Lifting his head, grasping her waist, he turned her. Set her to face the window, then stepped close behind. Slid his hands around her and filled them with her breasts, closed his hands and felt her sway.

He took a moment to savor her struggle to breathe, to sense the thudding of her heart. Then he bent his head and set his lips to the sensitive hollow beneath her ear.

She shuddered, leaned back against him. He kneaded her breasts, already firm and swollen, already peaked, straining beneath her bodice. He listened to her gasps, orchestrated, sensed when the line where pleasure became pain was approaching.

Releasing the taut mounds, he set his fingers to the buttons of her bodice. Set his lips cruising the long line of her throat, set his teeth to score lightly along the same path.

While he laid her breasts bare.

Opened her bodice, pressed the halves wide, loosened her chemise and lowered it. Exposing the flushed ivory skin to the cool night air.

Smiling at the sight, at her nipples ruched tight, he raised his hands and once again closed them on her, this time skin-to-skin.

When she shuddered, dropping her hands to his thighs clutched, he lowered his head and murmured in her ear, “You’re going to stand there and let me love you-let me do whatever I wish to you. Let me have my way with you.”

Rubbish, Letitia’s rational self scoffed.

Why not? her curiosity prompted.

With the steady beat of passion thrumming in her veins, with the fog of desire clouding her brain, she could find no good answer to the question.

Could summon no resistance when he took her silence as agreement, and eased her gown and chemise down, stopped to unlace her petticoats, then pushed gown, petticoats, and chemise over her hips so they fell with a soft swoosh to the floor.

His hands returned to her skin, but his touch was different, lighter, frankly assessing, exploratory. As if he’d never seen her naked, as if she were a prize, a present he’d unwrapped for the first time.

She dragged in a breath past the constriction in her chest, conscious of her breasts rising, her midriff tightening, aware that he saw and watched. Naked but, once again, for her black lace garters and fine black silk stockings, she could all but feel the silvery touch of the moonlight as it bathed her long limbs, caressed the curves and valleys of her body, and illuminated a self she’d all but forgotten existed.

He moved behind her, a large, dark, powerful figure still fully clothed. She felt the cloth of his coat brush the long planes of her back. His hands caught hers, fingers briefly tangling with hers, then he glided his palms slowly up her arms, closed them for an instant over her shoulders, then slowly slid them, palms to her skin, down.

Over her breasts, hot and aching for more than a simple caress, over her midriff, tight with desire, over her waist and her taut belly, over the curve of her hips and down, around; gripping her bottom, he kneaded.

As he bent his head and set his lips over the pulse point at the base of her throat.

She gasped at the heat of that simple contact. Shivered and closed her eyes-only to have her other senses sharpen. To have her skin grow even more sensitive to his touch.

From behind, one trouser-clad knee pressed between hers, forcing her thighs apart. She sucked in a breath as, releasing her bottom, his hands cruised her hips. One splayed across her stomach and held her captive, pressed her back so she was straddling that hard thigh, the cloth of his trousers abrading the delicate skin of her thighs’ inner faces-an unsubtle reminder that he was fully clothed while she was all but naked, impressing a sense of vulnerability heavily on her senses.

His other hand drifted down over her thighs; his fingers briefly flirted with the tiny ribbons securing her garters, then left them for the bare skin above. With cool deliberation, with his fingertips he traced up the inner face of her thigh. Higher, higher…then he reached across and traced up the other side.

As if assessing the fineness of her skin, as if fascinated by it.

She tensed, and waited, breathing all but suspended…

Eventually, with a languid authority that in itself was arousing, he let his fingers rise to the next point on his trail of conquest, lightly stroking, then playing with the crinkly dark hair shielding her mons.

He was patently in no hurry; her whole body was taut-she was ready to scream-before he consented to part her curls and reach farther.

To trace, stroke, and caress the already swollen flesh, to slide his fingers through the slickness his earlier caresses had drawn forth.

He chuckled at how wet she was, a dark rumble of male appreciation deep in his chest.

