Wielding her brush, she glanced at him, frowned, opened her mouth…after a moment she shut it again. She studied him for a moment more, then rose and, brush in hand, walked to the window. Slowly brushing, she stood looking out at the night.

He unraveled his cravat, dispensed with it and his waistcoat, then sat on the chair to pull off his boots. Setting them aside, he rose, yanked his shirt from his waistband, loosened the collar. He glanced at her, then, unlacing his cuffs, crossed silently to her.

Halting behind her, close, he waited while she finished brushing out one long tress, then slid the brush from her fingers and placed it on the chest of drawers beside the window.

She said nothing, did nothing.

He reached for her, wrapped her in his arms and simply held her. Waited, his cheek against her sleek head, until at last she relaxed, until she leaned back against him. He tightened his hold, swore on his heart, on his soul, that he would never again let her go.

Bending his head, he pressed a kiss to her temple. Murmured, “I have one last question. When you came asking for my help, why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you mention what’s been standing like a six-foot-thick wall between us?”

He wasn’t sure she’d give him an answer; he couldn’t demand one. Her hands resting over his at her waist, she continued to look out into the night.

Then she lifted one shoulder. “Pride, I suppose. That was all that was left to me.”

He tried to keep them back, but the words came out anyway. “Was it really so easy to hate me?” He used the term in the full knowledge that she never did anything by half.

Her chin rose. “It’s become a habit.”

“Break it.” Not demand, not command. A suggestion.

“Why?”

The response he’d expected. He turned her to him, into his arms. Looked into her eyes. “Because of this.”

He bent his head and kissed her-and knew he would have only this one chance. One night to give her reasons to try again. One night to make her believe in him again.

One night to find some hope that she would trust him again. Sometime.

That sometime she would be, again, as she had been long ago.

His.

Unquestionably. Incontrovertibly. Irrevocably.

He knew well enough not to try to overwhelm her, but kissed her gently, waited for her response before coaxing her into more. She kissed him back, tentatively at first, as if she hadn’t yet made up her mind to allow him into her bed-even though they both knew she had.

Although he hadn’t seen them, he tasted tears on her lips. On her tongue when he parted her lips and surged inside. He gathered her closer and deepened the kiss, let her feel all she did to him, and all he did to her.

Let her sense how much she meant to him.

No screens. No veils. No reservations.

The time for those was past.

She was, as always, liquid fire in his arms, but this time the fire was contained. The flames licked, tantalizing, tempting, but the fire was banked, controlled. She didn’t burn and sear him, didn’t try to set him afire as she usually did, didn’t fight for supremacy-for the reins-but held back, hung back, and left it to him to stoke their blaze.

So he let their passions rise, but slowly, tiny step by step, so there was no raging inferno to sweep them both away. So that they stepped hand in hand into desire, then let desire unfurl into full-blown passion.

Let passion escalate degree by degree…until it blossomed into need.

Letitia let him persuade her. For once let him lead her down the familiar path rather than rush ahead, so that for once he had to coax, rather than restrain.

She let him kiss her until her senses were reeling, let him fill her mouth and make her yearn.

Let him seduce her.

Not because she’d forgiven him.

Not because she’d made any decision about him, but because she felt she was owed this.

That for all the long years-the lonely, deadening years-that for all her long ago heartbreak, she deserved recompense-a recognition of the sacrifice she’d had forced on her, by circumstance and him, all those years ago.

So she gave him her mouth and let him claim her, surrendered her body and let him caress her-let him trace her curves, with his too-knowing fingers circle, tweak, press, knead, until she grew breathless, restless and needy.

Let him make love to her.

Let him strip away her gown, her petticoats; with a sigh, she felt her chemise drift away. Felt the coolness of the night air on her skin-a long-ago pleasure she’d all but forgotten-the sensation heightened, gently at first, later excruciatingly, by the heated touch of his hands, followed by the hot brand of his mouth on her throat, traveling slowly on to her breasts, then later still laying a fiery path over her stomach to ultimately taste the soft flesh between her thighs.

