“I tried once,” he said, as though reading my thoughts. He squeezed and stroked my cheeks. “I really fucking tried, but I couldn’t even kiss her, let alone take her home, so I fled the tavern like a mutt with my tail between my legs.”

I bit my lips, trying to keep from laughing when he muttered, “She and her friends likely had fun with that.” He stared down at me with his thumb brushing the apple of my cheek. “I don’t like it when you cry.”

“Remember that next time you feel inspired to make me.”

His eye danced, and he lowered his head to mine. “It won’t happen again, I swear it. Not because of me—not because of anyone if I can help it. I just want to keep you, to get rid of this fear of losing you, and I don’t know how.”

I didn’t know either. I couldn’t reassure him or myself. But I wanted him anyway. I would have him anyway.

“You could start by kissing me,” I suggested.

A ragged exhale heated my ear, then I was in his arms, and he was striding through the door. He set me on the counter, his mouth pressing to my cheek. He treated the other to the same, our eyes and noses meeting briefly, and then his mouth slammed over mine.

My skirts were lifted and torn and my legs opened.

His pants were pushed beneath his ass. Blood pooled over my tongue when his canine caught it, and I moaned when he licked and groaned. I was pulled to the very edge of the countertop, my thighs spread wide and the head of his cock rubbing through me, testing me.

Then entering me.

His mouth froze over mine with his hitched breath. Our foreheads met as he peered down to watch my body swallow all of him. “I don’t deserve this,” he whispered, almost as if to himself. “But that won’t stop me from trying to.”

My heart rattled. Needing to touch him, I snuck my hands beneath his tunic to explore his flexing back. I gasped when he slowly withdrew and then rammed back in, my nails scoring into his skin.

“I should apologize for taking you the way I did the other night.”

“Don’t bother,” I warned, my lips skimming the coarse hair at his jawline and my legs clenching tight around his waist.

He held my thigh and the back of my head, fingers entangled in my hair. “Do you wish to be tied to my bed again?”

“I will be disappointed if that was the last time.”

He hummed, turning his head for his mouth to steal mine. He kissed me with a lingering softness that radiated through me. “We can’t have you disappointed, wildflower.”