Of course she was certain. He was everything she could want. How could he still doubt? The intimacy of what they had just shared proved that any other future paled compared to a life with him. They belonged together.
He lay her in the center of his bed as if she were a delicate flower who could be swept away at any moment by a gust of wind.
She was not so fragile.
His dark eyes did not waver, his voice as intense as his gaze. “I need you to be sure.”
“I’m sure.” She held out her arms for him to join her and reveled in the weight and heat of his body. This was what she had been waiting for.
She had been sure for weeks. She had been sure when she gifted him her hideous pillow, when she gushed about him to her siblings and begged for them to meet, when she had serenaded him with her violin in his office, when she had presented herself on his doorstep with a baking pan and a bag of currants.
She had never been surer about anything in her life.
He was the one.
Her heart raced at the delicious prospect of making love to him. Of giving themselves to each other completely, now and forever.
His kisses were both possessive and tender. As though he wished to claim her, to conquer, and to keep her safe. As if by kissing him in return, she too was doing the claiming and the conquering, making him hers.
When he moved to sit up, she followed. Laughing between kisses as they tried to shuck their boots and vestments and unmentionables without lifting their lips from each other.
The sight of Max nude put every Grecian statute to shame. He was no boy, no cherubic angel, but a man.Herman.
She hoped he found her body as pleasing. She suddenly felt small and pale and naked. Not a goddess, but a waif. Perhaps a disappointment.
The hunger in his eyes told a different story.
“I love that big, beautiful brain of yours,” he murmured as he kissed her temple. “Turn it off. No mathematics allowed in the bedchamber.”
She grinned despite herself. “What would you have me do instead?”
“Enjoy,” he answered simply. “Close your eyes. Feel the music.”
She allowed her lashes to flutter closed and was rewarded with a kiss so deep she felt it in her very soul.
When at last he lifted his mouth from hers, he immediately replaced it elsewhere on her body. Licking. Kissing. Suckling.
With her eyes closed, she had no way to know where his lips would brush next. Perhaps her breasts. Perhaps a nipple. Perhaps her stomach. Perhaps much lower.
The delicious not-knowing heightened her senses. Every inch of her body felt alive, crackling with awareness.
This was his serenade, she realized. Every kiss was music, every pleasurable lick a soaring melody.
When he returned his mouth between her legs to the place he had tasted before, her body instantly quickened, welcoming the growing crescendo within. She tried to wait. To dance together. Just when she thought she couldn’t hold it back any longer, he lifted his mouth from her legs. He settled his hips against hers instead, his shaft hot and thick between them.
“This may hurt.” His eyes begged forgiveness. “I shall make it as good as I can.”
There was no need for forgiveness. She’d been dreaming of this moment for too long. Yearning to join him as one.
She wrapped her legs about his hips.
“I’m yours,” she whispered. “I’m ready.”
He covered her mouth with his as he entered her, swallowing her gasp, sweetening the pain. Soon, there was only a fullness inside her, quickly replaced by pleasure as he began to rock his hips.
It was better than she’d dreamed. Everything she had hoped. A symphony unlike any other. They were finally dancing.
When he slid his hand between them to coax the music even higher, this time, she could no longer hold the crescendo back.
