I hold my breath as Baelen leans toward me, his free hand cupping my cheek. He pauses before his lips meet mine, hesitating, his contemplation telling me he’s thinking it through. I sway into him, closing the gap, and place a light kiss on his lips.

Then I wait, inches away from him, turning my face to the side as his slow breaths tickle my earlobe. He brushes my cheek with his, but doesn’t kiss me back. Not yet. I have to respect that. Just because I’ve decided what I want, doesn’t mean he’s decided it’s the right thing for him—or for us.

Although… if he keeps nuzzling my ear like that, I’m not sure how I’ll ever let him go. My hands find his sides and all the muscles of his stomach as I try to anchor myself somewhere, anywhere, while his lips taste the soft skin at the side of my neck. Shiver after shiver rocks my body because he’s not only kissing my neck, but one of his hands rises from my hips and the other strokes down my side so that both end up resting against my rib cage, where his thumbs stroke the soft underside of my breasts through the thin material of my dress and underclothes.

I whimper as he glides his hands up my sides and over my shoulders, sliding through my hair and down my back, pulling me against him so that my thighs are pressed against his. I tip my head back, seeking his eyes, needing to know what he’s thinking. Every part of me is alive, but he still hasn’t kissed me back.

I tell myself I can accept his decision whatever it is. There’s no getting past his self-control or his perception. I’ve seen females from all the Major Houses throw themselves at him, sometimes in sickeningly obvious ways. He’s the sole heir to the Rath fortune and that makes him a target. But I never saw him take a female to his bedroom. From dinner parties and social events where I was required to serve guests, he’d turn away from females who would bed him in an instant, only to catch my eye across the room and gift me a smile, because he knew that I knew that he saw through all of them.

He’s smiling at me now, a satisfied curve to his lips as he studies my own parted lips. I’m not sure what he’s so pleased about. I can’t help it if my breathing is coming short and fast or that my hands are pressed against the hard planes of his back. I definitely can’t help that my lower half presses closer to his with every passing millisecond.

His voice is a low growl as he says, “I have wanted to kiss you for a very long time. But you are… so reserved, so cautious, so much my best friend… I couldn’t tell if you felt the same way. But now…”

His smile transforms into intense need as his mouth swoops down to mine, finally fitting to the curve of my lips, grazing them and nudging them apart to taste my mouth with his tongue. Sensation rushes through me, deep inside, and I tug at the base of his shirt, urging him away from the rock face so I can slip my hands beneath it and explore the muscular shape of his back. In response, he pulls me upward, crushing me against him. I slide back to the ground as he sets me down to pull his shirt over his head. I’ve seen his naked chest before, but I was never allowed to look at him like I can now.

Instead of coming straight back to me, he stoops to lay my cloak across the hard ground near the cave’s side, folding his shirt over the top of it. He kneels on the cloak, still clothed from the waist down, reaching out his hand for me. I hesitate. I know he doesn’t expect me to, but I take hold of the bottom of my dress and pull it up and over my head. I’m still wearing underwear—underpants and a support top, but both are thin with age and don’t cover much.

He inhales a quick breath and for a moment the need on his face almost takes over. He closes his eyes, the muscle at the side of his jaw clenching, then finally relaxing, and when he opens his eyes, he’s in control again.

He draws me down to the cloaked ground, both of us kneeling, his shirt cushioning my knees. He plants a kiss on my lips and follows the line of my chin and neck, down to the soft skin at the top of my breasts, caressing across the top of them, passing by to my stomach. As his lips descend, his hands follow them, kissing and touching every part of me from my back to my breasts to my inner thighs, brushing over my center, until I’m burning all over. The rain outside pounds down so loudly now that it smothers the sound of my moans as he takes his time touching me.

I kiss him back, discovering the hard muscles of his shoulders, neck, hips, and dragging at the top of his pants. I suddenly can’t stand to be wearing this much clothing. The barrier between us is unbearable. I slide out of his arms, making him growl, “Come back.” But I have to stand up to remove my underwear.

