Illogic had never looked quite so attractive.

In fact, illogic looked remarkably like a pair of well-rounded breasts, rosy areolae more revealed than concealed through the lace trim of a chemise.

“I’ll just check for bruises,” the Gentian said thickly, as his finger dipped into the valley between her breasts.

“Oh, but I’m really not”—Amy gasped as the Gentian’s hand slipped lower under her chemise, brushing against her nipple—“hurt,” she finished weakly.

“Are you sure?” The Purple Gentian’s palm flattened against her breast, the leather of his glove against her skin making her shiver in a way that had nothing to do with the cool night air rising off the Seine.

Amy reconsidered. “No,” she said unevenly. “Not really.” Maybe there were bruises there she hadn’t felt before. Maybe that explained the sensations she felt as his hand grazed over her again as he hastily pulled it from her bodice.

Amy watched as the Gentian lifted his gloved hand to his lips and used his teeth to yank each finger free until the glove pulled loose and plummeted into Amy’s lap.

Just a little touch, Richard promised himself, as his now bare fingers gently parted the torn fabric of Amy’s bodice. He’d just allow himself the briefest of caresses—after all, there might be bruises there she should know about—and then he’d put Amy’s dress back together and bundle her up in her cloak and behave just as properly as if Miss Gwen was sitting there on the other side of the boat chaperoning them.

As soon as Richard’s fingertips touched the silky skin of Amy’s breast, all resolutions were off. The specter of Miss Gwen splashed forgotten into the water, and all pretense of looking for bruises went the same way. He stroked a sensual semicircle around the top of her left breast, delving down into the shadowy area beneath her chemise. Surely the skin on the other side of her breast couldn’t be nearly as soft. . . . But it could. And so could the pale skin all the way around her other breast. Richard traced a complete circuit around each, just to be sure, then trailed his fingers round again for good measure.

Reluctantly, Richard dragged his hand away from Amy’s torn bodice, savoring the last brush of silky skin against his fingertips. “I don’t think there are any bruises.”

“Then why does it ache?” Amy asked, in such a quintessentially Amy tone of indignation that Richard just had to kiss her.

The kiss began as a spontaneous gesture of affection. It began as a quick smack on the lips. It didn’t end that way. The minute Richard’s lips touched Amy’s, her mouth opened eagerly under his and her arms slid up around his neck. And somehow—Richard wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, and, to be honest, wasn’t wasting that much thought on the matter—rather than sitting next to each other on the bench, Amy had somehow slid sideways, and he was half atop her, one elbow propped against the wood of the bench, the other pushing that blasted cloak of hers out of the way.

“I think what you’re feeling,” Richard murmured, coming up briefly for air, “is”—kiss—“desire. Not”—kiss—“bruises.” Having imparted that educational information, his mouth plunged back down on Amy’s.

Amy gasped as the fabric of the Gentian’s shirt brushed against her bare breasts, sending prickles of feeling along an area already teased to the point of agony. She wrapped her arms tighter around him. Pressing up against him, she kissed him as he had been kissing her, flirting with the tip of his tongue, nibbling the edge of his lips.

Richard made one last attempt to think logically.

“We’re outside,” he panted, tearing his mouth from Amy’s.

Since organs other than Richard’s brain were doing about three-quarters of his thinking for him, it wasn’t the most wholehearted of protests. It had about as much effect as most of him had hoped it would. None.

Amy smiled dreamily up at him, lifting a hand to run it along his cheekbones down to his lips. “I know. Have you ever seen so many stars?”

Richard didn’t bother to look up. He didn’t need to. All the stars in the sky shone reflected in the blue depths of Amy’s eyes.

“Shall I fetch you a necklace of them?” he asked tenderly.

Amy’s hand stilled on the Gentian’s cheek. She drew in a sharp breath. “A necklace of stars,” she repeated, her voice unsteady.

Richard’s desire-clogged brain registered alarm. Oh God, what had he said? He hauled himself up on both elbows, ignoring the splinters that plucked at his sleeves.

“Is something wrong?”

Beneath him, Amy’s hair spread in a dark fan. It rippled around her pale face as she slowly shook her head.

“No . . .” Her glazed eyes snapped back into focus, glowing with joy. “No. Everything’s absolutely right.”

