“Yes,” Merrick breathed.

For once! For once, at last, he was welcoming my touch, no longer terrified that his pleasure would be my undoing. I stroked him with both hands, blinded by the joy of it, greedily exploring all that had been withheld from me for so damned long, so tortuously long!

“Torture,” I moaned into his kiss, dazedly voicing my own thoughts.

“Yes,” he repeated, his breath hot and heavy against my lips as his hands kneaded my buttocks. “It was.”