Kinvarra started to pull away, even as the beast inside him surged against restraint. Then Alicia made a soft sound deep in her throat and her lips parted.

Her warm breath filled his mouth. She tasted familiar. Yet as fresh and new as a fall of snow. Hot darkness exploded inside his head and reaction ripped through him. He longed to ravish her mouth with all the passion locked in his heart. He clenched his hands in the blankets. His control already threatened to shred and he’d hardly started his seduction.

She reached out and cradled his head between her hands, holding him close. He shut his eyes and prayed for fortitude, even as she tilted her head and pressed her mouth to his.

Her kiss was clumsy, as if she hadn’t kissed anyone in a long time. Shock rocketed through him. On an intellectual level, he’d known she’d never been unfaithful. But that passionate, needy, unpractised kiss assured his soul that in all the years they’d been apart, she’d belonged only to him.

Automatically his arms encircled her, curved her against his body. She moulded to him as his mouth opened over hers. Blazing heat threatened to incinerate his good intentions. Even as he kissed her deeply, ravenously, stroking her tongue with his, he struggled to remember that he couldn’t yield to this fire.

His resolution faltered when her tongue moved in unmistakable response. Restraint became even shakier when she sighed into his mouth and rubbed her body against his.

His shaking hands rose to her head to hold her as he plundered her mouth, stoking her passion with every second. His heart slammed hard at her unfettered response. He’d never guessed she had such wildness in her. She was glorious. When he finally raised his head, she whimpered in protest and her eyes were dark and slumberous under heavy, drooping eyelids.

A soft, shaken laugh escaped him as he feverishly stroked his hands through the soft hair at her temples. He couldn’t resist touching her — he couldn’t rely on fate being generous enough to keep his wife in his arms. “I’m struggling to be gentle, my darling, but you make it almost impossible.”

Her breath escaped in uneven gasps from moist, parted lips. Her face was flushed with arousal. “I’m not seventeen any more, Sebastian,” she whispered. “I won’t break.”

Almost reverently, he cupped her jaw. “You deserve tenderness and respect.”

Her smile was tremulous. “Is that what you feel for me?”

“Of course,” he said immediately. Then after a pause: “And desire.”

“Show me the desire.”

He bit back a groan. Leashing his hunger was the most fiendish of tortures. “I promised I wouldn’t hurt you.”

Her gaze was steady. “You won’t.”

Shame bit deep, chastened his craving, although nothing could ease his need apart from having her. And he already suspected that one night, no matter how dazzling, wouldn’t be enough even then. “I did once.”

She touched his cheek with a tenderness that filled him with guilty awareness of how badly he’d once treated her. “We ’ve both grown up since then, Sebastian. I trust you. Please, trust yourself.”

The yearning to prove himself worthy of her confidence flooded him. He couldn’t fail her now. But nor could he continue to treat her as if she were made of spun glass. It would destroy him. As he looked into her beautiful face, he realized she was right. She was no longer the frightened girl he’d first married and he was no longer the greedy, thoughtless young man who hadn’t appreciated the treasure he held in his arms.

Time had changed them and now it offered the opportunity to start again, to move beyond their mistakes and create something new and invincible and shining. He wanted to insist on promises from her, but he was wise enough to know that it was too early to burden the moment with talk of the future.

His hands were gentle as he undid the next button on her shirt. By the time he slid the garment from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor, she was trembling. Her hands had dropped to her sides.

It seemed she left everything to him. Was this a test?

Her scent filled his head and his thirst for her maddened him. Even so, he held back. Carefully he undressed her. Finally she was bare to his sight and he paused in wonder. In ten years, she’d changed. Her body was a woman’s, ripe, voluptuous, alluring.

He drew a shuddering breath and reminded himself of all that was at stake. His blood beat hot and hard but he managed to cling to control.

Just.

Alicia lay before him in shy wantonness. A flush lined her slanted cheekbones and the breath came fast between her lips. Almost hesitantly, Kinvarra reached out to cup one full breast. It curved into his hand as if created for his touch and the raspberry nipple pearled into tightness. When he bent to kiss that impudent peak, Alicia’s surprised gasp of pleasure was his reward. He drew harder on the nipple and ran his hand down the soft plain of her belly to the curls at the juncture of her thighs.

