And as he returned that kiss, deepening it, she’d never been more certain of anything in the whole of her life.

Myrtle didn’t sleep.

It had been two hours since Val had awakened her body in all the ways it could be awakened, two hours since he’d opened her to the most magnificent pleasures.

He snored when he slept.

Nor was it that snoring which kept her awake long after he’d made love to her.

Curled against his large, slumbering form with her chin resting on his chest, Myrtle continued to study him in slumber. His rugged features, always carefully drawn in a mask or in a scowl, were soft in sleep. As if this were the time when he was freed from his sadness and anger, and he looked so . . . peaceful.

Another shuddery snore split the quiet, and she smiled wistfully.

It was one detail she’d wondered about him . . . just because she’d wondered so much where he was concerned. It was also a question she’d thought she’d never have an answer to.

Only she had.

She touched her fingers to his cheek, and he moved against her touch.

Myrtle bit her lower lip.

And she wanted to memorize this moment, every part of it, every aspect of him and her time with him. She wanted to commit those memories to her mind so that when they parted and she was living a life without him, and he was continuing on without her, she might pull forth this image of him, rested in slumber after he’d made love to her.

He’d do right by her.

She knew that.

When the sun rose and a new day reared its head, Val would be who he’d always proven himself to be: a man of honor. Even with her heart crying out to take him however she could have him, she’d not have him this way.

Tears threatened, and she did not fight them. She let them fall until his visage grew blurry, and then she blinked those drops away because they were stealing these last looks she’d have of him.

Myrtle inched over to the edge of the bed, and then ever so slowly, she carefully swung her legs over the side until her feet touched the chilled hardwood floor.

She stood, and the mattress dipped ever so slightly, so faintly as to barely move, and yet Val stirred, shifting and stretching an arm out for her, as if in his sleep he sought her out.

But then he rolled onto his opposite side, his other muscle-hewn arm flung to the far side of the mattress so that his fingers hung down.

Tiptoeing over, she shifted that limb to rest comfortably on the mattress so that when he did awaken, the muscles wouldn’t tingle with numbness.