I shake my head, mustering the courage to saunter over to where he’s standing and flatten my palms to his hard chest. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Lyle sucks his lower lip into his mouth, scraping it through his teeth, his expression positively feral as he stares down at me like a mountain lion poised and ready to pounce. “What do you want to do, then?”

My body is a livewire, set to burst into flames at any moment. I no longer possess the required restraint to hold back, so I don’t even try. “You.”

Lyle wheezes at my shameless reply, but instead of capitalizing on the offer, his face becomes twisted with indecision. “Come here.”

Dejected, I trail behind him to the worn leather armchair in the corner, wondering what he could possibly be thinking so hard about.

He bends at the waist, dropping into the chair with a groan before hauling me into his lap.

“We don’t have to do this tonight.” With a tender caress, he brushes the hair from my face. “Let’s take things slow…get reacquainted. I’m not expecting anything.”

He curls a finger beneath my chin and strokes his thumb back and forth over my lower lip. “A lot has happened in a very short time, and I don’t want you to think you’re under any obligation to have sex with me just because we suddenly find ourselves married.” His soft smile is meant to soothe, but it feels like salt to my wounded heart. “We have our whole lives ahead of us.”

I realize he’s trying to be noble, and tomorrow might even appreciate the gesture. But right now, there is nothing I want more than to be ravished by this man. What feels like a lifetime of pent-up sexual energy has me at my breaking point.

“We’ve been denying ourselves for years.” The fear of rejection seeps into my voice despite my best effort to hide it. “I want you,” I say with heat stinging the backs of my eyes, “so much it hurts.”

Lyle’s Adam’s apple bobs. His gaze grows dark, and his brow puckers with regret.

“Don’t cry.”

Desperate lips mold to mine, his tongue seeking and soothing. With measured strokes, he slips in and out, quieting my fears with each loving caress of his tongue against my own. “I want you too,” he huffs, the warmth of his breath only stoking the flames raging inside me, “more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”

“Then have me.” The air I’m holding burns in my lungs as I watch and wait for his reaction.