But what of later?

He hesitated and raised his head. She began to kiss his chin, his neck, and his Adam's apple, however, and the last shreds of logic fled his brain. With one swift motion he lifted her into his arms, while she held his face with her hands and kissed him without ceasing. He lowered her to the bed and lowered himself over her, and still the kiss went on and on. Down the hall a clock began to chime. Up close he was enveloped in the unique scent that perfumed her. Sweet, earthy. Fresh as rain, wild as the forest. (

"I will not let you go," he growled.

"You need not."

"You drive me mad with wanting you."

" 'Tis I who must be mad," she murmured, nibbling the words against his mouth, then nipping his lower lip for emphasis.

He covered her breast with one hand and swallowed her little gasp with a hungry kiss. After that there was little room for speech. His clothing and hers were stripped away, sometimes a frantic struggle, other times a torturous peeling away. He found the mysterious bells around her ankle and, in the process, kissed every bit of skin she revealed, every sweet, supple inch of her, from her pink toes, to her luscious mouth, from the anklet of bells that made her every movement musical, to the masses of fiery hair that drew him like a beacon.

Her little cries and artless moans urged him on. Creamy thighs, sweet belly. He traced a circle around her navel with his tongue, then slid farther up her lithe torso, anointing each rib. He lay between her legs, braced on his elbows. Before him her breasts were exposed to his gaze, lovely pale flesh crested with taut, rosy buds that attested to her arousal. Her breaths came short and shallow. Her eyes were glazed with passion.

She was his now. His.

His own breathing was ragged. "Unloose your hair," he said. "It's so beautiful. Unloose it for me, Jinx."

One of her hands cupped his face; the other rested on his bare shoulder. He saw her uncertainty, so he dipped his head and circled one nipple with his tongue. Then he kissed it, tugging it up into his mouth. She arched up with a cry of acquiescence.

When he raised his head again she began shakily to release her hair from its twists and coils. With her arms extended above her head that way, she looked like a wanton creature, a pagan offering to the gods of earthly delights. He actually hurt with his need to possess her. He captured her raised wrists with one hand, and with the other drew her flame-colored tresses down across her shoulders and chest and breasts. The ends curled near her waist, showing only tantalizing glimpses of her delicious skin between the tendrils.

If his violent desire frightened her, her fear was overcome with passion, for she groaned when once more he teased her nipples with his tongue and lips and teeth.

" Harrison." She breathed his name, and he nearly embarrassed himself, so profoundly did that single sound affect him.

"I cannot go slow," he muttered, half in warning, half in apology. "Then don't."

It was the last straw. He slid up her, letting her feel the strength he meant to release upon her, giving her one last chance to stop this insanity they'd plunged into. But she only gazed up at him, wide-eyed and accepting. Eager. So he drew her legs up and then, capturing her mouth with his, he pressed into her.

Her welcome was sweet and oh, so hot. He slid inside her and she began to writhe. He grew bolder, met with resistance, then thrust past it. She shuddered. He felt it in their kiss. But he worked to rouse her further, sliding his tongue in and out until she melted once more. Then he began the same rhythm with his hips.

Such a fire. Such a raging inferno. His passion was a mad beast, possessing him. Possessing her. But as he plunged, deeper and deeper, faster and faster, she met his passion with an equal passion of her own. Her legs wrapped round his hips. Her hands slipped over the damp skin of his back and arms and shoulders. She roused him as he roused her. But still he struggled to restrain himself.

Then he felt it, in every part of his being: she was near. He could bring her there, this innocent wanton he'd discovered in the unlikeliest of circumstances.

Her cries became more helpless. Her body tensed. Then she arched in that exquisite culmination, and he could hold back no longer. He plunged even deeper than before and exploded into her with as much pride as desire, and with as much satisfaction for her as for himself.

Afterward he held her as she eased down from the euphoria she'd found-that they'd found together. He wrapped his arms around her and held her against him, reveling in the warmth of her damp flesh against his, breathing deeply of the fragrance of man and woman joined at last. He would have to make this right, he told himself as she fitted herself more comfortably in his embrace.

Her breathing slowed; she'd fallen asleep. Harrison pressed a kiss into the heavy tangle of her glorious hair. He would have to make this right. It was one thing to carry on with your mistress, or a widow, or even someone else's wife. But to ruin an innocent young woman? No, a gentleman could not do that. He must make it right.

