She closed her eyes at the wicked words. Nodded.

“And you liked it.”

She nodded.

“One day, when I have more patience, we’ll try it again, with a smaller mirror. Closer. More private. I’ll let you tell me what to do. I’ll let you watch yourself come.”

The words sent a thrill through her, even as she resisted the idea of giving herself over to something so unexpected. So unclear. So strange and perfect.

He saw it—the hesitation—and raised one brow in a wicked challenge before he blew a long stream of cool air over her hot, desperate center. “You don’t think you’d like that?”

She exhaled on a shaking sigh. “I—”

“You are so perfect—” He flicked his tongue over the heat of her, sending a shock of sensation through her, her body somehow not her own when he was involved. “So wet.” She gasped as he licked and sucked, working her with unbearable pleasure, sending her spiraling tighter and tighter and higher and higher until his fingers joined his tongue in symphony, exploring and moving in glorious circles, teasing and touching. “I want you like this, open to me, aching for me, forever.”

To punctuate that word forever, and all its temptation, he slid one finger deep, and she could not keep her moan from escaping.

“Now that,” he said, his voice as dark as his gaze, “might be the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.” That wicked digit retreated, and she bit her lip, face flamed with embarrassment even as she wanted to clasp him to her and demand he repeat the experience. She did not have to. “Let’s see if we can make it happen again.”

A second finger joined the first on a long, irresistible slide.

Dear God, he was ruining her.

He played her like a virtuoso, as though she were an instrument he had studied for a lifetime. She moaned again, louder and longer, and he rewarded the sound with his mouth, working her in that dark, secret place that was suddenly the center of her. She would never think of pleasure in the same way again.

It was forever entwined with him.

She came apart in his arms once more, lost to his kiss and his touch and the scent and sound of him. Lost to the knowledge that this man was everything she’d ever desired and dreamed and imagined. Lost to pleasure. Lost to him.

And somehow found.

She returned to earth in his arms, all strong, corded sinew, holding her to his chest, where her head rested on his good shoulder and she was easily lost in the heat and scent of him. His fingers stroked through her hair, spreading it long across his massive bed, and he pressed a kiss to her temple, whispering against her skin, worshipping it, “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

She shivered at the words and curled into his warm body, her hand spreading across the white of his shirt. She spoke to the wide expanse of linen there. “You scare me.”

His touch stilled. “How?”

Her fingers worried at his shirt. “I never thought I would be so drawn to you. So connected. I never thought you would own me so well. That you would have such”—she hesitated over the word—“control over me.”

He captured her hand in his, sliding out from beneath her to face her. To have a better look at her.

She sat up, trying to explain. “Even now . . . with you inches away . . . I can’t help but mourn the loss of you.”

He reached for her at the confession, his hand stopping short of touching her, as though he did not know how to proceed. “Mara,” he said softly, as though he might scare her away. “I don’t want you to ever think that I take pleasure from—”

Her fingers moved to his lips, stopping the flow of words. “No,” she said, tears coming to her eyes. “You don’t understand. I ache for you when you’re not with me.” His eyes went black with desire, and her breath caught at the vision of him. At his promise. “I am in your thrall,” she said. “Of your touch and your kiss and your beautiful eyes. Quite desperately.”

And it will make everything more difficult.

She did not say the last. Instead she said, “You control me.”

He stared at her for a long moment, and she wished he would touch her. Instead, he left the bed, and she thought she might have ruined everything. But he was back within minutes, his shirt and boots gone, clad only in black wool trousers and the black bands of ink at his arms and the stark white of the bandage on his shoulder.

She drank him in, every inch bathed in golden candlelight, and she wondered at him. How had this glorious god of a man, built like a Greek statue or a Michelangelo, come from one of the finest aristocratic lines in all of England? There was nothing mincing or foppish about him. He was the most masculine thing she’d ever seen, all power and grace and strength.

Her gaze rested on his good hand, clutching the cravat he’d tossed away earlier, the long stretch of cloth at once promise and threat.

