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I smile against his skin. “Keep up, Alexander. We’ve established that I will always test yer patience.”

“Rosie,” he says, with the tone of a man half a breath from losing every last noble thought in his head.

“Would you truly have left if I’d asked?”

“Yes.”

The answer comes too quickly to be for show, and that sincerity cuts through me all over again.

I lift a hand to his cheek. “Ye’re a good man.”

His gaze holds mine. “I’m trying to be.”

“For me?”

“For you. For your family. For myself, once in a while.” One corner of his mouth lifts. “Though you don’t make it easy.”

“I’d be offended if you said I did.”

“That’s the trouble with you. You enjoy being difficult.”

“I enjoy being difficult for you. Surely ya wouldn’t want me yieldin’ too easily?”

He looks at me in a way that leaves me molten beneath my skin.

“Every time you fight against me… every bit of fire in you only makes me hungrier.”

I think perhaps I do understand, because I feel the same way.

So I take his hand and lay it properly at the top of my bodice. “Then stop talkin’ and show me, Mr Mumford,” I whisper.

Desire ripples visibly through him. Then, with a look that turns my bones soft, he obeys beautifully.

This kiss is slower.

He touches me like he intends to learn me piece by piece—the shape of my mouth, the sounds I make when his fingers stroke my skin, the way I soften when he kisses beneath my ear, the exact place at the base of my throat that makes me shiver so hard I have to clutch his shoulders to stay steady.

When his mouth drifts to my neck and lingers there, he murmurs, “I meant for you to have the bath.”

I laugh breathlessly. “Did you?”

“I did.” His lips move against my skin. “I just didn’t expect to envy the water.”

That laugh turns into a gasp when he kisses lower.

I’m in grave danger.

And the worst of it is that I could not be happier about it.

At last he lifts his head, his eyes searching mine once more, and there’s still enough restraint in him that he asks, low and rough, “Tell me to stop, and I will.”

I cradle his face in both hands, feeling the heat of him beneath my palms, the strength he is holding so tightly in check. Never let it be said I met a beautiful moment with anything resembling moderation.

“If you stop now,” I whisper, my mouth a breath from his, “I will never forgive you.”

The smile that touches his mouth is slow, ruinous, and filled with dark promise.

“Well,” he says, sliding a hand to the fastening of my dress, “you need to understand that once I let go, I mean to take the lead. Can you give me that, my sweet Rosie?”