Gladly.

His other arm banding her waist, he drew her flush against him, sensed the hitch in her breathing, the momentary tensing, then she melted, and gave. Yielded.

Even as he slid the reins from her grasp, as he took charge of the kiss, took control of the exchange and settled to plunder the delights of her mouth — slowly, savoring, claiming as his due — even as he instinctively, intuitively assessed, and planned the tempo of the interlude, the rhythm and the cadences of the dance to come, he wondered at her agenda.

Clearly she had one.

Equally clearly, hers didn’t involve words, either.

Regardless, with their mouths fused and heat and desire stirring, welling, rising, and swirling through them, with her hands sliding from his nape, one upward to tangle evocatively in his hair, the other cruising over his shoulder, then sliding down his chest to slip beneath his coat and fragment his focus, with her body the ultimate distraction in his arms, he had no space left in his head to pause and think. To question, even mentally, what she was about.

No doubt he would learn later. For now. .

She’d given him the perfect lead, the perfect opening to demonstrate and display all he wanted to and needed to reveal, so she would see and know, and so understand, all the things he couldn’t say.

All he felt for her.

All that filled his heart.

He couldn’t have wished for a better opportunity, a more helpful setting of their stage.

Now all he had to do was capitalize on the moment.

Heather knew he was planning. Even as he’d reacted to her blatant invitation and then pressed for control of the kiss, even as she’d relinquished the reins and let him take charge, she’d known he had some end of his own in mind.

He hadn’t been surprised when she’d run into him in the corridor; he’d been on his way to her room.

He’d been intent on instigating another interlude. . letting herself flow into his kiss, setting herself to follow wherever he led, she was curious to see what he would do, where he would lead her, and even more curious as to why.

That, after all, was precisely why she’d left her room and headed for his. She’d tried encouraging him verbally; she’d tried abstinence. Neither tack had yielded the desired result. So she’d decided to try one last, infinitely more risky, throw of the dice.

He angled his head and deepened the kiss, his lips commanding, his tongue demanding. She let herself respond openly, without guile or reservation. Sent her tongue to tangle with his, to stroke, to invite, to incite. To ignite the passion and set flame to the desire that smoldered between them. She kissed him back with fervor, let her need infuse her lips, her mouth, her body as she pressed against him. Into him.

As she wordlessly asked, and made it perfectly clear she would if necessary plead, or even beg.

She hid nothing. Nothing of her reaction as he sank deeper into her mouth, as he evocatively plundered and heat and sensation rolled through her. Sinking her fingers into his hair, she gripped his scalp as his tongue caressed, then heavily, provocatively probed, and desire slid, hot and heavy like syrup, through her veins. To ultimately pool, a mass of heated yearning, low in her belly.

A familiar, slow-building ache.

She stirred against him. Splayed one palm on his chest, over his heart. Rolled her hips against him in blatant entreaty.

Wordlessly encouraged. Flagrantly incited.

Deliberately provoked.

With her lips, her tongue, her body, and her hands, she strove to make her want, her hunger, and her need blatant, to write it in large capitals on their sensual slate. . in the resulting moment of vulnerability, fleeting though it was, she sensed why he might hesitate to be so emotionally naked.

Yet she couldn’t afford not to try — not to put her need on display, not to expose it fully. Catriona had told her she might have to risk her heart in order to secure his. She wanted him — wanted a future with him — enough to take that risk.

In her heart she prayed that he wouldn’t fail her, that he wouldn’t turn aside from her desperately yearning need. That he would acknowledge it, not ignore it.

That he would meet it, match it, and not simply use it.

She was wagering her heart that what had grown between them was not just about physical satiation but meant more, not only to her but to him as well.

She was wagering that if she took the plunge and exposed her heart first, he would respond, that he would follow her lead and take the risk, too — a lesser risk if she had risked first, if he already knew that she loved him.

She was wagering that if she showed him her love, unequivocally and without reserve, then he would reciprocate and show her. . enough at least for her to know that he felt a similar connection, that underneath his reservations he loved her in the same way.

How to make her point. . at some stage she would have to convince him to cede the reins to her.

But not yet.

