“Have you changed your mind already?” he asked, his voice gentle as he searched her face.
“No,” she breathed. “No, I want you. But…but no one has taken me since…since him. And I’m…” She met his stare and saw understanding and kindness and gentleness and everything opposite of her late husband. In that moment, she didn’t hesitate to tell Asher anything. Everything. “I’m afraid.”
His lips pressed together, his emotions playing out across his face in dark shadows. Then he nodded. “I understand. And I want so much to erase that fear. At least a little. I want you to feel that passion,sex, can be something to celebrate.”
“I know you can. Only you can. And I’m going tolet you.”
She stepped back and untied her robe with shaking hands. She wasn’t bare underneath as she had been before when she came to him. Somehow standing before him in her night rail felt more intimate. Like she was a bride waiting for her first night with a husband.
Only this first night was not going to be filled with pain or fear. She knew he would make it special and right and beautiful.
He stared at her, his face taut, his gaze heated and focused, and then he caught a great gulp of air and whispered, “How have I resisted you this long?”
“Incredible strength of character?” she said.
He lifted his gaze to hers and laughed. The sound lightened the air between them and she found herself smiling as he moved toward her, caught her in his arms and kissed her. Both their smiles faded as the kiss deepened and her fingers tightened around the lapels of his jacket. His tongue traced hers, tasted hers, swirled around and around in her mouth until she was dizzy.
Luckily she didn’t have to keep herself upright. He held her steady as he backed her toward her bed. She didn’t resist. She didn’t want to resist. She wanted him, and this and nothing else mattered in that moment.
Her legs hit the mattress and she gasped, parting their lips momentarily. He smiled at her again and then slid his hands beneath the straps of her nightgown. He never broke the stare between them as he slid the scraps of fabric away and let the cotton pool around her bare feet.
She had been naked in front of him before. Several times, actually. But everything about this time felt different, and she blushed as he slowly looked her up and down.
“I’m forever amazed by how beautiful you are,” he mused, almost more to himself than to her. “It’s like I convince myself I’m mad when we’re apart, but when I see you it’s better than I remember. And there is nothing more I want than to take you.” He let his eyes slide to meet hers. “But I want to ask you one final time—is this truly what you want?”
A flutter or worry stirred in her stomach, but she slowly nodded. “It is,” she admitted. “This is what I’ve always wanted, Asher.”
He drew a long, deep breath and then shrugged out of his jacket. She reached for him, unfastening his shirt as he struggled out of his boots. She pushed the shirt away and swallowed hard. She was always stunned by what she found beneath his clothes. Such perfection. Such male goodness. Such temptation.
She traced her fingers along his chest, dragging across his muscles as he let out a low sound of pleasure and possession.
“Unbutton the trousers,” he ordered.
She smiled up at him, loving the dark desire in his voice. Loving the tremor of need that so matched her own. Whatever else had separated them in the past, whatever would eventually part them in the not so distant future, this existed. This desire and this night. No one would ever be able to take it away.
Slowly, she glided her fingers down to his waistband. She found the buttons along the front and, one by one, loosened them. She slid her hands into the fabric, hissing out pleasure as her palms brushed over his muscular hips. She pushed, the fabric catching on his erection before it came free and pooled beneath his bare feet.
He stepped out, kicking the pile of clothing away, and she looked at him as he had looked at her, drinking in the perfection of his body, anticipating what he would do with that body. There was fear and excitement mixed when she considered it.
“You’re trembling,” he whispered.
She looked down and found her hands were flexed at her sides and were, indeed, shaking. She clenched them, trying to force that tremor to stop.
He reached out and took them in his, lifting them up to brush his lips across first one set of knuckles, then the other. “Think of me if you can, not him. And if you want me to stop, I will do so. No matter how much I want you, no matter how far we’ve gone.”
She blinked. She didn’t think he would be able to make that promise, let alone willing when she had already acquiesced. But of course he would. He was Asher. And this was why she loved him.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “But now I want you to stop talking and love me. Just touch me and love me and don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”
His lips parted, as if he were surprised by that request. Then he nodded and folded her into his arms. He kissed her again. Slow and passionate, gentle, and as if he had all the time in the world, all the time in both their lives, to claim her. She knew that wasn’t true, that it would very likely only be tonight for them, but she sank into the fantasy nonetheless and went soft and limp in his arms.
He gave her all the support she needed, holding her up when her knees would not, making her shake with desire and need and all the pleasure that coursed through her body.
It felt like that kiss lasted forever, yet it was over too soon when he lifted her onto the bed and took a spot beside her. He dragged his fingers through her hair, spreading blonde locks on the pillows all around them as he wordlessly looked at her face like he was memorizing every angle and line of it.
She shifted beneath his focus, her heart beginning to pound. How much could he see? Would he judge her for what was in her heart if he knew how twisted and broken she was?
To stop him from doing just that, she reached up and cupped the back of his head, drawing him down to kiss her once more. He did so, the kiss quickly deepening, becoming more purposeful. Slowly, he rolled to cover her and she stiffened beneath him as images of another man filled her head.
