He was quiet for a long moment. Truly quiet, as if he was giving this real thought, not just waiting for her to finish so that he could talk.

She liked that, too.

“What do you want, Mercy?” he finally asked, completely serious. “Do you want to wait? If so, I can do that. Do you want to dip your toe in?” He lifted one blond brow. “Or cannonball?”

She covered her eyes with her hands. “Oh my God. Really, Rafe?”

He nuzzled her neck, kissing up her jaw to behind her ear. “Really, Mercy. We can do nothing or everything or something in between. Whatever it is, I am pretty sure it’ll be glorious.”

He was teasing her, but only a little. And only to put her at ease. Which worked surprisingly well. “I want to be brave. You know. Sexually.”

His voice lost its teasing, but his mouth stayed on the skin behind her ear. “You don’t have to be.”

She dropped her hands from her eyes, meeting his. “But I want to be. I want to be brave with you.” She winced. “But maybe not cannonball. Not just yet.”

His lips twitched and his hand moved over her shoulder to the top button of her pj’s. He toyed with it, making her shiver again. “But maybe dipping your toe in? The water’s warm.”

She laughed again. “God, we’re like middle schoolers, aren’t we?” Then she closed her eyes on a gasp when he let go of her button and covered her breast with his palm, only the thin layer of her pj’s keeping them from being skin on skin.

“I’m much better at this than I was in middle school. I promise. Can I show you?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Please.”

He slipped the first button free, kissing the skin he’d bared. His lips were soft and warm and made her body edgy and tight as she waited for him to go on.

“You say ‘stop’ or ‘no’ or anything like that and I’ll stop,” he said, back to serious. “I promise.”

“I trust you.”

He shuddered, dropping his forehead to her collarbone. He was quiet, motionless for so long that she stroked a tentative hand through his hair. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s all right. All good. I was scared that you were afraid of me. I’m still afraid that if I move too fast, I’ll scare you away.”

She shifted to kiss his hair. “I’d come back.”

He looked up abruptly. “But I would have scared you to start with. I never want you to be afraid of me.”

She traced the line of his eyebrows, the slightly crooked ridge of his nose, his lips. “I’m not. I never have been. There’s something about you that makes me feel safer than I’ve ever felt. But, Rafe?”

“Yes?”

“Can we go back to dipping our toes in? Because that felt really nice.”

His smile was beautiful. Glorious, even. “Absolutely.” He returned his focus to her buttons, freeing them one by one until her top lay loosely open, but still covering everything important. He drew a breath and held it before brushing her top aside, then went still. “You are more beautiful than I imagined.” He glanced up. “And I imagined, Mercy. A lot.”