Despite responding ardently, he remained supine beneath her. Inwardly cursing the effects of her potion, she avoided his hands and set hers to trace the ridges and hollows of his chest, the heavy bones of his shoulders, the tensed muscles of his upper arms.

His arms locked around her, heavy and warm across her waist-denying her quest to reach lower.

Not that she needed to touch him there-he was already fully aroused. The steely length of him rode against her hip, hot and urgent. That much of him, at least, was cooperating. The rest of him was not.

Shifting, she lay fully atop him, settling his erection between her thighs. She rolled her hips, experimenting until she found the particular shifting slide that most evocatively stroked him.

And felt the muscles in his arms shift, tensing, relaxing, then tensing again, as if he couldn't make up his mind.

Swallowing a curse, she trapped his lips with hers-and put her heart and soul into a slow, deliberate undulation, breasts, hips and thighs-even the curls at the base of her belly-coming into play. Deliberately evocative, she called to him.

And he answered. She felt the wave of response building in his body, felt the need she baited flare and swell. Felt hard become harder, felt tense muscles turn taut.

With a gasp-of relief, of anticipation-she dragged her lips from his and half wriggled, half slid to the side. Puppetlike, his body followed; as she turned on her back, she grasped his upper arm, tugging him over her.

The reins of his lust locked in a grip of iron, Richard followed her lead-let her shift, let her tug-let her believe he was dazedly following her directions as she urged him over her. He complied, moving heavily, unhurriedly.

While she panted, in heat.

Consumed by heat. At his touch, her thighs parted. He swung heavily over her, then let himself down between, then took his time settling himself-and her. Impatient, she arched, and he felt her heat scald him, touch and cling to that most exquisitely sensitive part of him.

He caught his breath-and felt, in his chest, something shift, something lock. With a soft, desperate gasp, she arched again-and he eased into her.

Slowly. Savoring every inch of her hot softness as she stretched to accommodate him, savoring the subtle easing of her body as she accepted him.

She sighed as he sank home, then her hands, tensed on his arms, relaxed. And skimmed down his sides.

He caught them-first one, then the other-letting his weight down on her as he trapped them. And gently but firmly removed the reins from her grasp. Beneath him, she shifted, sinking deeper into the soft mattress, angling her hips to cradle him more effectively.

Tentatively, she lifted her legs, sliding them over his flanks.

"Yes." He breathed the word against her lips as he settled fully upon her. He found her lips with his and took them, took her mouth, then pressed deeper into her.

He drank her instinctive gasp-a gasp of pure pleasure. Inwardly smiling, he drew back, then sank deep again, and felt her flaring response. He set himself to feed it.

To stoke her fires, to drive her frantic. More frantic than she'd ever been.

With each slow, controlled thrust, the flames within her rose higher; he held to a steady, rolling rhythm until she was burning. Until, hot and heated, awash with desire, she rose beneath him, meeting every thrust, her body caressing him, clinging to him, cleaving to him. Until she was aflame, urgent in her wanting, desperate in her need.

Frantic.

Trapped in the heat, Catriona flexed her fingers, trying to slip them from his grasp, frantic to hold him, desperate to draw him to her-to reach the bright pinnacle of physical bliss that hovered on her horizon. Sunk deep in the mattress, she squirmed and panted, trying to get that last inch closer, trying to get him that last fraction of an inch deeper. His fingers, clamped about hers, didn't give, but, to her surging relief, surging expectation, he raised his chest slightly, just enough so her nipples, excruciatingly tight, brushed his chest.

So they were brushed by his chest.

A scream welled in her throat; struggling to lift her heavy lids, she swallowed it as he lifted higher, breaking their kiss. He was a dense shadow looming over her, shoulders and chest surging in a slow, powerful rhythm, a rhythm she could feel in her marrow. In her womb.

With her hands still anchored, one on either side of her head, she gripped his flanks with her thighs, gasping, arching, as he thrust harder, deeper.

Then he drew back farther; lips parted, senses whirling, she waited, quivering, for the next impaling stroke. Only to feel him rock lightly, penetrating her with just the tip of the hard length she wanted buried inside her.

