“Jess,” he said, moving his hands away and taking hold of hers, his breath ragged like hers, skin warm, eyes glittering with desire. “Stop for a moment.”

“Why?” she whispered, wanting to kiss him again but he placed a finger on her lips.

“Because I want this night to last forever,” he said. “The last couple of days have been quiet but my men are going out on patrol tomorrow and I don’t know when I’ll see you again. It feels so good every time I’m with you that I just want to lose myself in it but let’s make it feel that good for as long as we have.”

Then he knelt down to kiss her belly, her whole body burning from both his words and his mouth.

For the next hour, he concentrated on precise areas of her skin: first her stomach, then he laid her down and kissed her breasts, tongue relentless, until she was right at the brink. The moment she arched backward, calling his name, he moved away and concentrated on her earlobes and then her neck, which almost drove her wild too. After a time, he played lightly between her legs, taking her almost to the precipice again before he rolled her onto her stomach and kissed the tops of her shoulders and the length of her spine.

She did the same. For a while she paid careful attention to his glorious chest with her mouth. Eventually, her hands crept down to wrap around him until he said her name in a voice so bathed in hunger that she stopped and concentrated on the soft skin on the underside of his forearms. When his breathing had settled a little, she took her mouth to his thighs and worked her way up, stopping again when his fists clenched.

At last she was lying on her back, arms stretched above her head, every inch of her skin flushed, eyes fixed to his, her whole body ready for him and this time when he touched her, she jolted and she cried out, “I can’t wait anymore.”

He slid into her and whispered in her ear, “Thank God. Because nor can I.”

As he rocked inside her, the strongest and most powerful feeling swept through her, as if she were truly inside him, inside his mind, seeing into his thoughts, feeling everything that he felt for her. The sensation was so visceral that she could do nothing other than look into his eyes as he looked into hers, joined by more than just flesh—souls entwined like those of lovers cast forever in marble, unable to be torn asunder.

At the end, her whole body shook and his too, and it was a long time before she thought she could speak. “Did you feel that?” she whispered against his cheek, because the way he’d looked at her made her believe that perhaps he had.

He threaded his fingers through hers and clasped her hand tightly. “I did.”

“What was that?” she asked in wonder.