Lyle stares at me, wordlessly, his eyes blazing with hunger to rival my own. I don’t understand why he’s fighting this. Why he seems hellbent on delaying the inevitable. But I know desire when I see it, and I am not above doing whatever it takes to tip him over the edge. To send him careening down the same bottomless well of want I’ve fallen into. Need is not a strong enough word for what I’m feeling. Even desperation falls short.

“Make me yours, husband,” I all but beg. “In more than just name.”

Denial sits on the tip of his tongue, threatening to annihilate my already fragile feelings. “I have no control when it comes to you, Li’l Bit.” With a defeated grunt, he rises to his feet, taking me with him.

“On the contrary,” I challenge, tightening my arms around his neck when he shifts my body so that he’s holding me bridal style. As he starts up the seemingly endless steps, I press a kiss to his neck and whisper, “I think you’ve exhibited far too much…for way too long.”

With a loud groan, he comes to a stop, kicking open the door to what I must assume is his bedroom. “Soon, we’ll have a house of our own, and I’ll carry you over the threshold like a proper married couple,” he says, apology marring his handsome face. “For now, this room’ll have to do.”

“A tent would do, as long as I’m with you.”

“Fuck,” he groans before ceremoniously sweeping us through the doorway. “You say the hottest things.”

“I mean it.” I bring a hand to rest on his cheek, and my heart takes off at a canter. “I don’t need any of this fame and fortune.”

He eases me to my feet, keeping my body pressed against his. “You really mean that,” he says, gnawing on his lower lip as he gazes at me intently.

“I loved you back when you had a bird chest and knobby knees,” I tease, slipping my hands under his jacket. I scoop them over his broad shoulders and watch as the gray blazer hits the floor with a thud. “With acne and body odor.” I fake a shudder. “Of course, I mean it.”

“Body odor?” he scoffs, beginning the arduous task of plucking bobby pins from my hair. “You must be remembering one of your other crushes.”

“I said what I said,” I sass, loosening his rose-colored tie while glancing around at the impressive room. A huge four poster bed looms in the center beneath a gorgeous crystal chandelier. It’s unmade—the sheets rumpled and in complete disarray. “You live here,” I deduce when my eyes reach the mound of dirty clothes piled in the far corner.

“When we’re in town…”