Three days later, Elizabeth turned off their cells and woke James with a kiss.

Not their first, which had happened at their wedding. Not even their second or third.

Since the biopsy, they’d taken to sleeping cuddled together on the master bedroom’s king-sized bed. And before they drifted off each night, he would cradle her face in his hands and kiss her. Claim her mouth like a man who knew exactly what he could do with his. Settle her comfortably against him and tunnel his strong fingers through her hair and tangle their tongues until she was breathless and aching somewhere other than her breast.

He kissed her with gentle but unmistakable expertise. With lust.

Then he tucked the covers around them, nuzzled his bristly cheek against hers, and rumbled a quick good night, as if she were supposed to sleep after that. As if anyone could sleep after that.

To be fair, she did sleep after that. Quite well.

But it was still annoying. She wanted more, and she planned to show him so right now.

The morning sun streamed through tiny gaps in the blinds and struck fire in his russet beard. In sleep, the lines beside his eyes were barely visible, and he almost looked twenty again.

But he wasn’t. She wasn’t. And she was glad for it.

She leaned down and pressed a kiss on his lips, and even in sleep, his mouth clung to hers. But when he blinked those gorgeous blue eyes open and saw her, he bolted upright, almost head-butting her. She sprang back in a hurry, and he steadied her with a hand wrapped around her upper arm.

“Shit.” He rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “Sorry about that.”

So much for seduction. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t scare me, honey. It’s just that I was all, um…” A faint flush crept over his cheeks. “I was all happy about the kiss when I woke up, and then I remembered morning breath. Give me a minute.”

He was still happy about the kiss, from what the tented sheet was telling her.

“Fine.” She’d already made her morning bathroom stop, and she supposed it was unfair to deny him his. “But hurry.”

His eyes suddenly didn’t look so sleepy anymore. Instead, they were wide and alert. “Really?”

She patted the bed beside her. “Yeah.”

He hurried. But when he emerged from the bathroom a minute later, he didn’t leap back into bed. Instead, he halted in the doorway, his mouth pressed tight. Not the expression of a man about to get some with a wife he adored.

Did he have doubts? Did he not want her after all?

Had she misunderstood everything?

“Honey, you can wipe that look off your face.” With a sigh, he cast his eyes downward. “One glance at my pajama bottoms will tell you what you need to know.”

Oh. Good point.

“But your breast…” He shook his head. “It’s still bruised and tender. I don’t want it to, um…”

When he paused, clearly searching for the right words, she had to laugh. “Rhythmically jiggle up and down?”

“That’s it.” He paused. “Although maybe I misinterpreted your little pat on the bed, and you don’t actually want to make love. Am I assuming too much here?”

“No. You’re not.” Still, that didn’t solve their problem. Because he was right: Bouncing boobs didn’t sound particularly comfortable at the moment. “I think we can make it work. Maybe I can wear my bra?”

He closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. “The first time I’m inside you, I want us both naked and sweaty and completely unconcerned about anything but how fast and often I can make you come.”

Ooooh. That gave her a nice little tingle.

The situation sucked, though.

“So no making love today?” She frowned at him. “I won’t lie to you. That’s a grave disappointment, James. You’ve been teasing me with your stealth sex-bomb kisses for days now.”

He blinked at her for a moment, and then his lips curved into the widest, most wicked grin she’d ever seen on his handsome face. “You like my mouth, huh?”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course I like your mouth. You clearly took some sort of seminar while I was writing my senior thesis about Melville’s weird whale-penis chapter in Moby Dick.”

“No seminar. Just enthusiasm.” His blue eyes glinted in the morning sun. “And speaking of my mouth and my enthusiasm, why don’t you lie back nice and slowly?”

She should insist on taking care of him first, given how attentive he’d been since the procedure. How sweetly he tried to distract her when she started worrying. How gently he held her when the cell rang and she could barely speak, could barely hold it in her shaking hand until she glanced at the display and saw it was a friend or her sister. Not the pathologist or Dr. Sterling. Not the news that could free her or signal more struggles ahead.

She was still waiting for that call. But she wasn’t waiting any longer for the man she loved. The man she’d married. The man who was walking toward their bed with a definite swagger.

So yes, maybe she should take care of him first. But he seemed content to hold out a little longer, and she was too weak to deny herself that mouth.

He was atop the bed now, his eyes hot and expectant on her.

Before she lay back, she stripped off her simple cotton nightgown and tossed it to the floor. No panties. No bandages. Just her, warm and naked for her husband’s eyes.

He lowered himself to his side. Propping himself on one elbow, he smoothed a gentle hand down her left side, from shoulder to knee. “I want to create a dictionary of you.” He paused, then shook his head. “No, an encyclopedia. One with entries delineating your history.” A careful kiss beside her bruised breast. “Your dreams.” Another brush of his lips against her temple. “Your preferences.”

