“Don’t leave. Please don’t leave me, Serena.”

She didn’t answer him with words, simply slid her hand through his and led them back to his room.

Desperate to make right everything that he’d nearly destroyed, he begged, “Forgive me.” His words were muffled against the top of her head where he was pressing one kiss after another to her hair. Hell, she should leave him for this alone, if only to get away from a guy who wanted too much from her, who needed more from her than anyone else ever had. “I shouldn’t ask you to forgive me again, not when I promised never to screw up like I did that first night, but I can’t stop myself from asking. And I can’t stop hoping that you will.”

She turned her face up to his so that his next kiss landed on her mouth instead of her hair. “I already have. Especially since I should have waited until you were ready to show the pictures to me and talk about them, too.” She slid one hand up between their chests and laid it over his racing heart. “I…” He could see that she was nervous about what she was about to say. “I care so much about you. So, so much, Sean.”

He badly wanted to tell her what he’d realized last night—that he was in love with her. So in love that he could hardly think straight anymore. But he’d already done enough to screw things up for one morning. If she didn’t feel the same way, if she wasn’t yet ready to move from caring about him to loving him...hell, the last thing he needed to do at this point was risk pushing her even further away by coming on too strong.

Still, for all that he was trying to hold back so that he didn’t scare her, when he said, “You’re amazing,” the two simple words came out so strong, so raw, that he knew he wasn’t hiding much at all from her.

When her lips found his at the same time his took hers, their kiss was more passionate, more intense, than he’d ever known a kiss could be. Her mouth on his tangled his senses, made him ache way down deep in the center of his chest.

“Please,” she whispered against his lips. “Please don’t stop with just a kiss today. Not when I need you so badly. Not when I need to know that we’re still real and that nothing has changed because both of us are sorry and both of us are forgiven, too.”

Needing all the same things, he captured her mouth in another searing, mind-bending kiss. Gripping the bottom of her sweatshirt and her T-shirt and her bra all together in his fists, he yanked at them so roughly that he nearly tore them as he pulled them over her head. And then...sweet Lord...she was standing there in front of him, bared from the waist up and so shockingly beautiful that the final threads of sanity he’d been trying to hold on to were lost in a rush of desire so strong it actually did take him to his knees.

“Serena.” He whispered her name in the exact moment he took her nipple onto his tongue. His hands cupped, caressed, teased her br**sts even as his mouth took, feasted, craved.

“Please,” she begged again, breathless now as she threaded her fingers into his hair and arched into his mouth. “Oh God, please don’t stop.”

No. He wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. Didn’t ever want to stop kissing her. Didn’t ever want to stop tasting her. All he wanted to do was claim her as his. Only his. Not only today. Not just this morning. But over and over and over again.

Forever.

He moved his attention to her other breast and licked over her with deliberate slowness, knowing that if he didn’t force himself to take his time, he’d later regret not savoring every single second. Not just of getting to be with her, but getting to be her first.

He knew by now that she’d never been with another guy…because she wouldn’t have trusted anyone the way she trusted him.

Earn it. He swore again to himself that he would earn her trust. Even more so in the aftermath of having lashed out and hurt her just minutes earlier. She’d just forgiven him again, and he’d make damn sure she wouldn’t regret opening herself up to him. That she wouldn’t regret being there for him. And that she wouldn’t regret staying.

He’d always made sure to stop them before things went too far. But today, the boundaries had shifted. Far enough that he wouldn’t stop at the edge today, but would take her all the way over it. No matter what else happened, he’d make sure she knew pleasure. The deep, amazing pleasure that she deserved...and that he was so damned lucky she trusted him to give her.

Finally rising from his knees, he kissed her long and deep before pulling back to look into her eyes. Just as he had every time they were together, he needed to make absolutely sure that he wasn’t moving too fast.

“Is it too much?”

“No. God, no. It isn’t nearly enough.”

He slowly moved his hands to the top of her jeans. “What about this?” He slid the button out of its hole. “Will this be too much? Because I’ll stop if you need me to.”

On a little frustrated growl that shot straight to his groin, she slid her hands from his hair to cover his over her zipper, and yanked it down. The next thing he knew, she was shimmying out of her jeans...and was standing before him in nothing but little white lace panties, at once both totally innocent and the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

“I can’t think when I’m looking at you,” he confessed in a half-whisper, half-groan. “I need a second to get a grip.”

But instead of giving him a chance to pull himself together, she put her thumbs in the slim sides of the lace that barely covered her. “I’ve wanted this with you since that first night. Since our first kiss.”

“I have, too,” he told her, but he still made himself cover her hands with his so that she had to hold the lace up against her hips rather than pull it down. Because once she was naked...

When she realized he wouldn’t let her strip off her underwear, she looked up at him with equal parts frustration and desperate lust. “Then why haven’t you? You’ve been so gentle, given me so much space and room it’s nearly driven me completely crazy. Especially knowing that you’ve done this with so many other girls, but not with me.”

“You’re not like the others, Serena. You’ll never be like the others.” She made him want to be a better man. “You’re special. You need to know how special you are.”

“You’ve always made me feel special.” She shifted her hands beneath his so that they were palm to palm. “Always. Even that first night, the way you held me, the way you kissed me, the way you looked at me...I’d never felt like that with anyone else.”