Her hands rose, locked about his hand where it splayed over her belly. He continued to play, as if learning her anew. She was quivering when, after an excruciatingly slow exploration of her tender flesh, he finally pressed one long finger into her sheath.

One slow, smooth, complete penetration.

The sensation brought her onto her toes.

Head back against his shoulder, eyes tightly closed, she gasped.

He held her there, naked before him, her silk stockings sliding against his trousers, her bottom held against his thighs, his erection a heavy rod against her lower back-and made her writhe.

Although her eyes were closed, her mind still saw-saw herself in his arms, held trapped against him, her flushed skin pearlescent in the steady moonlight, her hair tumbling from its pins, long tresses curling over her shoulders as she-her body-responded, helplessly surrendered to the simple blatant act of possession expertly executed.

She no longer had the will to resist. She was captured, not by him but by her fascination with this different side of him, this other lover who was him, yet not the him she’d once known.

The dark lover who held her before him, and pressed pleasure upon exquisite pleasure on her. He was not just older, but more experienced, a scarred warrior who’d lived through battles and had at last come home to claim…her.

His due, his reward. His bounty.

His without question.

That seemed to be the case, for he asked no permission, waited for no assent when, once the heat within her built, and the fever threatened to consume her, instead of allowing her to shatter and find relief, he withdrew his hand from between her thighs, set her on her feet, waited only a heartbeat to ensure she was steady, then grasped her hand and towed her toward the bed.

Thank God, was her initial thought. She expected him to lay her down, strip off his clothes and join her.

Instead he led her to the nearest corner of the bed, to where the thick post of the four-poster bed was hung with heavy green damask curtains. He reached for the silk cord that held the curtains back, wrenched it free, with one hand pushed the curtains to either side, exposing the post.

Before she could blink, he had her backed against the post. He caught both her hands in one of his, drew them up, then looped the curtain cord about her wrists and lashed them high above her head.

Stunned, she could only stare. He stepped back, leaving her standing with her spine against the post, her arms raised but not stretched; there was enough play in the loop for her to curve her hands down and hang onto the cord. She did, testing, but his handiwork held; the lashing didn’t budge, even under her full weight.

What…? She looked at him, intending to ask.

He met her gaze, his own dark and hard, simply said, “Wait.”

He turned away from her and started to undress.

She wriggled, glared, tested her bonds again. Glared at his broad back as he shrugged out of his shirt. Her body was on fire, the flames he’d stoked so deliberately still burning brightly, hungrily, greedily. All she could think about was having him inside her, having the thick rod of his erection moving within her to quench the flames.

But then he turned back, gloriously naked, fully aroused, and expectant relief flooded her. Heightened her readiness, her waiting, her wanting.

She needed him against her, skin-to-skin, more than she needed to breathe.

Then he halted before her-face-to-face, eye-to-eye.

And she suddenly remembered that this wasn’t the lover she’d known before, but a hardened warrior intent on claiming his due.

Her.

A shiver raced through her as she looked into his eyes-pure excitement laced with expectation, honed by a sense of dealing with the unknown.

He said nothing, simply raised his hands, framed her face, bent his head and kissed her-as if he would-was fully intending to-devour her.

Her every thought cindered beneath the heat in that kiss.

Her mind was awash with raw scalding need when he lifted his head. He looked down, following his hands as he ran them down her body, heavily, possessively, sculpting her curves, his prize, his reward. He reassessed, caressed, repossessed-then bent his head and set his mouth to her breast.

Treated her swollen flesh, as he had her lips and mouth, to a single-minded ravishment. One that had her hanging in her bonds, the fire within her escalating to an unbearable degree.

She would have writhed but his hands held her steady. She sobbed as he released the nipple he’d tortured to throbbing hardness. Unrelenting, he bent and skated his lips lower, with wet, open-mouthed kisses, with his tongue and his teeth, possessed as he wished.

He went to his knees before her, placed hot kisses over her quivering belly, then set his lips to her curls…then he settled back, his knees wide, grasped her thighs, raised them and placed one over each broad shoulder, grasped her hips with both hands and held her, then set his lips to her core.