No matter what he said, she knew he wouldn’t be back.

Reaching up, she caught his hand, took the brush, and set it down on the dressing table. Then she rose, stepped around the stool, and turned.

And boldly went into his arms.

He was waiting-waiting to close his arms around her, to bend his head and take the lips she offered.

To kiss her long and lingeringly, deeply and possessively-as she wished, as she wanted. Tonight she was determined to claim one last lesson, and she knew what she wanted to learn.

Logan sensed her intent, her focus. Felt her determination when she pushed his coat open, then down his arms. Breaking off the kiss, he let her go and drew his arms free of the sleeves, tossed the coat aside. By the time he had, she’d opened his waistcoat and fallen on the buttons closing his shirt.

He wasn’t averse to letting her undress him-to a point.

Somewhat to his surprise, with his shirt dispensed with, she pushed him around to pick at the knot securing the bandages around his chest.

“I need to examine your wound.” She tugged, and the bandages loosened.

As she unwound them he almost sighed in relief. The long wound, the stitches she’d so neatly set into his flesh, had been itching like fire all day. A good sign, he knew, but he was more than happy to lose the constriction, the restriction.

She freed him of the long bands, then tugged him to a position where the candlelight played over his side. He shifted his left arm out of her way as she poked and prodded, swiftly scanning down.

“Good.” She straightened. “It’s good.” She met his gaze. “It’ll be some days yet before the stitches can come out, but you can do away with the bandages, at least for tonight.”

Her hands had come to rest at his waist. Eyes locking on his, she slipped the buttons there free.

He sucked in a shallow breath and took a step back. “Boots.” He took two more steps back and sat on the end of the bed.

Eyes narrowing, she followed, her navy skirts flicking about her legs, her stride reminding him of a stalking cat. “All right.” Hands going to her hips, she watched him ease off the tight boots. “Just hurry. I want you naked on my bed-now.”

He nearly laughed. She thought he’d argue? But… he glanced up at her. “What about you? Are you going to take off your clothes, too?”

She frowned, obviously not having worked out her scenario to that extent. “Possibly. Probably.”

After a moment’s cogitation, during which he tossed first one boot, then the other, to the floor, she stepped between his knees and turned, giving him her back. “Help me with these laces.”

He did, swiftly undoing the laces at her back. By then she’d undone the ones at the side of her waist.

She stepped away. Waved a hand at him. “Now strip and lie on the bed.”

Pulling her gown up and over her head, she moved away.

Watching the show, he rose and unhurriedly complied with her orders. Settling-naked as requested-on his back in the middle of her bed, his head and shoulders on the mound of pillows, he crossed his arms behind his head and watched her pull off her warm shift, lay it aside with her gown, then roll down her stockings, removing her garters and slippers, too.

Finally, in just her chemise, the cotton so fine it was translucent, she returned to the bed, came to stand at its end. She looked at him, surveyed him with a proprietorial air guaranteed to have him standing at full attention, then she smiled and climbed onto the bed.

Crawled up it to his side. The candlelight struck through her chemise, revealing every svelte line, every luscious curve, every tantalizing hollow.

She stretched out, propping on one elbow and hip beside him. She resurveyed his body, then lifted her gaze to his eyes. “I want you to lie there, your hands where they are, and let me… satisfy my curiosity.”

He studied her face, read the not-so-subtle challenge in her green eyes, nodded. “All right. I will. But first…”

In one smooth surge, he had her flat on her back, his chest held over hers. “Before we get started, there’s a few matters I’d like to get clear.”

Once she commenced her game, he’d be in no state to discuss anything, and she would be in even less state to hear.

Her brows had flown high, her gaze coolly haughty. But she inclined her head slightly. “Very well. I’m listening.”

He had to smile, but the expression faded as he looked into her eyes. As he marshaled his arguments. “I’m not married.” That was his first point. “But I can’t offer to share my life with you until I know I’ll have a life to share.” Point two, his only hesitation. “The mission I’m involved in is deadly dangerous. Those opposing me would be happy to see me dead-as my wound so eloquently illustrates. And as you rightly foretold, I have an outstanding commitment, one I can’t break, to see the mission through to a successful end-or die trying.” The reason behind his hesitation.

