All the restraint in his gaze—it shattered. The torment that had filled his expression darkened into something else entirely. Heat. Hunger. A desperate, reckless kind of longing.
“Mon dieu.” He stripped off his shirt in one movement and stood before her, bare-chested, the firelight casting golden shadows across his skin. His chest rose and fell in uneven rhythm, and his eyes—those eyes that had always danced with amusement—were now searing.
“You’ll hate me someday, Ambrosia. I swear it.” He then licked his lips, reaching down to unfasten his falls with swift, jerky movements.
“I will never hate you,” she said softly, fiercely. She stepped closer. “Not for this.”
They stood there, close enough to feel the heat rising off each other’s skin, but still not touching.
Ambrosia’s heart pounded in her chest. Not from fear. From choosing. For once in her life, she was choosing what she wanted.
She lifted her hand and placed it over his heart.
“Please,” she said again—not begging, but claiming.
Ambrosia needed him to know she would not change her mind. For so much of her life she’d suppressed her wants, her desires. On this night, perhaps this night only, she would free them.
“Dieu me vienne en aide.” God help me.
He groaned as she dragged her fingertips along his chest, between the hard but flat nipples of his breasts, to a smooth line between the sinewy muscles of his abdomen. He let out a hiss when her fingertips made a circle around his navel.
Her eyes dropped lower, and although she’d been bold up to this point, she suddenly faltered.
Despite her having disrobed in front of him, he’d yet to touch her. He finally reached out his hand. Even then, it was only to stroke her cheek.
“Ma princesse,” His hand trailed down her neck then, and a shudder ran through him.
Ambrosia caught his hand in hers and dragged it to her breast.
“Hold me.”
Closing the remaining space between them, his head dropped, and his mouth opened against her shoulder. The heat from his breath warmed her at the same time she leaned into his palm. She relished in the silky touch of his hair by her face, the heat coming off of his body. “Hold me.” She begged him again. For so long, without even realizing it, she had craved a sensual touch, craved this—craved him.
She’d never known skin against skin. Not like this.
When his mouth finally claimed hers, her knees buckled in relief. He caught her easily and swept her into his arms.
She didn’t remember reaching the bed—only that she was suddenly half-sitting, half-reclining, her heart racing with an overwhelming rush of need.
Dash stepped back, his gaze locked on her face as he peeled off his breeches. Ambrosia licked her lips without thinking, heat pooling low and molten.
Watching him standing beside the bed, fully bare now, Ambrosia’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes widened—part wonder, part desire—as she took him in.
He was beautiful. And ready—the proof of it jutting boldly from a thatch of cinnamon curls, hard and thick.
Bold. Proud.
In the flickering candlelight, he looked almost unreal—dangerous and reverent at once, like a god poised on the edge of ruin.
And she wanted to fall with him.
Her eyes widened when Dash stepped closer, his gaze fierce as he reached for her hand. Gently, he drew it to him, his fingers guiding hers until they wrapped around the length of him.
She froze. Ambrosia had never touched a man this way before. Certainly not her late husband, with whom their encounters had been brief, detached, and always under the veil of obligation.
But this—this was nothing like that.
The heat of him shocked her, the smoothness of his skin over the hardness beneath. The pulsing beneath her palm—alive, wanting, real.
