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I reached up and cupped his face in my hands.

“You feel it now,” I said. “That's what matters.”

He turned his head. Pressed a kiss to my palm. Then another to the inside of my wrist, where my pulse hammered against his lips.

“The corset,” I managed. “Help me with the corset.”

He moved behind me. His fingers found the laces, and then paused.

“You dressed so carefully this morning,” he murmured against my shoulder. “All those layers. You knew exactly what you were doing to me.”

“Every single one.”

“Each button. Each lace.” His lips brushed the nape of my neck. “I thought I would go mad.”

“That was the idea.”

He laughed, low, dark, a sound that vibrated against my skin. “You take entirely too much pleasure in this.”

“You love it.”

“I do.” He pulled at the laces. The corset loosened. “God help me, I do.”

The pressure around my ribs released, and I gasped at the relief, at the cool air against my skin, at his hands sliding around to my stomach, pulling me back against his chest.

“All morning,” he breathed against my ear, “I have been imagining this. Every layer I would peel off you. Every sound I would pull from your throat. I have been starving, Lily. And you knew. You knew, and you made me wait anyway.”

His hands slid up and cupped my breasts through the thin chemise. My head fell back against his shoulder.

“And what else,” I managed, “were you thinking about?”

“This.” He spun me, pulling the chemise over my head in one swift motion. His eyes dropped and went dark. The bond flooded with hunger, something that wanted to devour and worship in equal measure. “Seeing you.” His fingers trembled as they slid up my side. “Touching you. Knowing you're mine.”

His thumb traced a slow circle around my nipple. I bit back a moan.

“Don't,” he said. “Don't hold back. I want to hear you.”

A sound of ecstasy escaped my lips as his mouth worked down my neck.

“I can feel what you're feeling.” He bent his head. His mouth replaced his thumb, hot and wet, and I cried out before I could stop myself. “But I want to hear it too.”

He was methodical. Relentless. Mouth on one breast, then the other. Hands relearning me. And through the bond, the greedy satisfaction of a man who had been starved of this and intended to make up for every lost moment. Every gasp I gave him, he swallowed. Every place I ached for him, he found. He was taking me apart, and he loved every second of it.

By the time he lifted his head, I was shaking.

“The bed,” I said. It came out closer to a plea than I intended.

He lifted me as if I weighed nothing. Three steps to the bed and then the mattress was beneath my back and he was above me, braced on his forearms, looking down at me with an expression that made my heart stutter.

“I love you,” I said.

His response hit me before he spoke, a surge so powerful it stole my breath. Love. Joy. A fierce, protective tenderness that wrapped around me. But beneath it was a trembling vulnerability I'd never felt from him before.

She loves me. She loves me. She loves me.

Awed and disbelieving. As if everything I'd done to reach him hadn't been proof enough.

“I have loved you,” he said quietly, “since the moment that mouth of yours opened.”