Facing each other across the hearth in which a fire blazed, confirming this was the room to which he habitually retired, stood a chaise and a daybed, the latter piled with gold-embroidered silk cushions and draped in a veritable rainbow of silk shawls, their bright, knotted fringes winking in the candelight.

Dragging in a breath, she looked down the room to gain perspective.

It wasn't just the scale that stunned-it was the color. The richness. The sheer sensory delight.

The house was like him. The thought burst into her mind with the clarity of truth, the conviction of accuracy. The outside was classical yet forbidding, the entrance bleak, but at the heart lay a place of unfettered warmth where beauty, knowledge and sensual pleasures held sway.

She turned and saw Dexter crouched by the fire, building it high. Strolling to the nearest bookcase, she let her gaze roam the spines. Art, the Classics, poetry-all were represented. Essays, philosophies, diaries in Latin, Greek, German and French-the collection was extensive.

Picking up a jewelled egg from one shelf, she examined the intricate work. Replacing it, she turned-to find Dexter standing, watching her, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Well." She waved at the shelves. "Which is the tome I need to peruse?"

His features hardened. He started toward her with his usual prowling gait, the firelight behind him gilding his hair. Steeling her senses, she held her ground. Tilted her chin.

He stopped in front of her, met her gaze. "You don't need to peruse any book."

She tried to read his eyes. Failed. "But I do. It's the least entertainment you can offer me, considering that little scene earlier." Intimidation poured from him; helpfully she added, "And don't forget-one of your volumes from the East."

His jaw set. Through eyes harder than stone, he considered her, then reached up, high above her head, and slid a brown leather-covered tome free. He placed the heavy book in her hands-the spine was more than three inches wide-then waved her to the fire. "Pray be seated."

He'd lighted a candelabra and set it on the low table at the end of the chaise. Amanda headed for the daybed, irresistibly drawn by the silks. She settled among the cushions; they shushed as she wriggled. The daybed was wide, unusually large; the perch was unbelievably comfortable. She looked at the low table, then at Dexter.

Stony-faced, he moved the table and candelabra to the end of the daybed beside her. Setting the book on her lap, she trailed her fingers over the cover, heavily encrusted with gold leaf. "Did you get this on your travels?"

He hesitated, then replied, "It was given to me by a maharanee."

When he remained standing, she looked up at him, let challenge fill her eyes. He stared down at her, then surrendered and sat on the daybed's other end, leaning back amid the cushions, arms wide. He looked so much at home, she suspected the daybed was his favorite resting place. Most un-English, yet the liking of luxurious comforts was definitely a leonine attribute.

Satisfied, she gave her attention to the book. Opening it, she turned to the first page to find it covered with wildly curling characters.

"Sanskrit."

"Can you read it?"

"Yes, but the text is immaterial to your purpose. Go on to the illustrations."

She could think of no way to force him to translate. She turned the page. And came to the first etching. Her first intimation that, no matter that she had not led a truly sheltered life, in comparison with him, assuming this book to be no revelation, she'd spent her entire life in a cloister.

Oddly, she didn't feel the least bit shocked. No telltale blush rose to her cheeks. She did, however, feel as if her eyes couldn't open wide enough, as if she hardly dared breathe.

Not shocked. She was fascinated. Enthralled.

Amazed.

Martin watched the firelight play across her face, watched the change in her expression as she turned the page. Tried not to recall what she was looking at. Then, to his consternation, discovered that he couldn't.

He studied her face. She seemed absorbed. Intrigued. Then she tilted her head, angling her gaze… unable to bear it, he stealthily shifted sideways so he could see her more clearly.

Hell! Eyes glued to the page, he realized he'd forgotten how lifelike the illustrations in that particular book were, how detailed. She flipped a page, fell to studying the next image avidly. He stared at the work, then glanced at her face, imagined what must be going through her mind.

His mouth went dry; his whole body reacted.

He looked back at the book, fought to ease the vice slowly tightening, notch by notch, about his lower chest.

She turned the next page-to a picture of a couple, on a daybed very like the one they were on, engaged in flagrant intercourse.