Not when he was lavishing heat and pure pleasure on her mouth, and slowly steering her to the bed.

The back of her legs hit the mattress. His hands shifted to her waist, gripped, steadying her, even as he surged deeper into her mouth, rapacious and hungry.

Greedy for her.

Expectation, a sharp spike of sensual anticipation, flashed through her. In its wake flames rolled in, desire and need escalating, sapping her resolution, cindering her will. .

In sudden desperation, she pulled back, broke the kiss. “No.”

His was a seduction of mind as well as body. If she let him sweep her away, let her mind become ensnared in the passion and delight, she would never have the wit, let alone the will, to take the lead and do what she’d come there to do. She stared through the dimness, holding his gaze.

Then, with deliberation, she licked her kiss-swollen lips. Felt as much as saw his gaze lock on them. “Me, first.” The words hung between them, sultry yet definite. “My turn to dictate.”

He was an expert in this sphere and, at least with her, he’d never acted other than deliberately. Control was something he exercised so effortlessly, so completely on the physical, sexual plane. . she doubted he realized that that very control and how he deployed it might reveal, might reflect, what he felt.

She was entirely willing for him to lead their dance and reveal whatever he might, but not until she’d made her statement, her wordless declaration. Sliding her hand from his hair, retrieving the other from beneath his coat, she gripped the lapels, leaned in and, instead of kissing him, ran her lips in a feather-light caress along his jaw, distracting him as she pushed the coat off his shoulders.

Leaning back, into his hard hands — they’d moved to rest at the back of her waist, hard, heavy, heating her flesh through the single layer of flimsy silk — she stripped the coat down, tugging and pushing until he obliged and drew first one arm, then the other, free of the sleeves.

Feeling his heavy-lidded gaze on her face, she extended one arm and let the coat fall where it may.

“Just as long as I get my turn, too.”

Reaching for his cravat, she glanced up, briefly met his gaze. Glimpsed the banked passion in his eyes. “We can share, but I lead first.”

Switching her attention to her fingers, she swiftly undid the simple knot he favored.

He didn’t immediately answer but eventually said as she drew the strip of linen free, “If you insist.”

“I do.” Her determination had returned in full force. Sending the cravat to join his coat, she fell on his waistcoat.

Looked up as she freed the last button. “To do what I want, I have to be in charge.”

“You do?” When she nodded, then tugged, he obliged by shrugging off the waistcoat. “And what do you intend to do?”

“I’m not going to tell you.” Stepping closer, she looked into his eyes, her fingers swiftly undoing the buttons closing the front of his shirt. “I’m going to show you.” She looked down.

“Are you.” Not a question; a skeptical statement.

She didn’t respond; leaving his shirt hanging open, she caught one of his hands, flicked the button at his cuff free, then did the same with his other hand, other cuff.

“In this arena, you’re going to show the foremost rake in the ton. . what, exactly?”

She looked up, met his gaze, held it as, between them, she flicked the button securing the flap on his trousers free. “I’m going to show you something no other lady ever has.” Without taking her gaze from his eyes, she slid her hand past the gaping flap, reached in and found him, stroked, then boldly took his rigid member into her palm. “I’m going to do to you what no other lady ever has.”

She was going to make love to him.

It had occurred to her that there was a reason the act was described that way. A reason she could use. An exchange she could exploit to communicate what she needed to convey, then encourage him to use the same language to reply.

Brazen and bold the ploy might be, but if it worked. . she was more than willing to try.

He’d sucked in a tight breath. She sensed rather than saw his muscles tense, turn steely hard as she let her fingers trace, trail. . then she closed her hand.

His lids fell; hands again splayed on her back, his fingertips pressed harder.

Gripping him firmly in her fist, she shifted closer still; the silk of her robe brushing his bare chest, she stretched up and set her lips to the sensitive spot beneath his jaw, below his ear, then traced a path down to where his pulse thudded at the base of his strong throat. Her fingers tightened about him, and she heard a soft hiss. She placed a long, lingering kiss over his pulse point, then laved lightly with her tongue, sensing the heat of him through his skin, tasting the wildness, the hungry desire, that prowled beneath.