I slip out of my underpants and top, determined to return to him straight away but I pause as his gaze takes all of me in, traveling from my toes to the tops of my legs, to my waist, breasts, lips, and finally landing on my eyes. I always imagined I’d feel incredibly awkward standing naked in front of a male for the first time, but I don’t with Baelen. Not one bit.

A smile breaks across his face as he holds out his hand for me. His smile is reflected on my own face before I drop to meet him on the ground and he starts all over again, kissing and touching me until I don’t know where I am anymore. At some point, he removes his own clothing, and it’s my turn to growl at him to come back to me.

Finally he pulls me with him as he sits with his back against the side of the cave, positioning me so that my legs straddle him. He kisses me once more, but draws back, his hands resting lightly on my hips, allowing me to choose what happens next.

I’m aware of my own body and his, but I’m not entirely sure how we’re supposed to fit together. I’m suddenly frozen, my face flaming. I’m afraid that I’ll do it all wrong and… damn… the way he’s slowly dragging his hands up and down my sides and across my breasts isn’t helping me at all.

He leans forward and kisses the hot burn on each of my cheeks, causing our lower halves to press against each other in ways that make me dizzy. He lifts me with ease, up and over him, and whispers, “Let’s figure this out together.”

A little bit of maneuvering later and whatever awkwardness I felt disappears as sensation floods me. I grip his shoulders as I lower myself completely over him, the intensity overwhelming me. I try to breathe, but only succeed in gasping. I’d thought my senses were already in overdrive but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

He plants his hands on my hips, holding me, unmoving, letting me catch up with my own body, letting me choose when to move, allowing me to control our actions. Without thinking about it, I rise, watching the pleasure wash across his face, but he still doesn’t move, letting me stay in control.

I slide back as my body adjusts to his, movement gets easier, and the ache inside me takes over. I forget about the storm outside, and the dark, and the flickering lamp light. I don’t hear the thunder or see the streaks of lightning across the far horizon. My whole world is here and now, moving with Baelen, building our own storm together inside this cave. A storm that consumes all of me, growing into an uncontrollable force.

I tilt my head back and grip his shoulders as I plunge against him and the world expands and contracts around me, a thousand stars burning and exploding. Crying out, I shatter against him, my cries lost in the boom of thunder outside the cave.

I descend into his arms, shivering, aftershocks rippling through me. I curl over him as he strokes my back, but as I kiss him I realize… he hasn’t lost control.

He wraps his arms around me, his voice low, insistent, barely contained. “Tell me you’ll let me be yours, Marbella Mercy. Because I don’t want this just once. I want this again. Not just today.”

My lips part. “I’m yours, Baelen.”

He places one arm behind my back, the other across my backside and lifts us up to a standing position, still connected, then he lowers me very gently onto my back on top of my cloak, using all of his strength to keep us together. I stretch out beneath him as he begins to move. Giving him everything I have, I wrap my legs around him, drowning in the intensity I see in his eyes.

Sensation builds inside me again, increasing with every stroke, but I push it away. I want to focus on him the same way he focused on me. I want him to know what it feels like to crash and shatter, to fall into my arms like I fell into his.

I touch every part of him that I can reach, reveling in the way his muscles tense and relax as he moves, loving the way he responds to my touch. Without realizing, my breathing speeds up, matching time with his as my body moves of its own accord. I can no longer hold back the intensity building within me and it only takes one more plunge for ecstasy to slam through me, coursing through every nerve ending.

My wide eyes meet his as everything pauses. Then he crashes into me and there’s no way I can control my response or push it away. My hands push against the ground as I arch back, my body wanting to be as close to his as it can be. Where a thousands stars had shattered before, now the depth of my whole foundation shifts. We fall into each other and tiny pieces of me float away into a place where nothing can ever tear us apart.