She opened her lips on a protest-instead, she gasped anew as, bending his head, he took one ruched nipple into his mouth. Hips rocking gently, teasingly, he feasted on her swollen breasts, until she was awash on an endless sea. A sea of pure pleasure.

After laving her hot flesh, his lips burned when they again brushed hers.

"Why are you here?"

She wasn't, at first, sure whether he had spoken, or she'd simply heard the words in her head. But his hips stopped rocking; he lay, hot and hard as a brand, just parting the swollen folds about her entrance.

Leaving her empty.

"Because I want you."

After an instant's pause, he started rocking again, once, twice-then he slid into her anew. She sighed, then lost what breath she had left as he pushed deep, then nudged deeper, and let his weight down on her once more.

Richard rode her, just a little deeper, just a little harder, just a fraction more intimately. He was having a hard time clinging to his reins-only rock-hard determination, and his Cynster strength of will-of endurance-allowed him to do it-to see her panting beneath him, her hair a burning veil spread across the pillows, her thighs gripping him urgently as he loved her. She responded without guile, without reticence, without hesitation-with a complete lack of reserve, the strongest feminine spell he'd ever encountered.

Her welcome, every time he sank into her, was bone deep. The temptation to lose himself in her arms, in her body, grew with every passing second.

But he needed to know her reasons, as well as her.

Gradually, he slowed, letting the rhythm stretch-not die but slow to the point where her frantic need-a need he knew well how to manage-rose to the fore again.

When she whimpered, and squirmed, trying to urge him on, he brushed a kiss to her temple. "Why do you want me? Why me? Why now?"

A frown passed across her face like a breeze rippling corn, then she shook her head and it was gone. She lifted beneath him, wriggling more urgently; swallowing a curse, he impaled her fully again, then kissed her breathless.

And gave her a little more-rode her a little higher up the mountain of desire. Despite his weight, she undulated beneath him, hips rising, meeting him more fully. Letting go of her hands, he grabbed a pillow; releasing her from their kiss, he eased back, lifted her hips and stuffed the pillow beneath them.

Tilting her up so he could sink deeper-without stimulating her to completion. Her breath fractured when he thrust deep-an urgently evocative sound. He shut his ears to it. "Wrap your legs about me."

She did, immediately; arms braced, he held himself over her and drove her up, up, and on to the next level, the next plane of passion. Eagerly, she clung to him, her hands, now free, trailing over his chest and arms, then gripping tight as he delved deeper and pushed her on.

Fingers sinking into flexing sinews, Catriona let her head fall back, lips parted as she struggled to breathe. Senses aswirl, her wits long gone, she surrendered to the whirlpool of sensations he commanded, surrendered to the power she could feel in every thrust that joined them, in every synchronous beat of their hearts. A sense of beauty, of delight, of joy unimaginable hovered-just out of reach.

"Why are you here, with your legs spread wide, locked about my waist-with me buried to the hilt inside you?"

The question floated down to her, a whisper in the night. It was beyond her-eyes closed, she shook her head. And concentrated on the steely flex of his body as it melded with hers.

Powerfully, yet still slowly. In some dim corner of her mind, a hazy, rather acid thought formed: If this was his performance when asleep, what would he be like awake?

A soft moan surprised her-she bit her lip, determined to be quiet. Then gasped as he surged more powerfully, faster, deeper…

She caught her breath on a strangled gasp-then cried out, in shocked disbelief, when he pulled back and left her. Fighting to raise her lids, she saw him lift fully away from her. Stunned she reached for him, half-sitting-

Large hands caught her and flipped her over, then locked about her hips and pulled her back onto her knees.

And they were everywhere, those large, hard hands-kneading, stroking, squeezing, probing. Until her breasts ached, until her skin glowed, until her nerves were taut and tingling. Until the heat within her was a raging furnace and pure molten need filled her veins. And her loins.

Kneeling behind her, reaching over and around her, a dark, rampantly aroused presence in the night, he bent his head and nipped her ear lobe, then soothed it with his lips. "Lean farther forward."

His hands clamped about her hips as she did, steadying her. Then he nudged her thighs wider, and caressed her-stroked her slick, swollen flesh until it was throbbing anew, until she sobbed his name.