When she goes limp, I lift her thigh from my shoulder and stand, carrying her to the bed to lay her on her back. I climb between her legs and kiss her with my mouth still wet from her. Her hands come around my waist, one settling on the scar on my back as she kisses me, a deep, slow kiss. Perhaps it’s not only her who needs soft right now.

I slide easily into her, thinking the impossible as I do. Three little words that I can never utter. The only ones I can think. I can feel. It would be so natural. So easy to say them. But the consequence would be fatal.

So I make love to her without ever saying the words. We watch each other without speaking. We kiss, never taking our eyes from one another. Tonight is not even about reaching a climax. It’s her clinging to me and me clinging to her and possibly being the closest we’ve ever been. As close as two human beings can get without burrowing beneath the other’s skin.

I pull out before I come. I’ve been careful about that, although I know I should use a condom. I just can’t with her. I need her heat. Skin on skin, I need to feel her.

When it’s over, we lie together, her on her back, me on my side holding her. Her fingers play over the scar on my back.

“Theron,” I say.

She looks at me, and it takes her a minute to understand.

“At his twenty-fifth birthday celebration.”

Her eyes grow more alert, and she turns toward me, fingers coming to my face.

“It’s when the Montgomery men receive the first installment of our inheritance.”

She doesn’t speak, just waits.

“I’m going to tell you a secret, Mercedes. Something I’ve never told anyone.” I brush a strand of hair that’s fallen across her forehead, and for a long time, I just look at her. It’s so long she must think I’ve changed my mind and gives me an out.

“You don’t have to tell me.” She sounds disappointed but unsurprised.

“I want to.”

She waits.

“We had a celebration on his birthday. I already knew the truth by then, but I didn’t know what my grandfather had planned. He was a cruel man. I think that was the day I realized how cruel even after everything I had seen.”

Mercedes curls into my side. I draw the blanket up to cover her when she shivers, and although I don’t look at her, I can see her in my periphery. She’s watching me intently.