For now, he bent to touch his lips to hers and as he lifted his head, he shuffled her backwards deeper into the room and lowered his voice to say, “I wish to be present when you disrobe, dove. Do not change. Tonight you sleep na**d pressed beside me.”

He watched with surprise and some confused disquiet as he thought he almost caught a wince before her expression cleared, she pressed into him and she whispered, “Okay, honey.”

He drew in breath, let it go, gave her a squeeze and released her to see his children.

They were asleep in their beds, Balthazar in Élan’s room, Quincy in Christophe’s.

He got nods from the men, returned them and made his way back to Maddie.

When he closed and locked her door, he found her again staring out the window. Her borrowed cloak was thrown over a chair. Her borrowed dress still on.

She’d fed the fire and lit a lamp by the bed.

But now, she stood unmoving, her eyes to the window.

“Close the drapes, dove,” he ordered gently and again watched her start and turn to him.

She nodded and did as ordered as he walked to the side of the bed closest to her and sat down.

“Come to me, Madeleine,” he said, his voice still gentle.

As he wished, she came to him and she did it close, stopping between his spread legs.

He lifted his hands and put them to her hips, his head tipped back to keep hold of her eyes.

“Are you sore from your endeavors tonight, my poppy?” he asked.

“I don’t feel anything,” she answered.

He didn’t relish the way she said that, her voice strangely without emotion. However, he suspected after all that had befell her that eve, it would take much to process it, including time.

But he would be there to help her do it.

“You’ll feel it on the morrow,” he murmured.

“Probably,” she murmured back, her eyes drifting.

“You’re safe, Maddie,” he assured her.

She drew in a breath and nodded to the headboard.

“Madeleine,” he called and she looked back to him. “I wish to ask something of you.”

Her eyes held his in a way he found strange, moving, yet troubling, even as she lifted her hand and cupped his jaw.

Once she’d touched him, she whispered, “I’d do anything for you, Apollo.”

Her words, the way she said them, now full of emotion, the way she touched him, gentle and light, he felt his gut tighten.

Perhaps she wasn’t processing what happened that evening.

Perhaps she was processing something else entirely.

His gut tightened further.

“Give me your foot,” he directed, his voice suddenly gruff.

She tipped her head to the side, but dropped her hand and lifted her foot.

He slid her borrowed slipper off.

“The other,” he said once he’d dropped it to the floor.

Her eyes on him, she did as bid.

He slid that one off as well.

“Now remove your dress, poppy.”

She pressed her lips together but her hands did not delay in moving to the fabric, bunching it in her fingers and pulling it up and off.

She let the dress glide from her fingers to the floor and stood before him wearing nothing but an emerald green satin bustier that dipped low at the back, her br**sts barely contained in the cups at the front, and it had bronze ribbons adorning its boning. She also wore a pair of matching satin panties.

He felt his c**k pulse as his gaze moved over her. Her soft skin. Her curves. Her abundant hair glimmering in the firelight. Her beautiful eyes directed at him.

There she was.

His Maddie.

Alive.

Breathing.

Beautiful.

His.

His voice was now gruff for more than one reason when he instructed, “Discard your panties, Madeleine, then free me and climb in my lap.”

He watched her lids lower, her lips part and he felt both in his throat, his gut and his shaft. Then she slid her thumbs into her panties and tugged them down.

His c**k started aching.

She bent to him and he felt her fingers working at the buttons of his trousers.

At that, his shaft throbbed.

She pulled him free and caught his eyes as she positioned; first one knee in the bed, then the other, climbing on.

“Guide me inside,” he whispered.

She licked her lips and he felt her reach between them, her hand wrapping around him. He stifled the rumble rolling up his chest as she slid the tip of him through her wet silkiness until he caught at her opening.

Gazing at him, slowly, she glided down until he filled her.

Apollo wrapped his arms around her, head tipped back to keep her gaze, his voice nearly hoarse when he kept whispering. “This is us, my dove.”

“It is, Lo,” she whispered back, her sex pulsating around his shaft.

“You’re safe,” he repeated.

“Yes.” She was still whispering.

“You’re mine,” he declared, his voice now almost guttural.

She closed her eyes, dropped her head so her forehead was resting on his and lifted both hands to wrap them around either side of his neck.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“Look at me, poppy.”

Her eyes opened but she didn’t lift her head.

“I wish to lie back and watch you take me.”

Her forehead rolled on his as she nodded. “Anything, Apollo.”

Gently disengaging from her hold, he lay back.

She kept his gaze as he did and once he was settled, his hands at her hips, she started moving.

Apollo watched.

And felt.

And listened.

And as he did, he memorized it all. Every wet, sleek inch of her he could feel gliding on his cock, her thighs pressed to his hips, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, her br**sts moving against the satin, her gaze on him heating with each stroke, her soft gasps each time she filled herself with him.

“Faster, dove,” he encouraged.

“Yes,” she breathed, moving faster on him as he watched.

And he watched as she raised her arms, her hands moving behind her neck, lifting up her hair as if its touch, the sway of it against her skin was too much.

His Madeleine.

Sheer beauty.

“Keep your hair up, Maddie,” he groaned.

“Yes, baby,” she whimpered, moving faster, her soft gasps coming quicker, deeper. “Lo, I need your thumb,” she begged and he immediately gave it to her.

When he pressed in and rolled, he watched her back arch.

“God,” she moaned.

“Take me, Maddie,” he ordered, now bucking his hips, watching her take him, her br**sts nearly spilling out of the satin.