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How did he know where to start? Had he done this for someone else? Who? He’d never been mated before, or so I’d thought. Who had he touched like this? Who had stood here, like I was now, feeling his touch?

“You’ve had another esposmata?” I tried to clear my mind from the image of his touching another woman. It was all this forced intimacy. It caused fake feelings of ownership, which were ridiculous. He’d said himself this was nothing but a ceremony. This was a farce of a union. Even if he’d gone through it before, and it had ended for some reason, so what?

“No, but I grew up with the stories and traditions.” His fingers worked one small knot, and I could feel every movement against my skin in the incredibly thin fabric. This had felt completely different when the older women helped me put it on.

How long was this going to take? There had been more of them, and it took quite a while. The amount of time it would take him to help me undress would almost be foreplay on its own. The amount of wine I’d drunk wasn’t doing me any favors.

“So you’ve never been mated before?” I asked.

“You only mate once,” he said, his voice growing rougher as he spoke.

Once. Was this it for him? “What if your mate dies? Or just…”Disappears? Goes away?

“It doesn’t matter. It’s only once.”

He was moving down toward my hip area, bending over. He stopped, and I thought I was going to get a moment to get a hold of the want that was beginning to burn inside of me. He took a seat on the bed, and then tugged me closer to stand in between his knees, and pretty much took my desires and held a blowtorch to them. It was all I could do to keep my breathing even, as my heart was begging for more air as it thrummed away in my chest.

“So I’m it? Even if I’m notactuallyit?” I asked, the silence almost worse than chattering.

“Yes.”

Did that mean I’d robbed him of the only wedding he’d ever have? I should’ve felt bad—a decent person would’ve—and yet I wanted to scream out to everyone he was mine.Onlymine, because the idea of him undressing another woman made…

He’s. Not. Mine.

“If I hadn’t transitioned—”

“It’s all right. I wasn’t planning on mating.”

I didn’t know if that made me feel better or worse, but it was hard to think of anything other than his hands on me as I stood in between his thick, muscular legs.

I stopped speaking because nothing was going to help. It was hard enough to try to act normal when I wasn’t talking. He’d work through some of the knots and then put his hands on my hips, turning me this way or that.

By the time the dress was loose enough to slide off, the purpose was beyond clear. He was still fidgeting with the fabric, even as I was holding it to my chest. I became fixated on his hands, his lips…

He looked up. Our faces were already so close.

Our eyes locked, and there was no denying the heat sizzling between the two of us.

“This won’t make it easier.” Even as his words warned me off, ran his hand along my shoulder, then down my side until he reached my waist, pulling me closer.

I reached for his shoulders, and the dress slipped to my waist.

His intake of breath was audible. “The curves of your hip, the dip of your waist—every part of you is perfect.”

I should’ve probably covered myself, but I was too enthralled with the way he was watching me to do it. He reached up and cupped each breast, feeling their weight. He grazed my nipple with his thumb, and I arched into his hand. His head dropped, his mouth following the place his hands had just been, his lips trailing along the same path.

His arms glided upward, and he threaded his hands through the hair at the base of my head.

I didn’t know who kissed who first, but his lips feathered over mine, nipping at my lower lip. I straddled his hips, wrapping my arms around his neck, feeling his shoulders and flesh.

He turned with me in his arms until I was lying under him on the bed, feeling his thick erection pressing against me. His hands ran over the crease of my waist to the curve of my hip and then the swell of my ass.

He got to his knees, grasping the dress that was bunched at my waist and pulling it off the rest of the way, letting it fall to the floor.

Used and discarded. Like I would be?

He knelt with a knee between mine, about to take my mouth in another kiss.