But the insistence in his gaze makes me pull my hands from where they’re braced against his shoulders and lean back, allowing cool air to slip under my belly and across the place where we’re joined.

Dalton slides his hand down across my stomach, pausing with his palm pressed fully against it. His eyes drop there as he caresses me reverently, skimming the rough callouses across my smooth skin in a way that causes tears to pool in my eyes.

But I refuse to let them fall.

I refuse to let them ruin this moment.

The fact that he looks at me with so much yearning, so much appreciation, so much love, and seems to lovebothmy children the same way makes it almost impossible to breathe.

His hand slips lower, and his thumb finds the apex of my thighs, brushing across my clit.

I twitch against him, losing my rhythm, but he holds me steady with one hand at my hip and continues to thrust up into me.

Hitting exactly the right spot.

Over and over again.

I gasp as he increases the pressure and speed of the swirl against the most sensitive place of my body. My pussy ripples and clenches around him, clinging to the feeling of having him buried so deeply.

Right fucking there…

“Fuck, Camille. I’m—”

He’s close, and so am I now.

Dalton gave me exactly what I wanted, exactly what I needed, without even having to voice it. Just like when he arrived and saved me from crumbling alone into the dark abyss I had found myself in on the homestead, he’s bringing me to the light now.

It finally bursts through me.

An epic explosion of pleasure that makes me buck on top of him, clasping his cock as I try to keep moving through the seemingly endless, frantic spasms.

A low, deep groan rumbles through his body under me, and he continues to stroke me through my orgasm with his cock and his fingers. He plunges deep one more time and releases a strangled moan and goes completely rigid, drawn as tight as a bowstring as he comes deep inside me.

My orgasm finally fades, and I sag forward, trying to catch myself with an elbow on his chest. He pulls his hand away from between my legs and wraps it around my back, rolling us onto our sides, facing each other.

We both try to find our breaths.

My belly presses into his that heaves with his effort to slow his heart, the same way I am.

Calloused fingertips trail across my temple and drift down over my lips. “Are you all right?”

That was incredible.

It felt like I momentarily lost six months of pain. All that anguish and torture disappeared in only a few minutes in Dalton’s arms. But the words to express that to him won’t leave my lips.

Instead, everything I pushed down before I kissed him threatens to bubble back up.

Guilt washes over me just as quickly as my orgasm did, and my body tenses instead of relaxing into his arms. I try to shift away from him even though he’s still partially inside me, but he holds me to him with his hand at my lower back.

“Open your eyes, Camille. Look at me.”

I struggle to do as he asks, afraid to see disappointment or worse in his gaze, but it’s too hard to deny him.

My lids flutter open, and the compassion in the emerald green staring back at me instantly helps melt away some of the icy chill threatening to overtake me.

His fingertips move to my chin, holding me there, preventing me from looking away. “Tell me you’re okay.”

I nod. “I am.”