Knew it was time.

He could almost feel the reins sliding, the leashes falling away as he released her hands, twisted around and stripped off his trousers. Kicking them aside, he turned back to her, then rose to sit back on his ankles. Hands resting on his thighs, he watched her, waited for her lashes to flicker, waited to see the green glitter of her eyes.

When he did, he held out both hands. “Come.”

With his fingers, he beckoned. She stared at him, then struggled up, her tongue skating over her lips. She blinked at him, then swung around, up onto her knees, and gave him her hands. “How?”

He didn’t answer, but drew her nearer.

Her gaze fell to his groin.

He released one of her hands and reached for her hip.

She closed her hand about him.

The jolt nearly stopped his heart. Eyes closing, he groaned, and felt her fingers flutter.

He groaned again and grabbed her wrist. He’d intended to draw her hand away but her fingers closed again.

“Show me how.”

Her grip eased, tightened-he couldn’t form the words much less say them.

“Like this?”

Her sultry voice, deepened by passion, heated by desire, burned through his brain.

He managed to nod, to force his fingers to function and direct hers. He heard her chuckle, then she leaned her head against his chest. The sensation of her hair, the silky mass of curls, tumbling down his bare chest made him shudder. She tightened her fingers again and he bit back a moan.

He showed her more than he’d intended, captured by the feel of her small hand on him, by the curiosity in her touch, the wonder and wantoness behind the deed.

“Enough.” He had to stop her. Now, while he still had some semblance of control.

She let him draw her hand away, then shook off his hand. With a warm chuckle that only increased his pain, she reached for his thighs, grasping just above his knees, then ran her hands slowly upward, nearly to his groin. Her silky locks swung forward and caressed his aching flesh.

The sensation rocked him; he mentally swayed. Before he could reach for her, she leaned on his thighs and pushed away. Supple and light, she rose to her feet. Stepping lightly on the soft bedding, hands trailing his shoulders for balance, she placed her feet on either side of his spread knees, then sank down.

His hands closed about the backs of her thighs and he directed her. Held her to him, her stomach against his chest as she lowered herself against him. He supported her when she reached the point where she had to turn her feet, and change from standing to sinking down on her knees. Straddling him.

She shook her hair back, wrapped her arms about his shoulders, then set her lips to his. Her inner thighs rode across his hips; her knees hadn’t yet reached the bed. She pressed against him, pressed down, letting her weight take her to him, urging him, still holding her, to guide her the last part of the way.

He did, one question coalescing in his brain even as he took charge of their kiss, took charge of their joining. He set the question aside as her slick swollen flesh met, then engulfed his throbbing erection. He eased into her, reveling in the heat, in the fascinating combination of firmness and softness with which she sheathed him. She was tight, slick, scalding hot. Her weight, and her state of arousal, would have allowed him to fill her with a single sharp thrust. Instead he went slowly, searching… reminding himself she rode daily, albeit sidesaddle…

He was deep in their kiss, half-buried in her body, when he met the resistance. The barbarian within him growled with satisfaction. He ravaged her mouth, drew her attention deep into the kiss, then, his hands locked about her hips, he lifted her just enough, then lowered her firmly, pushing deep, then deeper, rupturing the last barrier and filling her.

She pulled back from the kiss on a gasp, then made a strangled, whimpering sound and rested her forehead against his chest. She breathed deeply. Her fingers dug into his shoulders; her spine stiffened, and her body clamped hard around him, then gradually, increment by increment, eased. She was small-he wasn’t. He released her hips and wrapped his arms about her, one hand sliding beneath the veil of her hair to stroke her back.

Every muscle he possessed was quivering, straining with the need to plunder the vulnerable, heated softness of her body. Yet he forced himself to wait, to bend his head and lay his cheek on her hair and simply hold her, until her pain subsided.

He felt her draw in a shuddering breath. When she tried to shift, he locked his arms about her. “No. Wait.”

Her body hadn’t yet softened, hadn’t yet recovered from the shock. In another minute or two it would, and her ability to cope with his invasion, and the possession to come, would increase.

