While she hated to admit it, she’d felt a spark of guilt when they’d come together before, had worried about being a fallen woman. But now she experienced nothing but pure, unadulterated joy. They were legal. Any children she gave birth to would be legal. They would not be looked down upon because of the circumstances of their birth. They would know their father as the good man he was. They would be surrounded by aunts, uncles, and cousins who loved them.

Without breaking away from the kiss, she began loosening his buttons.

“Anxious, are you?” he teased against her lips.

“Very much so. We need to put your deft fingers to work.”

Chuckling low, he did just that, and in short order, their clothes were strewn about the floor and they were strewn about the bed, a tangle of limbs, bodies gliding and sliding as mouths kissed, bit, and suckled. It seemed impossible that her skin could be more sensitive to his touch, and yet it was, as though it had learned that the movements of his fingers signaled that pleasure was waiting in the wings and would be arriving at any moment.

“I can’t sleep when you’re not in my bed, in my arms,” he rasped as his tongue laved the peak of her breast.

“Then you should sleep well tonight.” She nipped at the curve where neck met shoulder, then sucked passionately, knowing she would leave a mark, but wanting some evidence that she was there, and would be again. Night after night. Day after day.

“My parents slept in separate bedchambers. I don’t want that for us.”

“Neither do I.” Tossing back the thick waves of her hair, she straddled him. “I’ve waited for you my entire life. Why wouldn’t I want to sleep with you?”

Spreading his fingers on either side of her face, he brought her down for a kiss, plunging his tongue sure and deep, circling and stroking. Sliding his hands down her back, he pressed her to him, and rolled until she was on bottom, he on top. He gazed down on her with so much love reflected in the green depths of his eyes that she nearly wept. A corner of his mouth hitched up. “Fancy Sommersby.”

“Today you gave me your name. I gave you my heart.”

“I think you gave me your heart before.”

She nodded. “And you gave me my shop.”

“That’s just the start of everything I’m going to give you.”

“I’ve married a man of means.”

“Considerable means.”

She gnawed on her lip. “Could you really have purchased all the books in my shop?”