.

His right hand fell to his chest, where his heart lurched like a drum. He turned his head and met her eye. God, what a delightful mess she looked: hair stark against skin and linen, eyes bright and victorious, mouth smiling devilishly. The sight made his flesh twitch.