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“You searched for me,” Anna said softly. “That is what mattered. Whatever fear you felt, you did not let it paralyze you.”

“It very nearly did,” Hudson admitted. “Had you not arrived when you did, I do not know how much longer my composure would have held.”

“And I promise the same,” Anna assured him, her heart full with overwhelming emotion. “No more secrets kept out of fear, no more silence when honesty would serve us better. We start over, properly, from this moment forward.”

“Properly,” Hudson agreed, and then he was kissing her, slow and searching, as though he meant to memorize the shape of this particular relief through touch alone.

She drew him closer, the yearning in her veins too strong to overlook or ignore. Hudson responded in kind, wrapping his arms around her as his tongue teased the seams of her lips, dipping into her mouth slowly when she granted him entrance.

Anna moaned, knees weakening as she clung to him desperately.

It was clear they would not make it any further than the study, which was not surprising, seeing as the night’s terror had thoroughly stripped away whatever patience either of them might otherwise have possessed. Hudson lifted her easily onto the edge of his desk, scattering papers she could not bring herself to care about, his mouth trailing from her lips to the curve of her jaw as her fingers worked at the buttons of his waistcoat with far less grace than urgency.

“Anna,” he murmured against her throat, “Tell me this is truly what you want. Not born of the fright of tonight or the possibility of the end of our marriage. Tell me you have freely chosen this… chosen me.”

“I have never wanted anything more clearly in my life. I’d choose you today and tomorrow,” she told him, and drew him closer by way of answer.

He indulged her in all the kisses she desired in that moment, then he realized that his plans for her wouldn’t be carried out as seamlessly here as they would be on a bed.

“I think we should take this lovely meeting elsewhere, my love,” he proposed, lifting her into his arms in one fluid motion. “I have no intention of taking you properly, for the first time since our wedding night, on a desk that has been tainted by an endless stream of correspondence.”

Anna laughed at that as he carried her to the bedroom, a bright, unguarded sound that dissolved entirely into a gasp once he had laid her upon her own bed and followed her down onto it.

What followed bore little resemblance to the careful, uncertain encounter of their wedding night, nor even to the heated, hurried desperation of the library some days past. There was no need for haste now, no ticking clock counting down toward a departure either of them dreaded.

There was only the slow, deliberate unwrapping of each other – Hudson’s hands mapping her body with a special reverence that showed his intention to spend the rest of his life learning every inch of her. Anna arched into his touch with none of the shy uncertainty that had marked their first joining, but she was just as eager as she had been during their first time.

“You are certain,” he said again, echoing words he had once spoken to her on their wedding night, though this time there was no lingering doubt beneath them, only tenderness.

“I have never been more certain of anything,” Anna whispered, and leaned upward to claim his lips.

He undressed her slowly, pressing a kiss to each new expanse of skin as it was revealed, murmuring something reverent against her collarbone, her navel, the soft curve of her hip, until Anna was trembling beneath the sheer accumulated weight of his attention long before he had touched her anywhere that truly ached for him.

“Hudson,” she gasped, fingers tangling in his hair as his mouth continued its unhurried journey lower still, “You are being terribly thorough.”

“I intend to be,” he said against her thigh, glancing up at her with an expression that was equal parts wicked amusement and something far softer. “I have a great deal of time to make up for, and I do not intend to rush a single moment of it.”

True to his word, he took his time, until Anna was arching off the bed entirely, her soft cries filling the quiet room as he brought her to the edge of release with his mouth alone, only to ease her back from it and begin again, drawing the pleasure out until she was nearly incoherent with wanting him properly.

“Please,” she finally managed, tugging at his shoulders, “Hudson, please, I need – ”

“I know what you need,” he murmured, finally relenting, kissing his way back up her body until his mouth found hers once more. “I intend to give you everything you need, Anna. Tonight, and every night after.”

He kissed her hip and trailed kisses up her torso, reveling in how she writhed under him.

“You are remarkable,” he murmured against her skin, echoing words he had spoken to her once before, though this time they carried the full weight of everything he had just confessed to her. “I do not think I shall ever tire of telling you so.”

“Then do not,” Anna gasped, as his mouth found her breast, his hand sliding lower to stroke at the aching heat building steadily between her thighs. “Tell me again. Tell me everything.”

He obliged her, murmuring praise against her skin between kisses – how beautiful she was beneath him, how thoroughly she undid his composure, how he intended to spend a lifetime proving himself worthy of her forgiveness – until she was trembling and pleading beneath him, her fingers tangled in his hair, her hips rising to meet the maddening rhythm of his fingers.

When he finally settled between her thighs, pressing into her slowly, watching her face with the same careful attention he had shown their very first night together, Anna felt something in her chest ache with the sheer tenderness of it.

“I love you,” she told him again, as he began to move within her, unable to keep the words contained a moment longer.

“I love you,” he echoed, his voice rough with restraint, his thrusts slow and deliberate even as she felt his own control fraying beneath her touch. “I love you, Anna. I intend to spend the whole of my life proving it, if you will let me.”

“I will,” she promised, and then coherent speech abandoned her entirely as he picked up his pace, one hand braced beside her head, the other gripping her hip to angle her more fully into each deep, unhurried thrust.