Before, she’d always been so eager-so damnably impatient that he’d never had to work. Never had to tempt her.

His lips moved over her skin, hot with promise but gently, until an equally gentle flush rose under it, and beckoned him further.

Lifting his head just a little, he drew her closer still, let her hand fall to his shoulder as his arm slid around her and he drew her, still gently, in. Against him, but she wasn’t trapped. Wasn’t crushed. He bent his head again-stopped just before their lips met. Waited a heartbeat so she could sense his hunger-and hers-then he closed the gap and fed her.

Soft kisses. Like gentle rain on parched ground they made her bloom-coaxed her senses to slowly unfurl. Teased her nerves with the promise of paradise until she parted her lips on a sigh.

He didn’t enter, instead drew back. Whispered across her lips. “I want you, and you want me. For tonight, let that be enough.”

She blinked up at him, wondering, knowing he wanted much more. “But will that be enough?”

The words drifted from her lips to his.

He kissed her again, a tantalizing touch.

And didn’t answer.

Instead, he murmured, his voice deep and low, “Invite me to your bed. Let me come to you there. Let me lie with you there…and let what will be, be.”

That, she could agree to without reservation. What would be would be regardless.

Her eyes on his, she drew back. Caught his hand as she did, then stepped back, turned and led him from the room.

Led him up the stairs to her bedchamber, waited while he shut the door, then led him to the end of her bed.

Turning to him, she waited. In the flickering light of the candle Esme had left on her dressing table, she met his eyes. Felt rather than saw the desire in the gray-for once took the time to savor it.

His thumb moved over her fingers, stroking, then he released her hand, stepped closer. Raising both hands, he framed her face, tipped it up to his. Looked down for one long moment, searching her eyes, then he bent his head and kissed her.

Longingly.

Hungrily, yet his hunger was reined. Greedily, letting her taste his wanting, yet holding back, not taking.

She wouldn’t have stopped him if he had, yet this time she was content to follow. To let him show her what he wished.

To let him deepen the kiss degree by degree, until a tide of response, of a longing to match his, rose up and swamped her. Swept away both restraint and thought. Left only sensation and feeling to cling to.

She clung, and her soul rejoiced.

Christian held to the slow pace, to the slow steady beat of his drum, held her to that so he had a chance to show her the other side of passion’s coin.

So he could weave what he felt for her into each caress, invest each slow kiss with his need of her. Let her taste his desire on his lips, on his tongue, let her feel it in the slow, steady claiming.

She grew restless, reached for him. Releasing her face, he caught her hands, stepped into her as he eased her arms behind her. Anchoring both her wrists in one hand, he trapped them at the back of her waist, holding her within that arm.

With his free hand he trapped her jaw, angled her face so he could continue the kiss-draw it out until she was breathless. Then he shifted his lips to her temple, cruised over her ear and down to press a hot caress in the sensitive hollow beneath.

She murmured, and tried to shift into him. He held her back, kept at least an inch between their bodies. “Not yet,” he murmured, and ducked his head, tipping her jaw so he could trace the long, arching line of her throat with his lips. She shuddered beneath the caress, and grew less rigid. More pliant. Willing to cede him the moment, to see what he wished to give her.

He pressed his lips to the pulse point at the base of her throat, felt more of her impatience fall away. Breathing in, he drew the scent of jasmine into his lungs, held it there, close to his heart.

Lifting his head, he found her lips again, kissed her again. Still slow, still hungry. Lowered his hand to her breast, let the warm mound fill his palm.

She reacted instantly-immediately wanted him to release her hands so she could sink them in his hair and set the pace. He knew, but still he held her, kept her hands trapped while he kneaded, while his fingers searched and, through the black silk crepe, found and circled her nipple.

Her kiss grew hungrier, more demanding, yet still he held her back. Forced her to feel his unhurried assessment of her bounty. He traced, stroked, ran his thumb over the furled peaks, until her breasts were swollen and firm, straining beneath the confining silk.

