There were things he wouldn’t ask, and more she couldn’t admit. So they came together without questions, emotions only, as the bravest of lovers do.

Her arms opened. Her mouth lifted. His arms encircled. His mouth lowered. Body to body, they drew out and drew on the first kiss of the morning.

The tenderness remained somehow, though the excitement thrummed just beneath. There was more than just desire now—a breath of completion for something started long before. Tonight. At last.

The air sweetened with her sigh as she allowed herself the freedom of a wish. The kiss was deep, thorough, awash with the anticipation that poured from each. Then his lips brushed hers lightly, not teasing but promising of delights and demands yet to come. When she trembled as he’d once predicted she would, he felt not the thrill of victory but a gratitude that her need was as sharp as his own.

He ran his hands over the silk on her shoulders, her arms, her back, tormenting himself with visions of what was concealed beneath. So many times he had imagined her. When he drew the silk aside, letting it slither and whisper and pool at her feet, he discovered his imagination was no match for the reality of her, naked and close with moonlight cloaking her.

A poet would have had the words. A musician could have played the tune that streamed inside his head. But he was a prince who had never felt himself more of a mortal man than now, watching his woman shimmer in moonbeams before him.

She didn’t need poems or a song. What she saw in his eyes told her she more than pleased him. He would never give her beautiful, melodious words, but a look from him said so much more. With a smile, she stepped into his arms again and pressed her lips to his heart.

It beat so fast, so strong. For a moment she closed her eyes tightly, as if to capture the feeling inside her. His skin was bronze against her ivory. Fascinated with the contrast, she stroked her fingers over him, then spread her palm wide on the plane of his chest. His fingers closed over her wrist as her touch sent arrows of need through him. He felt the trip-hammer of her pulse before she drew her arm away to lock both hands behind his head.

Flesh heated against flesh; mouth hungered against mouth. Her tongue skimmed over his lips, then dipped inside for the darker, richer tastes.

More. Again the craving for more tore at her. But this time she would have it. She found the clasp of his slacks, delighting in the quiver of his stomach as her fingers brushed his skin. The moment hung, then raced by. And he was naked with her.

She, too, had dreamed of this, and now discovered that dreams would never be enough.