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She wanted to stop him and ask what he meant by that, but he continued, “I thought it would be simpler than this. I was going to retire and disappear somewhere where no one would find me. After life on a ship, the idea of being alone was a luxury.”

The words hit her in a way she didn’t expect. He didn’t want any of this—the operation, their reunion, and he certainly didn’t want her. If he could’ve chosen, he never would’ve seen her again, and after this operation was complete he’d do what he’d done after returning to Eyemouth: disappear. To him, people were a complication. She was a complication.

“Everything we’re doing compromises my ability to keep you safe on this operation.”

“Don’t say that,” she whispered. It sounded too much like regret, and she hated to think that he regretted this when she felt at peace for the first time in a long time.

The intimacy of their one shared night had blurred things. In some ways, she was more confused than others—her entire safe, secure world that she’d built for herself in this new city was upended. Yet in others, things had never been clearer. She wanted Andrew. The comfort, challenge, and caring of him. He was still the man she’d hoped she would end up with, only age had somehow made him more. Gone was his quiet, dreamy ambition, and in its place was the burning determination of a man who has lost and gained and lived. She would, while he was still here, take any little part of him that he’d give her.

He closed his eyes and leaned into her right hand, the stubble already growing in on his chin rasping against her work-worn hands.

“What do you do to me?” he asked. “I thought I was cured of you after all this time, but I look at you and I can’t help wanting you.”

Her thumb stroked over his mouth, playing at the generous flesh of his bottom lip.

“I want you too,” she whispered. “So much it almost frightens me.”

“Will it always be like this?” he asked.

She wanted to say no, and not just because he seemed so desperate for her reassurance. It would be easier that way, believing that they might one day be rid of this thread that seemed to bind them together in life, yet she couldn’t lie to him. Not about this.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You said that first night in your workshop that this was inevitable. I didn’t understand then, but I do now.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I feel as though I was made for you, no matter how dangerous that might be,” he said. He covered her hand with his, turning his head so he could kiss the center of her palm. The spot where his lips touched her flesh burned a hot, true line straight between her legs.

“Tell me to go to hell, Lavinia. Send me away and tell me you never want to see me again. It’ll be best for both of us.”

“Andrew,” she whispered. “Come to bed.”

He slipped his hand in hers and silently they climbed the two flights of stairs to her rooms above the workshop. The rooms weren’t much—a fact she was acutely aware of—but they were hers and she loved everything in them. She could see now how Andrew could fit here, comfortably slouched in one of the overstuffed club chairs that sat in front of the fire, his slippered feet on the ottoman. But this was not the time for that. They needed each other now with no promises of the future, for that was all they could have, no matter how she wanted him.

She opened the door to her bedroom and drew him inside, pulling him down to her for a long, aching kiss that pulled at each of her heartstrings in slow progression. Her fingers trembled as she began to undress him, popping the buttons of his waistcoat and drawing it down his arms with his jacket. A few tugs and she freed his shirttail, letting go only long enough to let him yank the garment over his head. With a palm to the warm skin of his chest, she pushed him to the edge of the bed, where he sat. Kneeling, she undid the clasps of his boots, pulling them off as she’d once assumed she might when she’d thought they would be husband and wife. His belt came next and the placket of his trousers. He arched his body up so that she could pull them down with his smallclothes.

She rocked back on her heels, looking up his body at the unashamed nakedness of him. He was beautiful, the tanned skin of his arms and chest flashing golden in the faint light of the fire she’d lit earlier to warm the room before she retired to bed.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“That no man has any right to be so perfectly formed. For me.”

He smiled and leaned down to meet her, catching up her lips with his. The kiss and the trail of his fingers along her cloth-covered arms made her shiver.

“Cold?” he murmured.

“Needy.”

Andrew didn’t need any more prompting. He set about undressing her with tantalizing care, stripping away the layers of her widow’s weeds. Her armor. When all that was left was her chemise, she stepped away out of his reach and pulled it off over her head, letting the soft cotton pool on the floor.

He moaned low at the sight of her and reached out. His thumb dragged along the softness that covered her hip bone, as though trying to assure himself that she was real. Her fingers slipped into his hair as she straddled his lap, sinking down to him so that the length of his cock pressed along her slit, teasing her.

His hands slid up over the swell of her backside and her waist, glancing over her breasts. When his thumbs circled her nipples, her back arched a little, pressing her breast closer to his mouth. He lowered his lips to her nipple and sucked. Her fingers tightened in his hair, holding him there as he whirled his tongue around it, flicking over the hardening bud.

She rocked against him, the growing wetness between her legs slicking his cock and making it easier to slide in a deliciously teasing search for friction. She needed to feel him stretch her, making her gasp and moan with the sensation of it. She wanted to taste the salt of sweat on his skin and hear his groan as he came fast and hard, pulling out of her at only the last moment to prolong the intensity of their connection.

“Andrew, I need you,” she whispered into the darkened room as she rocked against him.