Up to her throat, to tip her face to precisely the right angle for continuing a kiss that was rapidly becoming all consuming.

Once she was fully engaged with the incendiary mating of their mouths, he let his hand slide, down to her breast.

And fractured her concentration.

He palmed the firm mound, then gripped lightly, squeezed. . when she gasped through the kiss, he settled to knead, to know, to possess.

If it had been up to him, he would have forgotten about dinner and instead bared her breasts and feasted. But she’d set the stage, and he was willing and able, and more than experienced enough, to perform as required.

So he kneaded her breasts until both were swollen, full and heavy and aching, filling her bodice until the material drew tight and she restlessly shifted, seeking relief.

For which there would be none, not yet.

Releasing her breast, he sent his hand skating lower, fingers pressing, tensing on the taut curve of her belly, then sliding lower still to, through her skirts, press artfully between her thighs.

Heather caught her breath. She couldn’t breathe but through the kiss, relied on its heat, its simmering passion, to anchor her whirling senses. His fingertips pressed again, harder, deeper, stroked evocatively, and she lifted her hips to his hand, wanting, shamelessly demanding. Her gown and her chemise shielded her flesh from his touch, but nothing could mute the sensation of his hard fingers outlining what lay beneath, tracing and knowing. . the damned man knew too much.

On a breathless gasp, she tried to pull back from the kiss, but he wouldn’t let her. He held her trapped within the scorching exchange, the evocative plundering she’d invited and now couldn’t pry any part of her senses from. But she needed to—

His fingers left her. Before she could react — before she could protest — her skirts rucked slightly as he reached beneath. His fingers and palm cruised her calf, and she sighed.

Waited.

He gave her all she wished for — the fire, the heat, the oh-so-knowledgeable play. Until she was aching and empty and wanted him there. . then one long finger slid deep inside her, and she shattered.

Felt her senses implode into a million shards of bright, brilliant glory.

As they realigned, she felt his hand working between her thighs, two large fingers stroking deep, keeping her fires smoldering, then she realized he’d finally released her lips and lifted his head. In extremis, her hands had slid into his dark hair, her fingers mindlessly tangling in the locks. Forcing open lids weighted with passion, she looked at his face — and saw that he was looking elsewhere.

Saw that he’d rucked her skirts to her waist, and his attention was fixed on his hand as it flexed between her widespread thighs. . She shuddered and closed her eyes.

“Do you want what comes next?”

The words reached her on a low rumble, their tone matter-of-fact, but his voice gravelly. . She now recognized the deeper cadences of desire.

“Yes.” Her answer wasn’t in question. Opening her eyes, she captured his. “I want the entire performance. I want you inside me — I want to feel you there, filling me. Taking me.”

It was his turn to shudder and briefly close his eyes. Breckenridge dragged in a breath, through the pounding of his pulse in his ears heard her demand, “So how?”

Drawing his fingers from her sheath, his hand from between her thighs, flicking her skirts down, he stood with her in his arms. Met her eyes as he turned to the bed. “Like this.”

He tumbled her facedown onto the covers, then caught her hips and drew them up and toward him. “On your knees.”

She obligingly settled upright on her knees. Sitting on her ankles, she glanced over her shoulder. Frowned. “How—”

He caught her face, kissed her, held her steady for one long-drawn engagement, then released her and pressed her shoulders down, stepping between her ankles as he did.

“Oh,” she said, and leaned forward on her hands.

“Indeed.” He flicked up her skirts, one hand cruising the dew-damped curves of her luscious derriere as with the other he released the buttons at his waist.

His erection sprang free, turgid and heavy. Sliding his fingers once more between her thighs, stroking the swollen, scaldingly slick folds, he parted her, then eased the broad head of his erection to her entrance, then slid slowly, heavily, home.

All the way to paradise.

The sound that fell from her was a shivery, thankfully breathless, moan.

“No sound,” he reminded her. Grasping her hips, he eased slowly out, then took his sweet time easing all the way back in. As he’d told her, there was no need to make this quick.

So he drew the moments out, made every touch, every sliding glide last, strung every second out until the tension drew tight as a wire, until it stretched taut enough to cut.