Yet instead of feeling trapped by that knowledge, Harrison felt the oddest sense of relief. Of freedom. He ran his hand down her arm and wove his fingers between hers. How many years had he searched for a woman to wed?

Then he sighed and smiled, and drifted into peaceful slumber.

Jinx awakened to absolute darkness and complete disorientation. Her stomach growled. She was starving. She must have missed supper. Where was she? What room was this? What bed- What man?

There was only one man it could be, and in a tumble, everything came back to her. She and Harrison had-

"Bee's knees. Toad eggs. Lizard legs! What have I done?" she muttered into the night. She tried to think and to avoid the panic that theatened to overwhelm her. But she couldn't think while lying so intimately in his arms. First she must get out of the bed.

But when she tried to slide away from him, Harrison sighed and shifted with her. She was nestled up to him, her naked backside against his naked front side. For a moment she hesitated. Had it truly been as wonderful as she remembered? A spiral of lingering passion answered yes, it had been that wonderful. That stupendous. That unbelievable.

But that did not mean it had been right.

She groaned and, for one minute only, succumbed to utter despair. What must he think of her now? And what in heaven's name was she to do?

She was saved pondering that ghastly thought by the sound of footfalls in the hall and the worried voice of a woman.

"… but it might be better if I fetch her, sir."

"Which room?" a man's voice demanded. An angry man's voice. A familiar man's voice.

"Please don't be hasty, dear," another woman pleaded.

"I'll handle this, Alice."

Alice?

Colin?

Jinx leapt upright. Colin was here? Now?

Her heart sank even as hex body sprang to life. She must stop him! She must avert this disaster.

"Not so fast," Harrison mumbled, catching her around the waist and pulling her down on top of him. He was warm and strong and her body reacted most perversely to him. "You're not ever to try to escape me again," he murmured, nuzzling her neck.

Then the door burst open, a lantern cast the room in wildly careening light, and Jinx shrieked and dove beneath the covers.

"What in bloody hell!" Harrison roared, bolting upright.

"I'll see you in hell this very night!" Colin roared back. "Get away from him, Jinx, so that I can kill him!"

"She stays right here," Harrison vowed. "Who in the hell are you?" Then he spied his sister. " Alice?" Then in the next breath, "Benchley? You bastard!" he yelled, leaping from the bed with only a pillow to cover his naked state. "I'll have your head on a pike!"

"And I'll skewer you for ruining my sister!"

Jinx peered out at the scene from beneath the rumpled bed linens. Beside the bed, tousled from sleep and from their lovemaking, Harrison, naked as the day he was born, stood tensed as if for battle. Across the room, just inside the doorway, stood Colin, livid with anger. A petite blonde clung with all her might to his arm, managing but barely to stop him from attacking Harrison.

So this was Alice. No wonder Colin had fallen in love with her. If she was even half so good-hearted as she was lovely, he'd done very well, indeed. Still, Alice was not her immediate concern.

Though it was the most humiliating moment in her life, Jinx squared her shoulders, drew the sheet up to her chin, and rose awkwardly to her knees on the mattress. "That will be quite enough from you two."

Colin transferred his furious gaze from Harrison to her… "Jinx-"

"Not one word from you," she snapped. "Not one word. How could you do it, running away like that?"

"Because we love one another," he snapped right back. "And she feared her brother would not approve of me. What are you doing here anyway?"

"Searching for you!"

"In his bed?" Colin spat. He surged forward again with knotted fists, but Alice planted herself firmly in front of him. She was tiny, but she was determined.

"I will not have my husband and my brother fighting," she swore. "I will not allow it."

"Your husband?" Harrison shouted.

"You're married?" Jinx cried.

"This morning. We're just back from Gretna Green," Alice replied. "So you see, Harrison, it is too late for you to interfere."

"Not if you haven't-" Harrison broke off and his voice dropped. "You haven't, have you?"

Alice gave him a smug smile. "We have," she replied. Colin wrapped an arm about her and looked down at his pretty new bride with such pride and love shining in his eyes that Jinx wanted to cry with happiness. Colin was such a dear. A hardheaded, opinionated dear, but a dear just the same. He deserved every happiness and she had the warm feeling he would find it with Alice.