Or how he could live just one more day without knowing that she would one day be his wife. Bear his children. Grow old with him.

“Thomas?”

Her whisper brought him back, and he realized he’d stopped moving. She was gazing up at him with a mix of curiosity and need, and her eyes…her expression…He couldn’t explain what it did to him, or rather how, but he was happy.

Not content, not satisfied, not amused.

Happy.

Lovesick, champagne in the veins, want-to-shout-it-to-the-world happy.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked, and then she was smiling, too, because it was infectious. It had to be. He could not keep it inside.

“I love you,” he said, and he knew his face must belie the surprise and wonder he was feeling.

She looked instantly cautious. “Thomas…”

It was imperative that she understood. “I’m not saying it because you said it, and I’m not saying it because I obviously have to marry you now, I’m saying it because…because…”

She went very still beneath him.

He whispered the last: “I’m saying it because it is true.”

Tears formed in her eyes, and he bent down to gently kiss them away. “I love you,” he whispered. And then he could not stop his sly smile. “But for once in my life, I’m not going to do the right thing.”

Her eyes widened with alarm. “What do you mean?”

He kissed her cheek, then her ear, then the graceful edge of her jaw. “The right thing, I think, would be to stop this madness right now. Not that you’re not properly ruined, but I really ought to get your father’s permission before continuing.”

“Continuing this?” she choked out.

He repeated his kisses on the other side of her face. “I would never be so crude. I meant the courtship. In the general sense.”

Her mouth opened and closed a few times, then finally slid into something that wasn’t sure if it ought to be a smile.

“But that would be cruel,” he murmured.

“Cruel?” she echoed.

“Mmm. Not to continue with this.” He pushed forward. Just a tiny bit, but enough to make her squeak in surprise.

He nuzzled her neck, increasing the rhythm between them. “To start something, and not finish it—that doesn’t seem like the right thing, does it?”

“No,” she answered, but her voice was strained and her breaths were growing ragged.

So he continued. He loved her with his body just as he loved her with his heart. And when he felt her shudder beneath him, he finally let go, exploding inside of her with a force that left him spent, exhausted…and complete.

Maybe it wasn’t the right way to seduce the woman he loved, but it had certainly been good.

Chapter 22

In the end, Thomas did do the right thing.

Almost.