He listened to every sound he wrung from her, savored each, accepted that at the end he would have to reach around her and muffle her scream. . he was determined that she would scream.

Preferably his name.

With every slow penetration, every achingly slow impression as her sheath stretched and accepted him, then clamped so tight, delicate and powerful at the same time, he felt something in him rise. With every artful, expert possession, although who was possessing whom was moot, he sensed that novel something grow and swell, a new part of him, a new facet of him that hadn’t been there before.

That new element, whatever it was, delighted in the pleasure, not just the pleasure he gave and her freely communicated appreciation, but even more the pleasure he received with every caress of her sumptuous body.

She knew it was him. For her, in this, there was only him, and that was certainly different. That somehow added another, unique and addictive, dimension to their joining — to this act he’d performed so many times before but had never before felt so invested in.

As she rode his slowly accelerating thrusts, she turned her head enough for him to glimpse her profile — her eyes closed, an expression of sensual bliss in place, a smile of exquisite delight curving her lips. . the sight made his breath catch.

And then they were moving faster, harder, striving as together they raced for the peak.

Heat rose. Need swelled and grew.

The arousing sounds of their mating enveloped them — the slap of skin against skin, their ragged, desperate breaths, the muted sobs that fell from her lips.

Passion caught them.

Held them in an invincible grip and ruthlessly, relentlessly, drove them on.

Until they were clinging to sanity, desperate, greedy, beyond needy, so close to the sensual abyss yet still not there. .

Pressing deep, her bare bottom riding evocatively against his groin, he bent over her, reached around, slid one palm over her parted lips, filled the other with one swollen breast, found her ruched nipple, gripped and thrust harder, deeper, more forcefully as he squeezed.

She cried out and came apart, pressing back against him as he continued to fill her, deeper and still deeper. Her sheath contracted, clutched, and drew him irrevocably on — he let go and followed her into the blinding ecstasy, glorying in the moment, in the sheer heat and fury, the mind-melting, bone-dissolving cataclysm of sensation that slammed into him, into them, that set her keening as they crested the final peak.

They fractured.

And fell.

Into a void of indescribable bliss.

He collapsed upon her, managed to slide to the side enough so he didn’t crush her.

They were both struggling for breath, helpless and weak, limbs like jelly, nerves unraveled.

Eventually he gathered enough strength to disengage, then he rolled onto his back the better to fill his chest.

After a moment, she rolled, too, so that she lay on her back alongside him.

He glanced at her just as she drew in a breath and blew it out in a huff.

“That was. . amazing.”

He grinned and refocused on the ceiling. Intention accomplished, goal achieved.

Tomorrow they would reach the Vale, and Richard and Catriona’s roof. As a guest thereunder, he couldn’t in all conscience visit Heather’s bed, so whatever inducements to matrimony he wished to impress on her had to be proffered now.

And if later she was keen to play further, he was — would be — more than willing.

In his educated experience, they together — she and he — were significantly more than amazing.

They nodded off and woke to a handbell ringing downstairs. Rolling out of each other’s arms and off the bed, they quickly washed, straightened their clothes, then headed down the narrow stair to find Mrs. Croft setting down plates on the deal table in the kitchen.

The aromatic stew piqued Heather’s appetite. Complimenting Mrs. Croft, she took the chair the widow waved her to — the one between Mrs. Croft’s and the stool at the end of the table to which Breckenridge was directed. Mrs. Croft cast him a glance as he sat, then she said a brief grace, and they settled to eat. For several moments, the only sound was the scrape of spoons on the metal plates.

Heather noted that Breckenridge, as he had before, slumped, slouched, and attempted to draw in on himself. He kept his eyes on his plate, and other than a brief word in appreciation of the stew, said nothing at all.

Which admittedly seemed to settle Mrs. Croft. She applied herself to her plate with similarly silent zeal.

Her own appetite appeased, Heather searched for a topic of conversation. Through the open doorway, her eye fell on a pile of mending in a basket in the sitting room, set beside what was clearly Mrs. Croft’s armchair. “Do you take in mending, then?”