“The attentions of Wilkie Mackenzie were a conquest, an aspiration, a dream. The fresh memory of all those women, batting their eyelashes coquettishly, it boiled in my veins. One in particular. And Wilkie looked almost amused, now that his own jealousy had eased. “Are you jealous, my love?”

“You’re too sacred,” he continued, and his voice was husked with emotion. “You’re the one. My sunlit angel. My Roses. Mine.”

“He pushed himself a fraction deeper, still exploring his lazy rhythm. I could feel his thickness beginning to stretch me. The sensation was dizzying, and my vision blurred at the edges.“Is this what my Roses wants from me?” he whispered in my ear, biting the soft flesh of my lobe between his teeth. “Say it to me.”“Aye, warrior,” I gasped.”

“I began to turn my body, but he held me and laid me back onto the bed, insistently, kissing my breasts but not lingering, kissing a line down my stomach and lower. “You want me to prove to you that I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life, Roses. Is that true, aye? Because I just can’t take this anymore.”I gasped as he licked into my sensitive flesh, wetting me with his soft strokes, speaking soft words against my skin. “If you insist on doubting me, Roses, if you absolutely insist on breaking down every defense that I have with your tears and your plush, wet, ripe beauty, then that’s what I’ll have to do, lass. Is that what you want from me? Proof?”I could only sigh a soft response, already falling, burning, wanting too much.”

“The beauty of his face, artfully shadowed and lit from the fading firelight, it fairly stunned me.”

“...At that moment, our fates entwined, Roses. I know not why, but I know it to be true—I am bound to you forevermore. There is nothing to regret.”

“I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth.As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong.“Patroclus,” he said. He was always better with words than I.”