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“Ask me again if you’d like proof. I’ll tell you as many times as you need to hear it.”

“I want a family with you,” he murmured. “God, I don’t think these words have ever sounded so fulfilling and so stirring. Like something I am allowed to want, rather than something owed.”

“They’re not owed.” Laura rolled onto her side to face him. Her hand slid up his chest over his heart, which kicked harder beneath her palm. “They’re only ours.”

His mouth found hers, and something ignited between them, like fire in the wind. It was as if the terrible, triumphant evening was finally finding somewhere to spend itself.

They would be the fireworks, Laura thought as she moaned against his mouth. She pressed closer, her fingers threading into his hair as she slipped her tongue into his mouth, eager to taste him.

She felt the last of his careful restraint snap as he eased himself between her legs. His manhood pressed against her, hot despite her nightgown.

“Laura.” He drew back only far enough to look at her. “Tell me you want this. Tonight, of all nights, I need to hear you say it plainly.”

“I want this.” She said it without hesitation, her eyes steady on his even in the dim light. “I want you, Nathaniel. I have wanted you since long before I had the courage to say so, and I am done being anything but plain about it.”

Something in him broke open; he felt it ripple through his body as they kissed.

His hands found her breasts, teasing her nipples as he kissed her deeper. His mouth trailed to her collarbone, and one hand slipped beneath the hem of her nightgown to find her bare waist. She drew in a shaky breath as his fingers slid down her waist to the apex of her thighs, finding her so wet, so eager, so ready.

She arched into him as he slid a finger inside her, her hands beginning to work at the buttons of his shirt with an impatience that made him smile against her mouth.

“You’re in a hurry to undress me, wife.”

“I have spent an entire week without you,” Laura said breathlessly, finally freeing the last button and pushing the shirt from his shoulders. “I believe I have earned a little hurry.”

“Then don’t let me keep you waiting any longer.”

He took his time regardless, kissing a slow path along her jaw and the column of her throat as he continued working his finger in and out of her.

She knew this was purposeful as much as a result of his arousal. He wanted her to be relaxed and ready to take him.

He stopped to pull up her nightgown to her waist and then over her head until there was nothing left between them. Her breath came faster with every new inch of bared skin. Her hands roamed over his shoulders and back, urging him closer.

“You did this on purpose,” she accused, half laughing, half aching, as his mouth found the swell of her breast and lingered there. He wrapped his lips around her nipple and pulled softly, making her moan.

“I did a great many things on purpose tonight,” he purred against her skin. “I intend to keep doing what I like.”

His hands and mouth mapped every place that made her breath catch, from her wet slit to her earlobe. Every lick and caress made her back arch and her fingers tighten in his hair until she was trembling beneath him and saying his name in that low, ragged voice that she knew undid him more than anything ever had.

“Nathaniel, please,” she gasped, wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling him closer. “It’s time, my love. I need this. I need you. I am more afraid of not doing this now. I may burst if I do not feel you inside me right now… I can’t believe I am saying this, but these past months… I cannot think!”

“Tell me what you want.” He lifted his head from her breasts to look at her. “I’ll give you anything, Laura. Do you like this? Do you want me?”

“You,” she said simply, reaching down to wrap her hands around him and stroking him. “Only you. Now.”

He slowly pushed inside her, inch by inch, letting her body adjust. Once she exhaled, he pulled out slightly and paused there for a moment, their foreheads pressed together, both trembling with need. Then he thrust into her again, gentle and deep and right.

“I love you,” he murmured, burying himself inside her to the hilt, watching her lips part on a soft gasp of his name. “You were made for me.”

“I love you,” she moaned, her hands sliding down his back to grip his hips and urge him deeper. “Nathaniel!”

He began to move, slow at first, in and out. But the slowness didn’t last. It couldn’t last for all the heat that swelled within her the harder he thrust into her.

For all her inexperience, she began to meet him thrust for thrust, her nails scoring lightly down his back, her breath coming in soft, broken gasps against his ear. He cupped her backside and drove into her as deep as he could go, hitting parts of her she did not know existed.

The two of them continued moving together until she could feel him drawing nearer to his peak, his eyes squeezed shut and his breathing ragged.

“Nathaniel!” Her hips bucked, and her inner walls tightened around him, a tremor racking through her limbs.