Page 77

“If all we do is fall asleep beside one another and wake up together tomorrow, that would be enough.”

He gave the smallest shake of his head. “Anything else you choose to give me will simply be more than I had any right to expect.” He leaned forward and brushed another kiss against my forehead. In his face, I didn’t see expectation. I only saw hope. I wanted him.

“Then I’d like to stay.”

He took a step back before intertwining his fingers with mine. He lifted my hand and pressed the gentlest kiss to my fingertips. My breath caught. He led me back inside.

His suite felt different now, quieter somehow. Winston regarded us thoughtfully, then climbed to his feet with an audible sigh before wandering out of the room, leaving us alone before the fire.

The first soft taps of rain began against the glass.

“Rain beneath glass,” I said.

His smile answered mine before his hand rose to brush a loose strand of hair behind my ear. Before I could think, his hand slid to the back of my neck and drew me close. His breathing deepened as every ounce of his restraint seemed to narrow to the few inches between us. Then whatever distance had existed between us disappeared.

The kiss was nothing like the ones that had come before. His hands closed hard around my waist as I rose onto my toes, meeting him with an urgency that surprised us both. When we finally drew apart, neither of us had gone very far. My hands rested against his chest. The soft cashmere beneath my fingertips suddenly felt like one more unnecessary layer between us.

I searched his eyes. He didn’t move. He let me choose. Slowly, I slid my hands under the hem of his sweater. His body went still.

“Emilia…” His hands settled at my waist. “I need you to know, I was tested recently. Everything was negative.”

“Mine was too. And I’m on birth control.”

I lifted his sweater just enough for him to understand what I was doing. Without a word, he raised his arms. I drew the sweater over his head before letting it fall across the arm of the sofa. I looked at him. My fingertips grazed his shoulder before finding the steady rhythm of his heart.

He put his hand over mine. “I’ve wanted this for a very long time.”

He reached for the hem of my sweater, pausing just long enough to meet my eyes before lifting it over my head. He drew me down with him onto the rug before the fire, his arm around me until there wasn’t space for another breath between us.

“I just can’t get you close enough.”

“Keep trying,” I said breathlessly.

He started kissing his way down my neck, his fingertips tracing down my ribs. I buried my fingers in his hair as he undid the button of my jeans before slowly sliding them away. I felt utterly exposed under his gaze.

“You surpass every version of this moment I imagined,” he said. Then he drew off the rest of his clothes until we were equal, until there was nothing either of us could hide.

I let myself take him in, and when my attention dropped lower, my breath caught. This, all of him, was what lived beneath the careful tailoring, the armor he wore in front of everyone else.

I stopped looking and reached for him instead. I traced my nails down his back, feeling the hard planes of it as his muscles tensed under my touch. A groan tore out of him, deep and rough, and something low in me clenched at the sound of it. As if he sensed it, he reached between my thighs and felt how wet I had become. He pressed his thumb against my clit and slipped in one finger.

“I need more,” I said as I exhaled against his lips.

“Then take it,” he said as he added another finger. I gasped at the stretch of it.

“Emilia.” His voice was wrecked. “The way you feel—You’re going to undo me.”

I rocked against his hand, holding on to his shoulders. The sounds escaping me grew louder.

“Let me hear you,” he said against my throat, closing his teeth over my pulse. “That’s it, darling. Come all over my fingers.”

I did, shuddering against him. He slid his fingers free and, holding my eyes, took a taste. “Exquisite.”

I pulled his body close, drawing him to where I needed him.

“This…This is exactly where I want to be.”

He eased into me slowly. There was no other way to take all of him. I had to breathe through the way he stretched me.