“You have my heart and soul, Samantha, no matter where I am in the world, I belong to you. Only you.”

Raising her hands, she caressed the face she loved more than any other. “I belong to you too, body and soul and heart and everything else I’ve got. If you’d asked me two years ago if I would ever say something like that to anyone, I probably would’ve sneered before I punched you. But you’ve laid me low and stripped me bare.”

He pressed his hips against her, letting her know he was still lodged deep inside her—as if she needed any reminder. “I like you best stripped bare. I love you best when you’re not afraid to tell me how you feel.”

“They haven’t yet invented the words to adequately tell you how I feel about you or how you make me feel when we’re together like this. You turn me into someone totally different than I’ve ever been with anyone else.”

“That’s the most incredible thing you’ve ever said to me—in a year of incredible things.”

“I didn’t want you to leave with any doubts about what’s waiting for you at home.”

“I never have any doubts where you’re concerned. From that first second on a crowded deck, you’ve been mine. Always mine.”

She realized he was moving inside her again, fully recovered from the explosive release. “Turn over,” she said.

“Not this time.”

“You got your turn, now I want mine.”

With an exasperated growl, he managed to turn them and move them into the middle of the bed without losing the connection.

“I don’t know how you do that,” she muttered when she recovered her senses. “You must’ve had a lot of practice.” She knew almost nothing about the other women in his life, which hadn’t bothered her until recently, until she’d learned he’d done things with at least one of them that he hadn’t done with her.

“I don’t remember anyone but you, the only one who has ever mattered.”

Sitting astride him with his substantial erection throbbing and growing inside her, she couldn’t take the time to wonder about anything other than how best to drive any thought that didn’t include her right out of his mind. She raised herself up and slid back down on him slowly and torturously.

His fingers dug into her hips, and she knew he was resisting the temptation to take over.

She did it again and again until his head was thrown back and his throat exposed, making it too easy to lean down and sink her teeth into his pectoral, adding some suction so he would take her mark with him.