Gasping, senses reeling, her skin flushed and damp, she let him, on his knees, hold her before him, his hard hands gripping her bottom, supporting her while, his soft hair tangling with her curls, he worshipped her with his lips, his mouth, his tongue, let him use his expertise to ensnare her completely, then let him drive her up, up and over the shining peak.

Glory broke like the sun over her; heat and pleasure fragmented, washing through her veins as molten delight.

Her legs buckled. She gasped; helpless, she gripped his shoulders. Shuddered as, her senses returning, she grew acutely aware of passion’s lash as at her core he supped, licked. Savored.

She didn’t have strength left to stop him, to do more than gasp as he spun the pleasure out. Eyes closed, she let her head loll back, and with a soft moan let delight sweep through her.

Let the intimacy of his possession sink into her.

At last he drew back; he looked up at her, then in one fluid movement stood and swung her up into his arms.

He carried her to her bed, flung back the covers, then laid her on the cool sheets.

She was restless, but didn’t want to show it. Didn’t want him to know how much she physically craved him. Forcing herself to lie still, through the dimness she watched as he stripped off his shirt and trousers. Naked, he stood by the bed, bathed in faint moonlight; silver gilded the heavy planes of his shoulders, etched the hard lines of his face. He studied her as she studied him, then he stepped closer and climbed onto the mattress.

It gave under his weight. Fully aroused, he came to her, let himself down on her and covered her. Reached down, caught her thighs and spread them wide. Settled his hips between, the blunt head of his erection at her entrance, then, his shadowed gaze locked on her face, with one long, controlled, unrelenting thrust, he joined them.

She smothered a gasp, couldn’t stop her body from arching in delicious reaction. His size still felt new to her, something she might once have known but had yet to grow accustomed to again. Yet to reach the stage where his penetration didn’t impinge overwhelmingly on her senses.

Lips lightly-irrepressibly-curving, she let her lids fall, let her body respond as he withdrew and thrust again, deeper still, then he settled into a slow, steady rhythm-a long, slow ride into paradise.

Opening her other senses, she let herself enjoy all she’d missed-his large, hard body, the wide acres of his chest, the heavy muscles banding it, the faint but excruciating abrasion of the crinkly hair that adorned his chest as it rasped her tightly furled nipples. Beneath him, pinned to the soft bed by his much greater weight, she quietly gloried in the indescribable delight of gripping his tight buttocks and feeling him driving into her, feeling the long, heavy weight of his erection thrusting and retreating deep inside her.

Regardless of all else, he knew how to please her-exactly how to pleasure her. How to delight and satisfy her.

She took all he gave her, gathered it in as her due.

Christian felt every nuance, was awake and aware to every racing beat of her heart, every flutter of her lashes, every soft sound that spilled from her lips, every moan he wrung from her. Every tensing of her fingers on his skin.

He’d never made love to any woman as he did to her that night. Never been so conscious of, so focused on, the intertwining of emotion with the physical act. Never had the act meant more, never had he needed it to mean so much, to carry so much emotional weight-the full measure of what he could no longer hide. Dared no longer hide, no longer had any reason to hide-all that he felt for her.

She’d never been passive in her life, yet that night she watched and waited, took, accepted, but held herself back. Not physically but emotionally.

It wasn’t a cold coupling; between them such a thing simply couldn’t be. Yet there was an emptiness within it that, he realized, her love used to fill. Used to fill and overflow.

He hadn’t noticed its absence during their recent interludes; the firestorm of her passions, and his, had concealed the lack. But he sensed it now. And felt the loss keenly.

He looked down at her as she lay beneath him, glorious as ever in her passion; her mahogany mane flung across the pillows, the faintest of curves to her lips, she rode with him, her hips undulating with each deep thrust, her breasts caressing his chest as he drove harder and harder into her luscious body. Her thighs gripped his flanks, her fingers tensing, sinking into his flexing buttocks, urging him on; within, her sheath, scalding and slick, gripped him and held him, released, then received him.

She was with him, yet not, reserved in some indefinable way that she never had been before, some elemental part of her withheld. He saw it, sensed it as the peak reared before them and they hovered, senses suspended, then they tumbled, fell, plummeted through the void, and in that searing, gasping, mindless moment when their senses imploded and ecstasy roared through and they clung…when they drifted back to earth, they were still two separate people.