She was content to wait. One small hand lay, fingers spread, on his chest. He covered it with his hand, then lifted it to his lips and kissed each fingertip, drawing each into his mouth before releasing it.

He had her attention. Bending his head, he kissed her, gently at first, then increasingly passionately as she responded, as her body softened and heated anew, reacting to the caress of his hands, then the more intimate caress of his body as he rocked her.

Then she started to move, and it was he who was rocked. She’d reached up and framed his face, her forearms braced on his chest as her tongue whispered over his with promises of surrender, of the heated spoils of conquest. Using her knees on the slippery satin but even more the contact of her thighs with his, she undulated upon him. She didn’t lift and slide down as untutored ladies did. She used her whole body in a sinuous, heart-stopping, mind-numbing, senses-stealing movement that caressed him from rock-hard thighs to his lips and beyond.

She captured him, his mind, his body, his senses-all were hers to command. And command she did. He had no idea how long he simply held her, his hands splayed, one on her back, one below her waist, and took in all she lavished on him. Drank as he hadn’t drunk in years.

The movement started from her hips. She pressed down, taking him all, her inner thighs, the softness of her caressing his groin. The wave started from there and traveled her spine in a slow, controlled roll, pressing her stomach, her waist, then her chest, and finally her sumptumous breasts along his body. At the last, her mouth would press to his, open and inviting, luring him deep, then the wave would recede, slowly falling back in an even more enticing caress as she softened, body beckoning. And then it would start again.

His mind was reeling when he lifted his head and drew in a shuddering breath. Shifting one hand to the back of her head, he fisted it in her hair and drew her back so he could look into her face.

Eyes more deeply green, more intense than any emerald glinted up at him from under heavy lids.

“How did you know?” His question-the one for which he could not conceive of an answer. She’d been as innocent, as virginal, as he’d suspected, yet… she could love him like this-like a concubine from some sultan’s seraglio, skilled and practiced in the sensual arts.

He didn’t need to elaborate; her lips curved into a widening smile. “My parents.”

Dumfounded, he stared at her. “They taught you?”

She laughed, breathlessly, yet he felt the sound go through him like a shot of the finest brandy, searing straight to his gut, then sliding and pooling lower, fuel for his fire. He released her hair and she pressed to him once more. “No. I watched.” She caught his eye, her lips languidly curved. “I was an only child.” Her words were little more than a whisper, her body restless on his. “When I was young, my bedroom connected to theirs. They always left the door open, so they would hear if I called. I used to wake and go in… sometimes they didn’t… notice. After a while, I’d go back to my bed. I didn’t understand, not until later, but I remember.”

As the memories rolled through her, Francesca gave mute thanks. Without her loving parents, without their love for each other, she would never have had a chance for this. For now-for the experience of having a man like her husband at her mercy, caught by the splendor of her body, held by the promise of all she could give him. It was a heady thought, one small victory amid the defeats. One thing for which she would remember her wedding night.

Spearing her fingers through the wiry hair on his chest, she searched, then ducked her head and licked. Nipped.

His arms closed about her like the steel cage she knew they could be. He nudged her, and she lifted her head. He swooped and captured her mouth in a kiss that blazed.

One arm shifted to lock her hips to him, and she was suddenly more aware than she had been for some time of the hard, ridged strength buried inside her, of the latent power in the body she had, until then, held captive. The discovery rolled through her as he plundered her mouth, then he lifted his head, and breathed against her swollen lips, “Second act.”

She’d seen it before, but never felt it. Never been the woman at center stage. Tonight, she was-all that was done was done to her, to her flesh, to her body, to her senses. Since seating himself within her, he’d barely moved, letting her use her body to caress him. That changed. His hold on her was restricting, but she could still move upon him, and did, but her reason was no longer to please him, but to assuage the hunger, the need that flowered and grew within her-the need he expertly fed.

He moved with her, within her; he now controlled their dance. As he surged deep inside her, filling her, impaling her, only to retreat and do it again, she tried to cling to sanity, and failed. The unnameable need blossomed within her-she could deny it no more than she could deny him. The slickness of her body, her movements upon him an uninhibited encouragement, she strove to appease that need. And him.