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to keep her hips from moving. He was making her do that thing again where she spiraled up and up. Oh God, she pushed for the edge, but his mouth pulled away before she fell.
    Thomas’s breath was as gasping as hers when he rose over her. “I need to be inside you.” She’d never heard his voice so deep and ragged and…lustful?
    “Yes,” she agreed. Until she followed the length of his body with her eyes as he knelt between her legs. His manhood jutted away from his groin like a yearning…thing. It was huge.
    “It’ll be all right,” he promised. “You’re ready for me. I’ll go slow.”
    Propped up on an elbow, she extended her hand and gently folded her fingers around his manhood. How could something she couldn’t get her fingers around ever fit in there? Thomas groaned, and she shifted her attention to his face. His head was thrown back and his chest heaved. He had never been more gorgeous. His lean sailor’s body tensed when she gave an exploratory squeeze. She let surprisingly soft skin glide through her hand until her fingers touched the bulbous head. A single bead of moisture pooled at the tip, and she used her thumb to spread it along the top.
    His flesh jumped in her hand, and he grasped her wrist, hard. “Careful,” he warned, his laughter harsh and strained.
    “I’m so sorry. Am I hurting you?”
    “No, you’re killing me so good.” He showed her how to move her hand, but he only gave her time for two or three fluid strokes before he pulled her away for good and positioned himself at her entrance.
    Slowly he slid inside and he moved his hips until he reached a barrier. There was a momentary twinge, then just the feeling of fullness. Frankie lifted her knees farther apart. He bent and kissed her deeply, thrusting his tongue in her mouth at the same time his hips flexed and he pushed all the way in.
    “All right?”
    She nodded, and he began to move inside her. Grasping at the counterpane and then his forearms, she’d never expected lovemaking to be this intense. But then again, never in a million years could her naïve younger self ever have conjured the true, stunning beauty of an entirely naked Thomas, either.
    Closing her eyes, Frankie focused on the sensations running riot over her. The feel of his large hands holding her hips, the rapturous rhythm as he glided out then in again, a bit more forcefully each time. He brought her to that magical edge, and she raised her hips in chorus with his, straining to get there.
    “Look at me,” he commanded.
    The intensity of his gaze did it, and she flew off the precipice. Thomas followed her with a deep-throated roar and, seconds later, collapsed against her chest, his face buried in her neck. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and she kissed his brow. They lay like that, catching their breaths, for what felt like an eternity of bliss to Frankie. Eventually he shifted his weight to the side and levered himself from atop her. The fallen curtain was fairly cozy when he spread it over them in a makeshift blanket.
    He kissed her ear, her neck, her exposed shoulder. “I couldn’t have ever dared dream of such a homecoming, my dearest Francesca,” he said with closed eyes and a sleepy voice. His heavy arm hugged her tight to his chest, and one leg lay possessively over hers.
    Frankie wasn’t sorry, and she’d never regret what had happened here today. Knowing her past, some might consider what machinations had come into play, but she understood that sometimes fate played the cruelest hand. The only thing crueler than bringing Thomas home to her now was that at last, after all these years, he was interested in her.
    Actually, the cruelest fate of all was that now she knew she would love him forever. There was no hope for it. She cuddled up against him and closed her eyes to luxuriate in the moment.
    And, as she fell asleep, she didn’t think about her fiancé even once.

Chapter Four
    When Thomas sleepily reached across the warm cover to pull