“ But ”-he held her gaze-“my commitment to completing this mission is the only commitment of any sort I have. Once the mission is over, assuming I survive, I’ll be coming back here. To claim you.”

He saw her lips tighten, saw not refusal of the prospect but refusal to believe cloud her eyes. His own lips thinned. “I can see that for some reason-which I don’t comprehend-you don’t believe I’ll return. But one thing I can and I will swear to you: If once this mission is over I still have a life worth sharing, I’ll be coming back here to lay it at your feet.”

She blinked once, twice. She studied his eyes, then an unusually gentle smile curved her lips. Raising a hand, she laid it along his cheek, but the disbelief didn’t leave her eyes. “I value your words-don’t think I don’t. But I’ve been me, myself, for too long not to face reality, and my reality is that no matter what you say, in the end, you won’t be back.”

He opened his mouth-

Placing her fingers over his lips, Linnet silenced him. Stopped him from saying anything more to wring her heart even more than he already had. She spoke as strongly, as decisively, as she could. “No-this is our last night together here, and I don’t want to waste it arguing.”

Lowering her gaze to his lips, she drew her hand away, then boldly raised her eyes again to his. “I want to spend tonight loving you. I want you to lie back and let me.”

One hand on his shoulder, she pushed.

Openly exasperated, he held her gaze for an instant longer, then sighed through gritted teeth and rolled back to lie as he had before.

Letting her come up on her elbow and hip alongside.

His dark eyes glittered as he crossed his arms behind his head. “So what now?”

She looked down over his large body, over the expanse of delectable male flesh, solid muscle, heavy bone, taut skin. Crisp, crinkly, black-as-night hair scattered across his chest, arrowing down to his groin. Where he was still fully erect.

She smiled, raised her gaze to his eyes. “Now you lie there, and let me feast.”

He obeyed. She had to give him that. Even when she pressed him to the very brink of breaking, he fought to remain supine and let her have her way.

Let her caress him, first with her hands, spreading them wide to sweep over his shoulders, over the bunched muscles of his upper arms, then down over the contours of his chest, lovingly outlining the broad swath before heading lower, over the rippling strength of his abdomen, over the concave hollow of his waist, over his flat belly to the rock-hard mucles of his cavalry officer’s thighs, the solid length of his calves, and his large feet, before returning, sweeping up his body again to take his member between her hands and caress, fondle, stroke.

Examine, weigh, assess.

She continued to touch him there, where he was most sensitive, where he most liked to be touched, while she rose up over his chest, found his lips with hers, and kissed, long, lingeringly, as openly possessive as he was with her, before drawing back and sending her lips to trace the path her hands had already forged.

Outside, the storm that had been threatening all day finally rushed in. It rattled the windows, lashed at the house, pelted rain in drumming fury on the glass. She heard it, but distantly, too wrapped in the warmth, in the pleasure as, finally, she rose up on her knees and straddled him, and, with his help, his direction, took him in.

Her head fell back on a gasp at the sensation of him filling her. Excitement skated over her skin as she realized that this time, all-everything she felt-was under her control.

That this time he’d ceded the reins to her and was letting her drive them both.

Her breath tight in her chest, she opened her eyes and looked down at him. His face showed the strain-the battle he waged not to seize control-as, his hands clamped about her hips, he urged her up, showed her how.

How to ride him.

How to pleasure him and please herself.

“Your chemise-take it off.”

The guttural words cut across her concentration, her inward focus on all she could feel. She considered them. Eyes closed, she rose up, sank down, down, down again, then reached for the chemise’s hem.

Opening her eyes, she drew it off over her head, flung it away.

Smiled down at him as she used her thighs and rose up yet again.

Closed her eyes as she slid down.

Felt his hands caress, then claim, her breasts, felt his long fingers close about her nipples.

She rode and he paid homage. There was no other word for the way his hands moved over her body, reverent and sure.

Too soon, she was panting, flushed and heated, her hair a mane of living fire writhing about her shoulders, lashing her sensitized skin, sending sensation lancing through her, flashing down to where the exquisite friction built and built between her thighs.