Anthony moved his desire-filled gaze over her face. “I cannot marry you, Lettie.”

She bit her lower lip, hard.

Did she hear regret in that statement merely because she wished to? Undoubtedly, she did.

“I’m not asking you to, Anthony,” she said simply. Which was true. She wanted him only to want that future with her, but in the absence of that, she’d know passion with him. “But I would…have this with you,” she said softly.

Catching him by the front of his jacket again, she dragged him down, and he went, lowering himself once more, and she relished the feel of being framed by his broadly powerful frame and anchored between his arms.

His hands were on her legs again as he found that throbbing place between her thighs, and he touched her through the curls that concealed her womanhood.

Lettie cried out, but he swallowed that sound of her desire, burying it with his kiss.

She tangled her tongue with his, her hips shooting up as he slid a finger slowly, deeply inside of her.

Lettie arched into his touch.

And then he toyed with her, alternatively teasing that sensitive nub and gliding a finger inside her channel.

Over and over.

Lettie moaned. Her hungering for this man, and his touch, was so great, so deep, it was a physical pain, a pain so powerful that she moved away from his kiss and buried her head against his shoulder, biting him there to keep from screaming.

“Just like that, love,” he praised as the rhythm of her hips grew increasingly frantic, and he added another finger, stretching her wider and adding to the pulsing there.

“Anthony?” she whimpered, his name pitchy and breathless and desperate as her body climbed higher, toward some dangerous precipice.

Anthony lowered his head, trailing a path of kisses along the neckline of her gown, and then he freed that flesh, revealing it to his tender worship.

He closed his mouth around one of those sensitive peaks, drawing the bud in and suckling, and it was too much.

Lettie tensed, her entire body stiffening, and arching back, she cried out.

Anthony was immediately there to capture the sound of her release, kissing her even as he moved his fingers within her, and Lettie shook and sobbed softly as she came undone in his arms, tensing and arching and then ultimately collapsing.

She lay there, the blood rushing loudly in her ears so that the only sounds she could make out were the rapid beats of her heart and Anthony’s.

A sated, happy smile formed on her lips, and she just held him, relishing the feel of him holding her in return.

This was what she’d given up all hope of knowing—passion.

She’d resigned herself to the fact that she’d never know desire so strong it clouded reason.