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After dinner, we moved to the sofa. Alexander sat beside me, close enough for conversation and no closer. I looked at his hands. I had noticed his hands in the first photograph I’d ever seen of him. I couldn’t stop looking at them now. His restraint had been admirable. I was beginning to find it inconvenient.

I turned toward him and moved closer. His eyes found mine, but he stayed exactly where he was.

So I climbed into his lap and straddled him. His eyes searched mine. He still didn’t touch me. I kissed him. His restraint finally gave. One hand closed around my hip and drew me closer while the other settled at the back of my neck.

Our kiss deepened. He breathed me in. My hands slid into his hair, tugging gently. A sound escaped him. His mouth traveled along my jaw, down my neck, before finding the place over my pulse. I felt him growing hard beneath me and I pushed down against him.

“I thought I’d lost you.” There was no composure left in his voice. “I have never been afraid like that. Not once in my life.”

“I’m here,” I said quietly.

He pulled back and looked at me. I watched something come loose in him.

“I’m done deciding for you. I’ve spent months deciding what parts of myself to give you and what to keep. Protecting you from things you never asked to be protected from. I’m not doing it anymore. Not tonight. Not ever again.”

“Good,” I said as I brought my lips back to his. This time, he met me without holding back. He grabbed a fistful of my hair, and I moaned against him. His breathing was ragged against my mouth.

“I need you, Alexander.”

“I’m yours. All of me. Take whatever you want. I give it to you freely.”

I stood, took his hand, and led him to the bedroom. Once there, I reached for the hem of his sweater and pulled it up, and he lifted his arms to let me. He reached for my hand and pressed my palm against his heart. I could feel it racing beneath my fingers.

“I love you, Emilia.”

“I love you, too.”

He brought my wrist to his lips and kissed the inside of it, the way he had done the first night. The memory of it went straight between my legs. I was already wet for him.

The thought had barely crossed my mind when he dropped to his knees. I had seen this man command every room he ever walked into. I had never seen him like this, on his knees in front of me, looking up as though I were the only thing that had ever brought him there.

He worked my pants over my hips as he brought his face to my core. He took a deep inhale.

“Made for me.”

That was the last thing I heard before he began feasting on me. Whatever restraint he had been holding onto disappeared. Between each movement, he kissed me. My thighs, my hips, then back to my center. It was like he couldn’t decide between devouring me and worshipping me.

My knees went weak and his hands moved, one gripping my hip while the other grabbed my ass, holding me against his mouth.

I could have come like that, against his mouth, his hands holding me up. But I wanted more. I wanted him.

“Alexander.” I pulled him up by the hair. “I need you inside me. Now.”

He rose, shoving his trousers down and off, and then his weight was over me on the bed. He paused there, braced above me, both of us breathing hard. For a moment, he didn’t move. He just looked at me, like he needed to be sure this was real.

“You’re everything.” His voice trembled. “Do you understand that? Everything I have.”

“I understand,” I whispered.

And then he was inside me, holding my gaze the whole time. Every time my eyes drifted shut, he pulled me back.

“Look at me.” His voice was wrecked. Even the small distance created when I closed my eyes seemed too much for him. He moved slowly, but there was none of the practiced restraint I remembered. He moved like a man who had come too close to never having this again and couldn’t bear to rush a second of it.

Even though our rhythm was slower, each stroke went deeper than I had felt before. I rolled my hips up to meet him, and he pressed into me. We were both reaching for the same impossible thing: to be closer than our bodies were ever meant to be.

At one point, he stilled with his forehead against mine. I felt him shudder. I took his face in my hands and made him look at me.

“I’m here,” I whispered.