Would pretend, as his eyes touched hers again and, after a heartbeat’s hesitation, he lowered his head, to be taking this all in her stride.

Determinedly pretend, as instinctively she lifted her chin, met his lips as they stooped to hers, that her nerves weren’t skittering, that her senses weren’t poised to swoon, that her heart wasn’t tripping in double time.

He kissed her, and she kissed him. Familiar, yet not. Last night had been so urgent, so heated and driven; tonight, she sensed in him a greater attention, an intention to remain focused…on her.

On what he wanted of her.

Quite what that was she didn’t know. A thrill of expectation flashed, sharp and bright, through her.

The kiss grew hungrier, more demanding. She met him, matched his claims, his conquest, with her own needs, her own wants.

All entirely instinctive, but she had no other guide. She wasn’t innocent, not in the biblical sense, yet she’d never been this way before, had never needed as she now did before.

Had never wanted a man as she wanted him.

That simple; that complicated. Her want was a pattern of needs and desires, and as he wasn’t in any hurry tonight, and neither was she, he seemed content to let her explore-those needs, those wants, and him.

He let her undress him. His lips curved when she wrestled his shirt from him and then, the garment sliding from her fingertips, stared in wonder at the muscled expanse of his chest. Eyes wide, she dropped the shirt and spread her hands, palms to his hot skin.

And learned.

She explored like a wanton, freed of restraint, and he let her.

Encouraged her.

Until he stood naked in the moonlight, each heavy bone, the taut line of every muscle, gilded in silver, and she couldn’t breathe, yet still she took his member, erect and so flagrantly male, between her hands, stroked, closed her fingers, and lightly squeezed.

He stilled. She sensed the tension in him grow, tighten-to steel, fine and hard and unwavering. Her fingers, her hands, slowed.

His chest swelled as he drew in a breath. Then his hands rose to her shoulders, cupped, tightened-then eased. He drew off the silk wrapper she’d donned over her nightgown.

And slowly, deliberately, turned the tables on her.

He took his time, his lips returning to hers now and again, to sup, to send her senses spinning again. To woo her wits into compliance with his agenda-his needs, his wants, his desires.

His wish to learn of her. To explore her even more intimately, even more thoroughly, than she had him.

His hands traced, outlined, possessed. His touch imperfectly shielded by the fine silk of her nightgown, he cupped, stroked, tantalized.

Eventually-at last!-he divested her of the gown. Stripped it away with maddening ease, and equally maddening slowness.

A slowness that stretched her nerves taut, then set them quivering. That left her lungs seized, her breath a mere sigh, her wits scattered beyond recall.

Her senses were all his. His to command.

Expectation, physical anticipation, had never been so brittlely sharp, so exquisitely honed.

So attuned to his intention, his wish, his desire.

To know her. To have her. Ultimately to possess her.

With hands and fingers, with lips and tongue, he stroked, sampled, caressed. Until her breath shuddered and hitched, until her skin burned, until need was a molten ache low in her belly.

Until reckless abandon pounded in her blood.

When he sank to his knees before her, she had no idea what he planned to do. And no time to wonder, to guess and mute the shock, before he set his lips, his hot mouth, to her curls, then, ignoring her breathless gasp, he parted her thighs, and set his wicked tongue to her softness.

He licked, laved, probed, and her senses reeled. Fingers tangled in his thick hair, she fought to remain upright while her legs threatened to give way. He sensed it, caught one of her knees, bent and lifted it to drape her leg over his broad shoulder, balancing her there, his large hands cupping her bottom, the position keeping her thighs wide-opening her to an even more intimate campaign.

One he wrought with devastating effectiveness.

With ruthless thoroughness.

Experience told.

The assault on her senses stretched her nerves to the breaking point. Head back, eyes open but unseeing, she was struggling to even gasp, battling to remain afloat on the tide of his sensual mastery, and not let the waves of tactile pleasure pull her down and drown her, when, with one last, flagrantly explicit foray, he drew back.

Still supporting her, he fluidly rose.

Before her raised foot even reached the floor, he gripped her hips and hoisted her.

She only just managed to swallow a shriek. Suspended between his hands, her body felt taut, heated by flames licking over her skin and a fiery emptiness burning within. Clutching his shoulders, her thighs clamped to his flanks, she looked down to search his face-but he was looking down as he drew her hips to his.