She was already damp. This slow seduction worked its magic on his wife too. He took her other nipple between his lips and nipped gently at the crest. She shifted restlessly under his hand and he caught the scent of her arousal. She buried her fingers in his hair, urging him closer.

He needed no further encouragement. But even as he licked and bit and suckled, let his hands roam her soft skin, some trace of reason lingered. She wasn’t ready yet, however her touch and her sighs of pleasure urged him to further depredations. He kept coming back to her mouth. He had ten years of kisses to make up for. Each kiss was hotter than the last.

“You’re wearing too many clothes,” she said in a broken voice.

“Whereas you’re dressed just right,” he whispered with a low laugh, tasting her breast again.

She’d been lovely as a girl, fresh and dewy and as rich with promise as a furled rose. But the woman in his arms now took his breath away.

With every minute, he felt her confidence increase. When she dragged his shirt up from his breeches, her touch on his naked back shot lightning behind his eyes.

“Sebastian, I want to see you.”

He couldn’t remain immune to her pleading. He rolled off the bed and tore his clothes off, flinging them into the corner in his haste. Then he paused, wondering if he should have been more circumspect. Would the sight of his rampant nakedness terrify his wife? When she was a girl, his unabashed maleness had frightened her. Could that have changed?

She slid up against the headboard, making no pretence at modesty by covering herself with the sheet. Dear Lord, she was a sight to set any man’s passions afire. Her face was flushed, her lips were full and red, her body was a symphony of curves and hollows. Her thick golden hair cascaded around her shoulders, teasingly covering one breast and leaving the other bare. Kinvarra felt himself grow harder, larger, needier.

Her eyes widened as her inspection continued down past his chest and belly. Hell, what would he do if she stopped him now?

Could he stop?

Yes, something inside him insisted.

“You’re magnificent,” she said softly, her eyes glinting blue fire under their heavy lids.

She sent him a smile of such joy that his foolish heart performed another somersault. She’d always been able to confound him with a word. Ten years without her hadn’t changed that. She stretched out one hand in invitation. To his astonishment, she wasn’t shaking. All her earlier uncertainty seemed to have vanished.

“Come to me, my husband.”

Alicia watched the expressions cross Kinvarra’s striking face. Somewhere in the last years, she’d learned to read him. When they’d first married, she hadn’t known how to pierce the shell of physical perfection to reach the man beneath. He’d seemed a godlike creature, too far above mere mortals for her to feel worthy of being his wife.

But the man who stood before her now, superb in his nakedness, was all too human.

For all his strength and beauty, he was vulnerable. How had she never seen that before?

Tonight she’d learned that he blamed himself for their marital difficulties. How odd, when finally she admitted that she’d been at least as much at fault as he in the disaster that had been their early married life. She’d been spoilt, demanding, headstrong, too quick to take umbrage, too slow to offer understanding.

Tonight she surveyed her husband’s powerful body and felt a woman’s desire. And a woman’s ability to forgive. Sensual need raged in her blood, made her heart pump with eagerness to know this man’s possession. Fear lurked too but she refused to acknowledge it.

As she watched his face, she recognized he was still unsure of her, unaware how she’d changed. He didn’t know that, after a long and difficult road, she’d discovered exactly where she ought to be.

In Kinvarra’s arms. For ever.

How had she imagined poor, pathetic, inadequate Harold Fenton could compare with the man she’d married?

“Sebastian, I want you,” she said softly, surprised at how easily the words emerged. “Don’t make me wait.”

Something in her voice or her smile must have convinced him she had grown beyond the skittish girl he’d married. Determination flooded his face, hardened his jaw, set his eyes glinting in a way that, for all her arousal, made her pulse race with trepidation.

And excitement.

How had she never recognized what an exciting man she’d married? She must have been insane ten years ago.

This was no time for regrets. Not when her tall, handsome, overwhelmingly virile husband prowled towards her with such purpose. There was none of his earlier hesitation in the way he drew her into his arms and tugged her under him. There was just hunger and a masculine strength that made her feel both delicate yet stronger than steel.