Only then did he consent to move on. It was the work of a minute to slip the black buttons closing her bodice free, releasing the pressure. Holding her to their kiss, he found the lacings at her back and swiftly undid them.

She sighed when he released her hands and slid her gown from her shoulders, down her arms, let it slide slowly down her slender body until it slithered over her hips and down her legs to puddle on the floor.

Leaving her clad only in her fine silk chemise and even finer silk stockings. And they were black, too-dark veils too insubstantial to fully screen her white skin. The filmy chemise shifting over her curves distracted him.

Letitia saw, and felt a spark of amazement lance through her desire. He’d seen her naked often enough; to see him transfixed now was a curious delight. She shifted, stretched, watched his eyes track her breasts, her hips, trace her waist through the screening chemise.

Setting one hand to his shoulder, she slipped off her slippers, stepped out of her discarded gown and into him.

To her surprise, he caught her, his hands locking about her waist. Holding her as she was, the tight peaks of her breasts just brushing his coat.

An excruciatingly tantalizing caress; she needed to get closer, to ease the ache in her heavy breasts, but he held her trapped.

He looked into her face, searched her eyes, her expression, in the dim light. She had no idea what he saw, but then he bent his head, still moving far too slowly for her liking. But at least his lips closed on hers, and this time his tongue surged deep into her mouth. Not in any fury of desire, not as it usually was between them, all fire and unleashed passion, but with a slow intent, a measured, unhurried, almost languid claiming that somehow, to her reeling senses, was strangely erotic.

With her lips and tongue, she tried to urge him on, to make him go faster, to ignite the flames that between them usually roared and drove him.

To return to the familiar.

But he wouldn’t, not this time. He held to his slow beat, and refused to let her push him. Even though the heat between them was palpable, he kept it at simmering, steadily burgeoning, escalating, but totally under his control.

A shiver went through her as she realized what was so different-so sensually exciting it was setting her nerves flickering, skittering, with expectation.

Control. His.

Whenever they’d come together in the past, neither had exercised any real measure of control-for herself, she’d never sought it, and she’d always, in the past, been able to cinder his.

Not this time. As the kiss went on, spun out, and left her slowly whirling along the outer edges of a vortex of pleasured delight, she felt all resistance fade.

He wished her to know this, and so she would. The conqueror within him, a being she’d always known existed beneath his debonair charm, wasn’t going to give her any choice.

A primitive shudder of anticipation ran down her spine.

He sensed it; he paused in his slow, devastatingly thorough claiming of her mouth, then the kiss changed. Deepened. As one hand drifted from her waist.

She felt the brush of his fingers as they slid beneath the hem of her chemise. With his fingertips he traced-slowly-upward from her hip along her side to the underside of her breast.

Moving slowly, smoothly, he palmed it. At last skin-to-skin, he closed his hand about her flesh and the flames leapt.

Just so far. They flared and fell as he touched her-everywhere. As he claimed every inch of her skin-unhurriedly, explicitly, as if he had all night and intended to use it.

His desire, his absolute intent to make her his, to claim her, brand her, reached her through his touch. Through every caress of his hard hands, through every sweep of his palms as he sculpted her body. Through every slow, languid, thorough exploration.

It almost felt as if he were learning her anew, as if those long-ago times had been in some other life and they were both different people now.

As if he were claiming her for the first time.

That thought filled Christian’s mind; that was indeed his intention. Always, before, he’d let her have her head, let her burn and take him with her-let them plunge unrestrained into passion’s fire and be consumed. Never before had he extended himself, never before had he fought to give her this. Never before had he held the flames back so she might see what, to him, beneath the flames and the fire, being intimate with her was all about.

He’d always hidden the emotion that, from the first, had driven him with her.

Tonight he held the flames back, and laid his heart and soul bare before her.

He was who he was, and that was something she understood.

But not something he’d before let her see. Never completely. Never clearly. Hardly at all.

Tonight was different. Tonight he intended to love her-and let her see.

She kept trying to push him, to let the flames free, but if he truly wished, he could hold her back. Could keep her with him, gasping, breathless, as he caressed every inch of the lush body he would possess.