She looked at him now—the dark hair that fell to his shoulders, the strong, stubbled line of his jaw, the broad expanse of his chest. He was stunning in the glow of the room’s lanterns. His body was big and strong, and she could not help remembering all the times she’d been pressed against him—so, so close, but never close enough. Would tonight be the night that they took things one step further?

Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted when Kiran crossed toward her—two long strides eating up the distance between one blink and the next. He didn’t touch her, but he stood toe to toe with her, his head tilted down toward hers.

“What were you just thinking about?” he asked.

She knew a flush was rising in her cheeks, could feel the heat, but she met his eyes anyway. She was not embarrassed, not with him. When she thought she would have to marry Cassius, she’d been overcome with nerves at the thought of being intimate, being vulnerable with a man she barely knew. But now, the swooping feeling in her stomach was not nerves, but anticipation. She trusted Kiran with her heart. She was about to trust him with her greatest secret. It was surprisingly easy to trust him with her body as well.

“I was thinking about you,” she said.

“What about me?”

She didn’t hesitate. “How good it feels when you touch me.”

He hummed beneath his breath, and she knew he wanted to smile, could see the tension around his mouth as he tried to hold it back.

He raised his hand and caressed her cheek with his thumb. “When I touch you here?”

She leaned into his hand. “Yes.”

“And here?” he asked, trailing his fingers down over her jaw to dip beneath the leather collar she wore and graze the sensitive skin of her neck.

She tilted her head up, giving him more room, and he failed to fight off his smile this time. “You already know the answer,” she told him.

He chuckled, and a languorous heat unfurled in her belly. It really was as if the world outside had ceased to exist. There was no more worry, no more frustration or urgency or guilt. It was if they had all the time in the world.

“I do,” he said. “But I like hearing it all the same.”

“You mean your ego likes it.”

He snaked an arm around her middle and yanked her forward until she crashed into him.

“All of me likes it.”

And then he kissed her, and time couldn’t move fast enough.