He applied a hint of pressure to her nipple and let her have more of his cock when she arched tightly against his hand. This required such concentration of him, he decided it qualified as a form of prayer.

“More,” Alice whispered. “More, now.”

From somewhere, he found the self-restraint to deny her, distracting her with his tongue in her ear, his teeth on her earlobe, then his lips closed around her nipple as she growled low against his temple.

Alice’s fingers tunneled through his hair to hold him to her, then tightened in desperate pleasure as he suckled.

“Damn you,” Alice rasped. “Ethan, I am begging… Ah, God, yes…”

He pushed steadily forward, until he was inside.

Then he paused, knowing they had a distance yet to travel.

Alice raised her head, regarding him with a world of bewilderment. “Why did you stop?”

“I’m not stopping.” Ethan laid his cheek against her temple. “I’m marshaling my reserves.”

“Your reserves?” Alice flopped back against the pillows. “Reserves of what?”

“Passion,” he said softly, easing his cock forward one blessed, beautiful, profoundly pleasurable inch, then easing back the same distance.

“Don’t stop.” Alice closed her eyes at this, the beginning of their real joining. “Don’t you dare stop, Ethan Grey. Not ever.” She let out a mighty not-as-discontented sigh, and some of the tension went out of her as Ethan slowly worked himself more deeply into her body.

“I like this. Ethan, I do like this.”

“With you, I love it,” he replied, his voice equally soft and just a little strained as he struggled to keep his rhythm easy and relaxed, and struggled not to speak words he wasn’t entitled to burden her with.

He would not tell her he loved her, not with words, but he tried to communicate it with his body. He joined them by slow, tantalizing increments, until he was gliding easily into her depths and she was arching up to meet him. Her breathing deepened, and her body became more fluid in its undulations. Beside her head, her fingers opened and closed convulsively on the pillow until Ethan stroked his thumbs over her palms.

“Ethan, I can’t…” She lost the words as he added the first hint of power to his thrusts.

“You can.” He stroked her palms again. “We can.” He laced his fingers with hers, and that gesture provoked a soft moan as Alice buried her face against his throat. Her fingers tightened on his, and she tried to hurry him with her hips and arch up against him.

He untangled one hand and wrapped an arm under her shoulders to hold her tightly to him. With Alice anchored snugly in his embrace, he let her have the deep, solid thrusts she’d been begging for, and in moments, she was shaking and clinging and coming apart in his arms.

He resisted the urge to drive her higher, to glory in her satisfaction as he might when they had more experience with each other. When he felt her body easing, he let himself go just enough to outdistance his own control.

He’d intended to permit himself a gentlemanly measure of satisfaction, but Alice’s passion came roaring back to life, another orgasm heaving her up against him in hard panting demands for more. His arousal crested higher and higher, beyond his control, then beyond his comprehension, until they were a mindless union of striving bodies and entwined souls inundated with unbearably intense pleasure.

“Holy Everlasting God.” Ethan wasn’t aware he’d spoken aloud until Alice responded with a panted “Amen.”

His hand cradled the back of her head while they breathed in rapid counterpoint with each other.

“Don’t move,” Alice said. “I feel like it could happen all over again.”

“You tempt me.” Ethan’s voice was raspy and desperate, for he’d love to see her undone yet again.

“Don’t… you… dare,” Alice warned, closing her inner muscles around his softening length.

Oh, Lord, and she was this clever, this passionate while damned near a virgin. “Point taken. For now.”

Gradually their breathing slowed, and Ethan was able not just to hold her to him, but to stroke his hand over her face, her hair, and shoulders.

“I have to hold you, Alexandra, but you are not to move just yet.”

“As if I could.”

Her smugness was a lovely, lovely thing, well worth the loss of a man’s wits, his dignity, and every shred of his self-control. When Ethan shifted and the remains of his erection slipped from her body, she whimpered, and her fingers curled into fists on the pillow.

“I’ll be back.” Ethan kissed her nose and extricated himself from her embrace, tossing the sheets back off them both as he left the bed.

Alice watched him, fastened her gaze on his glistening cock, and watched while he washed off. He wrung out a clean flannel for her in the wash water, reminding himself next time—please, merciful heavens, let there be a next time—to keep some heating closer to the hearth.