In the instant she understood, she felt the broad head of his erection part her slick folds, and press in.

Surrendering to instinct, she lifted her legs, wrapped them about his hips. Tilted her hips closer, wanting, needing…

She lost her breath as he thrust in.

Arms locked about his shoulders, she let her head tip back, eyes closed, spine arching as he held her and steadily pressed deeper to fill her. Tiny thrills skittered over her skin; flickering showers of bright sensation skated along her nerves. Inexorably, relentless and intent, he drew her hips to him, held her there, locked against him, and pushed deeper still.

And then he was there, hard, hot, and impossibly large, filling her, completing her.

She dragged in a huge breath.

Lost it as, his fingers biting into the lush curves of her derriere, Del lifted her, drawing his rigid erection from the scalding slickness of her sheath, only to slide smoothly home again, to the hilt.

The moan she uttered was music to his ears. He set about gaining more.

Set about discovering how much more she could take. How much more he could take of her before surrendering to the inevitable, to an all-consuming, senses-stealing rapturous release.

She hadn’t been a virgin, was twenty-nine, and had lived outside England for a decade. A woman so richly endowed, so attuned to the sexual, so openly embracing and welcoming of the act as she’d proved to be, wouldn’t have lived those years in abstinence; there was no reason he need feel constrained by typical English sexual mores.

More need, in fact, given her adventurous nature, to use his experience of exotic lovemaking to lure and hold her.

He didn’t need to think further. He walked around the room, jigging her with every stride, making her clutch and moan anew, then he walked to the bed, braced his thighs against the side and set her down on her back on the coverlet.

He straightened. Took a moment to look down at her, hair wild and spread beneath her head and shoulders, her features stamped with blatant desire, her luscious body naked, wracked with passion, her skin delicate rose-tinted ivory, her breasts full and firm, nipples tightly furled, her white thighs spread wide, her long legs wrapped around his hips.

His erection sunk in her sheath.

He looked up, caught a glimpse of jade-bright eyes beneath her lashes. Saw her watching him.

Saw her breasts rise as she drew breath.

Sliding deep, snug within her, he set his hands to her breasts, filled his palms, possessed. Drew her nipples into throbbing buds, then ran his hands down her body, over her waist, her bare stomach.

Assessing, branding.

He bent his head and with his mouth, his tongue, swiftly followed the same path. Made her gasp and squirm.

She arched, lifted to him as he returned to pay appropriate homage to her bountiful breasts. When she was reduced to desperate, wordlessly pleading need, he straightened and filled his hands with the firm cheeks of her bottom, her skin flushed and dewed, heated and damp. Tightening his grip, he withdrew from the slick clutch of her body until he was almost free, then thrust deep again, harder, more powerfully.

Holding her hips immobile, he set up a driving, compelling rhythm.

She moaned, then sobbed, threshed her head from side to side.

He released her hips, unwrapped her legs from his hips and raised her calves to prop her ankles on his shoulders, then gripped her hips anew and held her steady as he thrust repetitively, penetrating even more deeply inside her.

Her breath came in panting gasps, her hands fisting in the coverlet as the tempo increased and he pounded into her.

She tightened, and tightened, spine bowing, muscles locking.

Then she came apart.

In a glorious, rippling cascade, release took her, caught her, wracked her, rocked her, shook her. Deliah had never felt anything so sensually profound. So primitive. As if her senses had shattered, disintegrated under the onslaught of sensation he’d wrought.

But even then he wasn’t finished with her. He continued to move within her, until she reached that curious state of floating.

Then he withdrew, leaving her strangely bereft, but only for an instant.

Shrugging her legs from his shoulders, gripping her hips, he rolled her onto her stomach. He drew her toward him until her hips were at the edge of the high mattress, her legs over the side of the bed, her toes barely touching the floor.

She lay there, boneless, and he filled her from behind.

Her nerves sizzled, stretched.

Passion flared anew as he withdrew and thrust into her. Her senses expanded, greedily taking it all in-the novel sensations of his groin meeting the vulnerable skin of her exposed bottom, his heavy balls brushing the sensitive backs of her naked thighs.