“You worry about control,” he said.

Her heart began to pound. “Yes.”

He extended the cravat toward her. After a long moment, she took it, and he lay down on the bed, extending his arms up until his hands met the slats of the headboard.

Her mouth went dry at the look of him, spread out before her, broad and beautiful. And he was beautiful. He was perfect in every way.

And then he said, “Take it. Be in control,” and desire coursed through her, hot and heavy and far too powerful to resist.

She ran the cravat through her fingers, eyes wide, and said, “Are you certain?”

He nodded once, his grip tightening on the headboard. “Trust me, Mara.”

She inched up the bed, naked but for those silken stockings, watching his gaze on her, loving it. Kneeling beside him, she said, “You wish me to tie you to it?”

He smiled. “I wish you to do whatever you like to me.”

He was turning himself over to her. To her pleasure. And all she could think was that her pleasure was somehow inexorably tied to his. The thought gave her courage, strength to do the unthinkable, to straddle his torso, the heat of her pressed against his naked skin. He groaned and closed his eyes, lifting his hips from the bed, pressing up against her, his body making promises she hoped desperately that it would keep. His eyes flashed. “But if you plan to blindfold me, love, do it now. Before you torture me with this view any longer.”

Blindfold him. Good Lord. Did people do such things?

She wanted to. Desperately.

She couldn’t help the smile that spread at the words, and she loved the way he laughed when it appeared. “You minx. You enjoy it.”

“You want me.”

“Want does not begin to describe the way I feel about you,” his low voice promised. “Want is nothing compared with the level of desire I have. With the desperation I feel. With the way I long for you.”

She leaned over, unable to resist pressing her lips to his, taking his mouth in a deep, thorough kiss that she’d learned from him—in long, lush strokes that left them both breathless.

When she lifted her head, it was to find her courage. She slid the cravat over his eyes, and when he lifted his head from the pillows, she reached behind him and tied it tightly, loving the way his body tensed beneath her, loving the sound of his exhale, low and harsh and perfect.

She leaned forward, pressing her breasts to his chest, being careful of his wound as she whispered in his ear, “You are mine.”

He growled at the words. “Always.”

Not always, though.

She couldn’t have him always. It wasn’t the life he deserved—married to a scandal, to a woman no one would ever accept, to a woman London would never forget. As long as she was with him, he would be the Killer Duke.

And he deserved to be so much more.

But tonight, she could pretend.

She pressed long kisses to his warm skin, across one shoulder and up his good arm, where his tattooed muscles strained against his grip. She couldn’t resist running her tongue along the edge of that inked spot, worrying the dips and curves until he growled his pleasure and she moved on, lower, along the outside of his chest and then across it, paying special attention to the scars dotting his chest and stomach. Kissing them. Tracing their raised surfaces with her tongue.

He hissed at the sensation, and she lifted her head. “Do they hurt?”

“No. It’s just—” She waited for him to finish. “No one has ever wanted to touch them before. Not like this.”

She wanted to touch them. She wanted to touch every inch of him, and the realization made her bold. She lifted herself up and slid down his body, working at the fall of his trousers, sliding buttons from their moorings—instinct and desire overtaking experience. He lifted his hips from the bed, allowing her to slide the trousers down, revealing him, long and hard and perfect.

And hers.

She sat back on her heels, taking him in, spread out upon his bed, his good hand locked at the headboard, knuckles white, straining to stay there. Eager to give himself up to her.

Turning himself over to her.

Giving up his control. For her.

She reached for him then, hand trembling, uncertain. She stilled, an inch from him. Closer.

He sensed it. “Mara,” he said, teeth clenched, anguish and desire making the words thick and lovely.

She wanted to give him everything he wanted. But—“I don’t know what to do,” she confessed, the words somehow easier because he was blindfolded. “I’ve never—I want to do it correctly.”

His breath came in a short, panting laugh. “You can’t do it wrong, darling. I promise. I want you too much.”