“Spread your legs, love.” He sat at Alice’s hip and gazed down on the flushed, rosy front of her. “You are so lovely. I could just look at you and bring myself off.”

“Is that what you did inside me?” She was watching him, her gaze soft and luminous in the candlelight. “Bring yourself off?”

“No.” Ethan took her hand, put the cool cloth in it, and then pressed her hand to her sex. “You brought me off, spectacularly, I might add.” Alice looked bashfully pleased with that, as he’d meant her to be—too pleased to be self-conscious about her ablutions.

As he watched her with the same shameless fascination she’d shown him, Ethan realized he loved her and he adored her.

“I enjoy this, Ethan. With you…” Her voice trailed away as if even words were too much effort. She slapped the cloth back into his hand.

“I will look forward to inflicting this pleasure on us both in future.” Ethan eyed her sex, wishing he could light a hundred candles, the better to admire her by. “You are not sore, then?” He rose and rinsed the cloth again, hanging it over the edge of the washbasin before returning to the bed.

“You didn’t answer me,” Ethan said as he rejoined Alice beneath the sheets. “Talk to me, Alexandra. I’ll fret that I was too demanding, too rough, too precipitous, too…”

She stopped him with a finger over his lips.

“Hush.” She pushed him to his back and straddled him. “You are too desirable, too skilled, too generous, too careful, too worried, entirely too handsome, too dear, and inside me…” She cuddled down onto his chest.

“Inside you?” Ethan’s hands came up to stroke her back, to learn yet more of the wonder of her.

“Too perfect,” Alice finished, her tone smug and wistful at once. “I had no idea, Ethan Grey. No earthly idea, and I account myself a woman with an excellent education and a good imagination.”

“You have a wonderful imagination, though I’ve only ever heard you turn it to wolves, witches, and sea monsters.”

“Interesting point, and you are none of those, but, Ethan?”

“I’m listening,” he said, though it was difficult to hear her over all that singing in his soul.

“I was worried,” Alice said, her voice getting softer. She nuzzled at his shoulder for a moment before raising her face to meet his gaze.

“Tell me these worries, that I might disabuse you of them.”

And he meant that. He wanted her passion; he wanted her worries, her everything.

“I was worried.” Alice ducked her face against his sternum. “Worried I would have a breathing spell, that I would not be skilled enough to please you, that it would all be awkward and embarrassing and regrettable.”

“And?” Ethan’s caresses were purposely slow and soothing, but he’d known some of the same worries, and too often—with others—they’d been justified.

“And…” She hunched down more tightly to his chest. “I never want to leave this bed, I never want to put my clothes on, and I never want to let you out of my sight.”

His hands slowed further, for her honesty and forthright speech reached into his shadowed soul like beams of summer sunlight, but God Almighty, how to respond?

Alice cocked her head to peer at him. “I suppose I should not have said that. You will forgive me my emotional excesses. I am all at sea.”

“Your sentiments are reciprocated.” He wanted to say more but dared not. Not yet, and maybe not ever. That she felt the least bit possessive of him was… precious.

She lifted her face to his again, though this time she was smiling at him.

“You aren’t just being gallant, are you? I am not accounted a sentimental woman, you know. I understand the intended nature of our dealings, Ethan.”

“Hush.” He gently pushed her back down into his embrace lest she lecture him on the intended nature of her dealings with him, and break his heart all unknowing. “You need not retreat from honest feelings, Alexandra. In fact, you must continue to set the better example for me in this regard.”

“Me? Set an example for you?”

“You are brave to be so honest. I admire your courage.”

“I am not brave. I am weak, wicked, and likely very foolish for disclosing my feelings to you.”

“No.” Ethan drew his fingers over her features. “You honor me, and you show me a kind of trust of which I hope to be worthy. I have not…” He gathered his courage and leapt headlong into an abyss of trust, because on this point he needed to be very clear.

“I have not belonged to anyone, Alexandra. When I was a boy, I thought I belonged to Bellefonte or to Nick or at least to Belle Maison. I was wrong. I thought I’d belong to my wife, but again, I was wrong. I haven’t even truly belonged to my own children, at least until recently. If you do not want to let me out of your sight, it suggests I might belong a little to you, and I would be honored to think it so.”