But disrobing was as far as he was willing to go at her direction.

His urge to dominate clawed for release as his gaze raked across her, sending pulses down her spine. His inner beast paced closer and closer to the surface—to what she knew would be her ultimate delight.

They stared at each other for a long moment, energies circling, breathing synchronized.

And then she blinked, and he was upon her, sweeping her into his arms and carrying her to the bed, eyes locked the whole way.

He laid her in the bed gently, as if she were delicate and not a trained guard raised with four boisterous older brothers.

His body was even more beautiful than she remembered, his colors more alive, his scent more necessary, weaving into her system, comforting and assuring and settling, the chemical elixir her body craved most in its current condition.

After kissing her lips and her jaw, and leaving a trail of kisses down her neck, he worshipped her breasts, his touch intuitively responsive to her incredibly sensitive and tender flesh. His caresses and kisses, licks, and featherlight nips left her breathless, her back arching, legs rising to wrap around his waist and draw him closer, urging gravity along with the force of her desire.

She wanted to be joined with him as powerfully as she wanted to draw the ecstatic agony out—until she could no longer take it and simply exploded in his arms again.

At the rate he was building her, pushing her higher, nearer that exquisite precipice, she knew it wouldn’t be long, certainly not as long as she wanted.

She wanted the stretched-out, languorous experience that their passionate rush in the library had lacked.

She wanted to melt and reform and melt again, over and over with him, all night long.

And there was so much she wanted to do to him still, so many places she’d yet to touch and taste and feel. Things she’d heard of in passing, things her peers had quickly stopped discussing whenever she’d come around.

Images of them—graphic, wet, fleshy—flashed through her mind, and alongside the mastery of his hands and mouth, she couldn’t resist.

She burst into thousands of pieces, her atoms spraying everywhere, in all directions at once, as she called his name at the top of her lungs.

Beneath her noise, she could feel his growl vibrating across her skin, possessive and feral.

Rising back to whisper in her ear, he tsked, “Jenna, Jenna, Jenna. I never said you could come.”

Still not sure if she was any more than the series of throbbing pulses whose hold on her system had only slightly abated, she somehow found the ability to shiver.

She shocked herself further by saying, “I guess you’ll just have to do it again,” the words flowing from a part of her she was only now becoming acquainted with.

Hands departing her breasts, he rose over her. “I like it when you talk back to me.”

Staring up at him, sex and sin incarnate, she could not believe this, even imperfect, was her life.

All of that force, and it was focused on her.

His eyes had the light of the predator in them, lazily trailing up and down her body, wicked delights promised in their depths as they considered the plains and valleys of her figure.

“You still have your panties on,” he observed.

Surprised, she glanced down. Sure enough. Off-white and virginal, the forms of daisies woven into the lace.

“Take them off,” he said.

It was a command.

She obeyed, breathlessly lifting her hips to slide the garment away.

Once again, he observed her, saying nothing. Her skin heated beneath his examination. Little about her figure had changed as a result of her pregnancy yet.

Just her breasts were fuller, more sensitive at this stage.

“Open your legs.”