He cupped her left breast and circled her nipple with a light stroke of his rough thumb.

“Important names.” His mouth covered hers, and they kissed until she was squirming beneath him, arching into his hand. “Crucial dates.”

He moved to kneel between her thighs, and then opened her with a slow, deliberate stroke of his thumbs.

The cool air of the morning dueled with his warmth against her secret flesh, and she shivered at the feel of both. She stared up at him, but for once he didn’t meet her eyes.

He was gazing at her body, rapt, a haze of heat painted across his cheekbones.

“Your topography.” He removed his hands from her center, sliding them down her inner thighs, and they trembled under his touch. “Every dip.”

He gently lifted and spread her knees, his fingers hot on the sensitive hollows behind them. Then he lowered himself until his mouth was an inch from where she ached.

“Every furrow.” He licked her then, along labia separated by his careful fingers, and then his tongue flicked lower. “Every river.”

He must have taken a thousand seminars. A million.

“Every rise.” A slow, languid circle of her clitoris. “Every bit of you, mapped and known.”

He sucked her lightly, and she almost came out of her skin.

When she jerked at the bolt of pleasure, though, he lifted his head. “Honey, you have to stay still, or we can’t do this. I won’t hurt you.”

God help them both, he wasn’t joking. He was willing to end this, and she wanted to cry.

“I’m not sure I can.” She raised herself on her elbows. “Please, James—”

“You don’t have to say please, and you don’t have to worry. I’ll help.” He glided a hand up her belly, where it rested heavy and warm. A reminder to stay still. “Hold onto the headboard, Elizabeth.”

So she laid back down and held on, frantic but still as he licked and circled with that talented tongue and drew her between those soft lips. His beard abraded her skin, an inciting friction she’d never known to want before now.

The slow penetration of his fingers pressing deep inside. Another slow, tender suck and flick of her clitoris. The weight of his hand, steady and warm. Holding her down, holding her together.

She burst with a sob, her body clenching around his fingers as she arched a bare inch toward his mouth, and he allowed it. Allowed her to grind against him as she came like a cataclysm. Soothed her with light strokes of his tongue all the while, a deep hum in his chest comforting her as she shattered and reformed stronger. Less brittle.

The words broke free, and she didn’t bite them back. “I love you. I love you, James.”

One last tender nuzzle, and he lifted his head.

“You’re my world, Elizabeth Stone.” His navy-blue eyes blazed with heat and light. “I love you too.”

Someone had called her cell while they were otherwise occupied.

A quick check of the display, and she knew her moment of reckoning had arrived.

“Dr. Sterling left a message.” She held up the phone when James emerged from the bathroom, and her hand was steady. “I haven’t listened to it yet.”

He was at her side in a heartbeat, wrapped around her, his arms thick and strong and so warm she couldn’t imagine ever being cold again.

“We can listen together.” He edged back enough to catch her eye. “But first, I want to say something, and it has to be now.”

She blinked up at him. “Okay.”

“Marry me.”

She couldn’t help it. Even in the midst of real, gut-clenching fear, even with James essentially vibrating with protectiveness and intensity beside her, she had to laugh.

A semi-hysterical laugh, but a real one. “Pretty sure we already did that, baby. Don’t you remember? It was like ten days ago? I had a bouquet and you ate three plates of petits fours?”

“I remember.” His intensity hadn’t diminished. “But that’s not what I mean.”

She licked lips turned suddenly dry. “What do you mean?”

“We had a wedding, but I didn’t ask you to commit to a real marriage, because that wasn’t the point. Not then. Not for you.” He stroked her cheekbone with a sweep of his thumb. “But I don’t want to be your husband for a year or two, Elizabeth.”

That fragile thing inside her, buried and dormant for so long, unfurled further. Reached for light and oxygen and nourishment, with complete faith all three were there, waiting for her.

The first tear spilled down her cheek. “You don’t?”

“No matter what that phone message says, I’ll see you through it. Not only as your friend and lover. As your husband. Not until you can get your own health insurance, but forever.” He took a shuddering breath. “That’s what I want, and I hope that’s what you want too. So please, Elizabeth. Marry me.”

She wanted to agree. To fall into his arms and weep with joy, and then tackle whatever future awaited them together. But she had to know one thing first.

“Baby…” She cradled his bristly cheek in her palm. “You’re a natural-born fixer and caretaker. Are you sure you don’t just want a new project?”

He leaned his forehead against hers. “I don’t want to fix you. You’re perfect as you are.”

Why couldn’t she stop crying?

“I just want to love you.” He smiled at her, sure and patient. “That’s all.”

She pressed her lips against his. Once. Twice.

“Marry me.” He spoke the words against her mouth. “Be with me forever.”

She sniffled and smiled and said yes. Again.

And then they listened to the message together, hand in hand.