“I’m here,” he rumbled, lifting his eye back to hers, longing to lose himself in her stormy gaze one last time. Beneath his thumb, her pulse quickened.
At the sensation, his heart forgot how to beat. Could it be possible?
Could it truly be him making his wife’s heart race?
His breath shuddered out. A single moment passed. Then two. A confession pressed against his throat, desperate to be loosed. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t say it. It made him too vulnerable.Weak.
But he couldn’t hold it back. Not anymore.
If he didn’t say it now, he never would.
Bracing himself for her inevitable rejection, he blurted, “I belong to no one but you.”
Silence swallowed the room whole. And in that silence, Sera simply stared at him, her eyes wide. With pity? Horror? He couldn’t tell. He didn’t know.
He almost didn’t want to know.
Idiot. Fool. What had he done? His confession lingered in the air between them, twisting like a knife. Shame burned across his skin. Without a word, he released her hand and jerked back a fraction.
What had he been thinking?
He opened his mouth, desperate to claw the words back, to offer up some half-muttered apology that would patch over the wreckage he’d just made. But what could he possibly say?
“I—” he began, voice cracking. “Forgive me. I shouldn’t have—”
He didn’t get the chance to finish.
Because one moment, Sera was simply sitting there, staring at him.
And in the next, she was leaning in to crush her mouth against his.
The warmth of her lips burned away what remained of his thoughts, his fears. Not because she had scorched him again, no. But because she was her.
Because beautiful, proud, clever Seraphina de la Croix was kissing…him.
Not for duty. Not for show. Not for a crowd.
But simply because she wanted to.
Her hands fisted in the collar of his undershirt, holding him as if afraid he might vanish. Her breath trembled against his lips, fanning the impossible hope sparking to life inside his heart.
And he drowned, lost. Lost in her. Lost in his want. His need.
He wanted this. He wanted her. Heneededher.
I love you. I love you. I love you.Those words pounded through his skull in time with the racing of his heart. He loved his wife. He loved her even though she drove him mad.
Perhaps…perhaps he didn’t have to tell her everything.
Perhapshe could keep this last secret—this one unbearable truth—locked away.
He kissed her deeper, memorizing the warmth of her lips, the trembling of her breath, the familiar whisper of vanilla rising from her skin. But then another thought struck him.
…What if she loved him too?
“Stop,” he gasped, ripping his mouth from hers like a man tearing a dried bandage from a wound. He had to tell her now. Before it was too late. Before he lost his nerve.
Before he let himself truly hope.
