His fingers trembled as they brushed the warm skin beneath her skirt.
It should have ended there — a startled gasp, a sharp rebuke, a whispered prayer to close the gates of temptation before they swung all the way open. That was how Gideon had always imagined he would handle such a moment if it ever came.
But this wasn’t imagined.
This was real.
Delilah shifted closer, the movement deliberate, the heat of her body wrapping around him like incense smoke, seeping into every breath. Her thighs parted just a fraction more, and he could feel the pulse of her heartbeat in the bare skin beneath his palm.
“I’m not a child anymore,” she murmured. Her voice was soft but sure, as if she had been preparing this truth for years. “You don’t have to protect me from this.”
He drew back slightly, jus