Arousal rushed through him; he couldn't stop his gaze going to her face, couldn't not watch, his breath shallow, as she examined the finely drawn work.

She felt his gaze. She glanced at him; her eyes met his, locked on them. Then she stilled.

A wash of color spread across her collarbones, swept into her porcelain cheeks. Her lips softened; she glanced down at the book, considered the picture again.

The pulse at the base of her throat leapt; her fingers fluttered at the edge of the page. He sensed the change in her breathing, could, through the tension suddenly binding them, feel the rise of her desire.

Hesitantly, she looked at him. Her eyes were dark, pupils dilated, ringed with an intense sapphire blue.

"So you see," he ground out, the words gravelly, deep, "the pictures do affect you." He reached for the book-knew he had to take it from her, bring the moment to an end. Quickly.

"No. You're wrong." She shifted the book away from his hand. Lost her grip. The book slithered from her silk-covered lap, thudded onto the floor.

They both reached for it.

He slid forward-the movement brought him close to her.

His weight sinking into the bed pitched her into him.

In a slither of silk, Amanda squirmed around, spread her hands across his chest and stayed him. "No-leave it." She struggled to breathe, to think, to keep her eyes on his rather than on his lips. "It's proved my point."

The muscles under her hands were rigid; she felt his control quake. It held, but only just. The heat of his body washed about her, engulfed her; something primitive prowled just behind his mask. She glanced at his lips. Saw him moisten them, saw them form the words, "How so?"

She looked into his eyes; he continued, "The pictures aroused you."

"No." Triumph warmed her, but it was getting harder and harder to think. "It wasn't the pictures. They were… interesting. Revealing. Nothing more." Boldly, she trailed a finger down his lean cheek, her gaze locked on the path she traced until her fingertip touched the corner of his lips. Her wits were slowly spinning away, as if speech, as if thought, no longer mattered.

She looked up; his eyes were a dark, mesmerizing deep green. "It was you-watching you look at the picture. Imagining you imagining me…" She slid her hand back, curled her fingers about his nape, drew his lips to hers. "Watching you imagining us… like that."

Their lips touched, and they were lost.

She didn't know it, but every instinct reacted. To the fact that she had her lion in thrall, that she'd finally breached his walls and captured the sensualist at his core. Gloried in the fact that he was hers, here and now, without reserve.

And she was his.

The realization streaked through her, not a thought but pure feeling, something she felt in her skin, in her blood, a knowledge that sank to her marrow.

She was with him from the instant that kiss set spark to tinder, followed eagerly as the conflagration grew, as the caress evolved into an explicit exchange. He eased back into the cushions; she went with him, sinking against him, luxuriating in the feel of his hard body beneath hers. Her arms about his neck, she locked him to her as the kiss went on and on.

As they fell deeper under the sensual spell fate had woven about them.

Later, she realized it was that that had driven them, overwhelmed them; at the time all she knew was an inchoate need to be his-female to his male, woman to his man. A need so elementally simple, so emotionally at one with her desires, she had no reason to think, to question.

It felt so right.

His hands speared into her hair and sent her pins flying. The mass tumbled down but he closed his hand in it, held it, savored the feel of the heavy locks sliding through his fingers, then filling his hand again. And again.

Eventually leaving her hair in tumbled disarray, his hands trailed down, fingers skimming the sensitive skin of her throat. Then his lips left hers to follow the trail. She felt a tug, then her cloak slid away, sliding off the bed to pool on the floor. He laid a hand on her breast; she pressed her flesh to his palm, sighing with content, with an anticipation he swiftly fulfilled. His lips returned to hers, appeasing their hunger while between them his hands closed, kneading gently at first, then more deliberately, until her breasts were swollen, aching, pulsating. But he didn't touch her as she wished to be touched. Instead, his fingers went to her laces, swiftly undoing them-then she could breathe again, albeit shallowly.

He stripped the gown from her, freeing first one shoulder, then the other, murmuring instructions which she obeyed. She glanced at his face, marveled at the sharp edges desire had lent features already austere. Then he jerked the ribbon ties of her chemise undone, and pushed gown and chemise down, baring her to the waist.