A Night Like This

“You are the first man . . . The first man I’ve . . .”

She didn’t know how to say it. She wanted him to know every moment of her life, every triumph and disappointment. Most of all, she wanted him to know that he was the first man she had ever trusted completely, the only man to win her heart.

“I won’t be satisfied with anything less than everything,” he whispered. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to marry me.”

You are so beautiful,” he whispered. She must have heard those words before, thousands of times, but he wanted her to hear them from him. “You are so . . .”

But he didn’t finish, because she was so much more than her beauty. And there was no way he could say it all, no way he could put into words all the reasons his breath quickened every time he saw her.

“Daniel . . . ,” she said softly, and there it was again. His name, and it was like he’d never heard it before. Because when she spoke, he felt every sound like a caress. Every syllable landed on his skin like a kiss.

The urge to hold her closer was overwhelming. When he’d come into her room this morning he had told himself he would not touch her, he would not come close enough to feel the way the air moved across her skin. But this—he could not bear it.

But he wanted more. When he looked in her eyes, he wanted to understand everything, every moment that had brought her to this moment. He didn’t want to call it obsession—that seemed far too dark for what he felt.

A mad infatuation, that’s what it was. A strange and giddy flight of fancy. Surely he wasn’t the first man to have been so quickly enchanted by a beautiful woman.

It had been splendid. Marvelous. A kiss to deny all previous kisses. Really, he didn’t know what he’d been doing with all those other women, because whatever had happened when his lips had touched theirs, those had not been kisses.

Not like last night.

And whispered, “Kiss me.”

She would regret this tomorrow. Or maybe she wouldn’t. But right now she did not care. The space between them melted away, and his arms, so strong and safe, wrapped around her. And when his lips touched hers, she thought she heard him say her name again.

“I can kiss you now,” he said, “without the promise. Or we can do nothing, also without the promise. It is your choice.”

This kiss,” he said, his voice burning with tightly held desire. “This kiss . . . I wish for it with a fervor that shakes my soul. I have no idea why I wish it, only that I felt it the moment I saw you at the piano, and it has only intensified in the days since.”