I wake before Sienna does.
The sun has not come up yet. Sienna is on her side, facing me, one of her hands tucked under her cheek, her hair loose across the pillow between us. The wine-colored satin is still tangled around her thigh from where I pulled it aside last night, the ribbon at her hip undone and trailing onto the bottom bedsheet.
For a long time, I don’t move.
My eyes go from the slow rise and fall of her ribs, to my mating mark at the side of her throat, to the black tendril on her collarbone that has crept another quarter of an inch since yesterday and that I cannot let myself look at for long this morning.
I pull the top sheet up to cover her, and then my hand finds her hip under it.
I trace the line of her ribs slowly, her skin warm from sleep. My palm opens against her side and stays there. I cannot stop touching her. There’s something in me that has been wound tight for so long, and seeing her here, breathing easily in my bedwith my mark on her, is loosening things in my chest at a rate I cannot keep up with.
She stirs.
A small sound goes into the pillow. Her eyes open slowly, blinking, and fix on mine.
She doesn’t speak. Neither do I.
For a few seconds, we just look at each other. Her face softens, and a quiet warmth goes through me from chest to gut. I smile down at her.
“What?” Her voice is hoarse from last night, eyes still sleep addled.
“I’ve been thinking,” I murmur.
“That sounds dangerous.” She burrows into me.
“If you seducing me is going to be an everyday thing”—my thumb moves once against her stomach—“I can get behind that.”
She huffs a small laugh into my chest. “I had no choice. You were acting like such a prude.”
My smile fades. “Sienna, I wasn’t ignoring your needs. I was trying to give you time. The mark—I took your choice away for that. I didn’t want you to think that I believed I now had complete access to you just because we’re mated. This, what happened last night…It had to be your choice.”
Her fingers press into my chest as she looks up at me. For days, I’ve been feeling the confusion in her, a strange distress that I didn’t know how to deal with. And now, it’s gone. Is that why she was upset this whole time?
“And here I thought you couldn’t get it up.”
My eyes narrow. “Excuse me? You thought what?”
The mischievous grin on her lips has me struggling not to spank her on the ass. I haven’t seen that smile in a while, either.
“I had to say that. Do you know how pent-up I’ve been? And there you were, kissing my forehead after walking around the bedroom shirtless. I was going to murder you, Lucas.”
I pull her closer. “I’m sorry. I should have talked to you.”
“Yes, you should have.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
I look at her hand on the pillow, the pale curve of her knuckles, the bare finger where one day I am going to put a ring, if she lets me.
“I’ve never been one to share my problems,” she says. “I wasn’t raised that way. I am the problem solver, so I thought I could handle it.”
I lift her hand and press my mouth to her knuckles, my eyes closing. “I love you,” I say against her fingers. “I’ve been wanting to tell you. Again.”
She goes still.
“I fell in love with you when I was still trying to push you away. I probably loved you before that and didn’t know what to do with it.” My eyes open. “I’m not asking you to say it back, Sienna. I just want you to know how I feel. You are the most precious person in my life.” Her expression is unreadable, and I realize she may not be ready for this. “I don’t want you to have to worry about saying it back. I just want you to know—”
“I love you, too, Lucas Steele.”