“Dare? Don’t you want to bed me?” The words, almost too soft to be heard, pierced his heart.

“I…I’m sorry, Charlotte.” His voice was as rough as granite. “I tried to explain to you earlier. It doesn’t have anything to do with my desire to bed you. I want something more than just your body.”

She clutched the book tighter, tears trembling on her lashes. “I don’t understand. What do you want if you don’t want me? Is it someone else? Why did you offer for me if you want someone else?”

He shook his head, fisting his hands to keep them from pulling her to him. “I don’t want anyone else. And it should be quite obvious, even to you, that I am not immune to your many charms. But you are my wife. I didn’t want to take a wife because…well, for many reasons, not the least of which is I’m in no financial position to support a woman like you as she deserves, but most importantly because I didn’t want to settle for a convenience, just a body to slake myself on. I expect more from my wife.”

Dare willed her to understand. He couldn’t say the words in his heart to her, not yet, but he hoped she would realize that what he wanted to grow between them was something more profound than just lust.

Her throat worked as if she were swallowing back tears. “You desire me?”

He nodded, unwilling to trust his voice.

“But you want something more from me than just…” She looked toward the bed.

His eyes glittered at her. “Yes. I want something more.”

She bit her lip, an annoying habit in any other woman, but endearingly sweet and innocent in his wife. It melted his resolve even further. That his proud, confident Charlotte was standing before him unsure and insecure…his heart ached with the knowledge that it was his determination to have more, to have all of her that brought her to this, and yet he was unable to condemn them both to the misery that would follow if they settled for anything less.

“What do you want me to be?”

Companion, friend, wife, lover. “It’s not so much what I want you to be, Charlotte. It’s what we both should feel. I haven’t seen you in five years, and we knew little enough about each other then. You put me in a position where I had to marry you, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to throw away our chance at happiness. I think we can have a happy life together, but only if we are first given the chance to learn about one another, to grow to…to have feelings for each other, something more than just the physical desire that we both feel.”

Her eyes shimmered with tears. Then her gaze dropped to his feet as she made her soft admission. “I can’t help the way you make me feel. My body burns for you. I want to touch you and taste you and have you touch me. My womanly parts tingle at the thought of you, Dare.”