“Um, that’s good,” Richard ventured, but he was cut off somewhere around “goo” as Amy flung her arms around his neck and began showering his face with clumsy if exuberant kisses. She kissed his forehead, his cheekbone, the edge of his ear, the rim of his mask (that was clearly an accident), the corner of his lip, the curve of his chin (another accident), and the tip of his nose (which Richard thought might have been intentional, but couldn’t be sure).

What had he said? Richard wished he remembered so that he could say it again, if this was going to be the reaction. But he was too busy enjoying the outcome—in this case, Amy trailing somewhat better-aimed kisses along his ear and his throat—to think too deeply about it. Richard groaned happily and plunged his hands into the lavender-scented mass of Amy’s hair.

Brushing her hair back from her face, he leaned over to return the attentions, bracing his right elbow on the seat next to Amy. At least, he meant to brace his elbow next to Amy. Richard flailed for a moment as his body teetered on the edge of the bench, Amy’s arms around his neck acting as a counterweight keeping him steady. Until, that was, Amy popped up to press a particularly exuberant kiss on his ear.

Ka-thunk!

They landed with a thud on the floor next to the bench, Amy sprawled on top of Richard. The boat careened back and forth as though they were on the high seas in a midwinter tempest, rather than on the Seine on a clear spring night. Since Amy was perched on his rib cage, Richard was having somewhat more difficulty breathing than she was. But, given the view afforded by her gaping bodice, Richard had no inclination to complain.

Little trickles of water frothed up over the edge of the boat, and the boatman spat a curse. “Amants!” He made the word lovers sound like the rankest of insults.

“Amy, amas, amants . . .” Richard chuckled, holding a squirming Amy by the hips as she tried to wiggle off of him.

“Don’t you mean, amo, amas, amat?” Amy giggled the conjugation of the Latin verb “to love.”

“I like my version better,” murmured Richard, nipping her ear.

Amy pushed at the Purple Gentian’s chest with both hands, as she attempted to lever herself up. The boat rocked dangerously.

“I think you’d better stay here,” he whispered, running a hand under her tumbled skirts to capture an ankle. “It’s safer.”

“For whom?” gasped Amy, as the Purple Gentian’s hand rose higher, sliding from her boot-top, following her silk stocking up along the curve of her calf and knee, pausing to toy with the ribbons of her garter. Amy jumped as his finger brushed along the bare skin of her thigh.

“For the boatman, of course.” The Gentian grinned. “Less chance of us capsizing.”

“Oh. I don’t know if that’s—” began Amy, only it came out as, “Iwa wo wo iwa,” because the Purple Gentian made up for the shortcomings in his argument by twining his free hand in Amy’s hair and making sure Amy couldn’t argue back.

Long moments later, he grinned at a breathless Amy. “I thought you’d see it my way.”

All Amy could see were stars, hundreds of stars, thousands of stars, dancing along the backs of her eyelids as he pulled her mouth back down to his, his lips moving on hers as velvet soft as the dark night. Their tongues twined together, warm and sweet. Amy swam in a dizzying wine-dark sea of sensation as the Purple Gentian’s lips moved on hers and his knowing fingers teased the soft skin of her thigh. Was the boat swaying, or was she? Blindly, she slid her hands up under the Gentian’s shirt, the ribbed muscles of his chest the only thing solid and sure in a wildly swaying universe. A dusting of hair tickled her fingertips.

Sensation after sensation assaulted Amy, the brush of hair across her palms and the moist thrust of the Gentian’s tongue. The Gentian’s fingers rubbed up against the fabric of her linen drawers, creating an odd tension that made Amy wiggle and arch towards him. The Gentian released her mouth and lifted his head to capture a ripe pink nipple in his lips. Amy drew back in surprise, but the Gentian refused to be dislodged, sucking and licking and tugging, until the fingers she had raised to his head to try to push him away were twined in the hair under his hood, pulling his mouth closer.

“Oh,” she gasped. The Gentian didn’t reply; his mouth was full.

An even louder “oh!” escaped her as the Gentian’s fingers discovered the slit in her drawers and slid up into her liquid warmth, stroking, searching. . . . Amy cried out as a tremor of pleasure shot through her. Without withdrawing his intimate touch, the Gentian rolled them over so that she lay beneath him, blinking up at him with eyes dark with desire.

“I thought you’d like that,” the Gentian murmured against her lips, before sliding his tongue into her ready mouth.