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He caught her right hand that continued to fiddle with her skirts, stilling that restless gesture, and she looked at their joined hands and then up at him.

“You should, Marcia,” he said quietly. “You should think about what you want, and you should take it, because you deserve it.”

Her lips parted slightly, and the heavy quiet of the midnight still magnified the little sigh that escaped her. When her eyes went soft, his mind balked at everything he saw there.

Andrew swiftly yanked his hand free, unnerved, because he couldn’t let his mind go to that level of a relationship with Marcia. He couldn’t let them go there. Only hurt awaited on the other side.

The disappointment she was helpless to hide radiated from a gaze that had always been so very expressive, and it served as proof for him to worry about their marriage becoming anything more than what it was.

Clearing his throat, Andrew grabbed his notepad and jumped up. “It is late,” he said quickly and helped her up. “You should retire.”

“Yes.” She lingered. “But I don’t want to.” Marcia lifted her eyes to his. “I want to stay here with you.”

She wanted to stay here with him.

Did he merely imagine the double meaning to those words, that she wished to remain in his home and wanted to be in his bed. And for the first time in his life, he wanted more from a woman. He wanted so much more with Marcia, but he was desperate enough to take whatever she was willing to offer him.

Andrew looped an arm around her waist, and with a breathy sigh, she was already melting against him.

Their mouths were on each other, and all the emotions of that night consumed him, desperation fueled by the relief of knowing she was unharmed lent an intensity to their embrace.

“I nearly went mad tonight, Marcia,” he rasped between kisses, “imagining what they would do to you.”

She clung to him, returning that kiss. “He didn’t. I am fine,” she promised. “I am here with you, and I am not going anywhere.”

She was not going anywhere.

Exalted by that avowal, Andrew deepened their kiss.

There was a desperation to their lovemaking, an unbridled rawness to every slash of his lips against hers and in the hands they roved over each other.

Andrew caught her under her buttocks, filling his hands with that supple flesh and drawing her against the long line of his erection.

Marcia whimpered and moved rhythmically in a gyration as old as time.

He should gentle this meeting. Even though they’d made love over and over this week, she was still a lady.

But she wouldn’t allow him to slow. “Please,” she begged, and he guided them down onto the ground. Shoving her skirts up, he lay between her legs and plunged himself inside the warmest, wettest sheath he’d ever entered.

Crying out, Marcia arched her back and neck. “Andrew!”

“You are so wet for me,” he praised as she lifted her hips in time to his.

When Marcia cried out again, Andrew joined her in her surrender, shouting his release to the skies above as he came inside her. He continued thrusting, ringing every last drop of pleasure from her, and then he collapsed, catching himself by his elbows and framing her body with his.

They remained that way, locked in each other’s embrace, their chests heaving and their breaths coming in fast pants, until it settled into a smooth, even rhythm. And still, they just remained that way. Holding one another.

A better man would let her go. He’d let her pack her things and go back to her parents’ home.

When she went, she’d steal his very reason for smiling and living.

He loved her.

He’d never be worthy.

But mayhap it wasn’t about being worthy. Mayhap it was, as Rutland had said, about being the best version of himself that he might be, not just for her, but for him. He loved her, and he needed her to know that, and then if she still did—

His mind shied away from that.