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“I did,” she admitted. “I feel like I’d like to bite you everywhere.”

“This is it, Tarley.” He reached down and grasped her ass to lift her, walking her backwards.

“What?” she asked, not really wanting him to talk.

“My birthday wish.”

“You wished for this?”

“Sort of.”

The admission did something to her heart, melting a layer of ice and rock she’d built around it for protection. “You wished for me?”

“Oh stars, Tarley. Yes.” He helped her onto the bed, and she laid back, pulling him with her. It groaned under their combined weight.

“I’ve been dreaming about you,” she admitted. “For weeks.”

“Sex dreams?”

She nodded.

“Have you touched yourself thinking about it?”

“Yes.”

He moaned and kissed her. Lips. Tongue. Teeth. Raw hunger claimed them both. Lachlan grabbed the hem of her dress and looked for her leg underneath. When his hand found her skin, he slid his palm up her bare leg, his new callouses rough and welcome.

His mouth left hers and made a trail to her neck, licked, sucked, tasted, savored, his hand near her knee. “May I touch you,” he asked.

“Please. Please,” she said and turned toward him, drawing his mouth back to hers.

Lachlan reached up and caressed her breasts over her dress, molded them, conformed them to the palm of his hand. “Gods, you look so good in this dress.”

Tarley arched her back into his touch, and his mouth left hers again.

“What did you dream?” He asked the question against her skin.

“This,” she breathed, her hands in his hair as he moved lower, his warm mouth closing over her nipple, the soft silk creating a pleasing friction. She moaned and closed her eyes. “Your touch. Your kiss. You inside me.”

“Tell me more.”

“I can’t think–” she said, wrapped up in all the sensations his hands, his mouth, his body was igniting in hers.

He pulled back, his eyes seeking hers, his hands smoothing her hair. “Marry me, Tarley.”

She paused, knowing she could say yes, but the word lodged in her throat.

He didn’t wait for her answer, as if he had his mind made up about what she intended to say, sighing as if resigned. “What’s wrong with me that you won’t even consider it?” He moved off her, the creak of the bed and the cool air that moved across her highlighting his absence. “Is the idea of being my wife—my queen—so terrible?” He sat on the edge of the bed, arms pressed against his thighs. “Help me understand.”

She sat up, his words feeling like knives in her heart. “Is that how I’ve made you feel?”

He looked over his shoulder, but his eyes separated from her. “Your kiss tells me something different–”

“What does it tell you?” she asked, pressing a palm to his back.

“That you want me as much as I want you.” He looked at her then.

“The day of your birthday,” she said, “I was coming down to tell you I would marry you.”