The cape slid from her shoulders, down and away with a sibilant shush. His palm touched the silk of her gown, rose, and found her breast, cupped, then he closed his hand and kneaded. He was incapable of disguising the need in his touch, the possessiveness that drove him. Releasing the firm mound, he sought and found her laces, and quickly, expertly undid them.

The instant her bodice loosened, he drew it down, slid his hand beneath, pressed the material farther away as his palm caressed hot silken skin. She shuddered. A prickling tide of sensual relief swept through him at the contact, not easing but flagrantly arousing, heightening his need, deepening his lust. The kiss turned incendiary; he held her head immobile as he plundered her mouth, soft, giving, intensely feminine. Intoxicating. His hand surrounded and seized; his fingers closed, possessed, then captured the tightly furled peak and tweaked, squeezed.

On a gasp, she broke from the kiss. Desperate for air, she tilted her head back.

Inwardly he smiled, and seized the moment. He released her nape, let that hand trace down the line of her spine to settle at the back of her waist, simultaneously took advantage of her instinctive offering; leaning forward, he set his lips to her vulnerable throat, pressed a heated knowing caress to the sensitive spot beneath her ear, then skated hot kisses down that tempting line.

He paused to lave the pulse that beat wildly at the base of her throat, paused to taste, to savor the galloping desire that held her in its grip. Satisfied, he moved on, down, with his lips tracing a path over the swell of her breast to the tightly ruched bud his fingers had teased to aching, throbbing hardness.

He closed his lips about it. She jerked in his arms.

He soothed it with a wet lick, and she trembled.

His mind took note, but the beast within him, aroused and needy, saw no reason to stop and consider. Instead, he bent to the task of teaching her all he could make her feel, all she could experience if she gave herself to him.

With expertise aplenty on which to call, he quickly reduced her to a state of sobbing need. Fractured and ragged, her breathing rang with a sensual desperation that was music to his ears.

His own need clawed and roared; anticipation wielded a sharpened spur. He drew back, leaning back against the sofa arm, surprised to find he needed to catch his own sensual breath, that he was breathing rapidly, too…

Her gown had fallen to her waist, her chemise crushed with it. With his eyes he devoured the lush mounds revealed, the swollen, heated female flesh to which his hands and lips had already laid claim.

The sight more than pleased, it delighted, sent a hot rush of passion surging through his loins, increasingly urgent, increasingly insistent. The sexual compulsion was beyond anything he’d felt before, stronger, more powerful, more real.

Somehow more aligned with who he really was, with what he really was. Reckless and wild.

One glance at her face, at the slivers of emerald bright with desire that glowed beneath her heavy lids, told him beyond doubt that she felt it, too-the ungovernable, irresistible craving, the desire that was simply impossible to deny.

He could have her now. She was straddling him, her knees sunk in the cushions on either side of his hips. He could simply lift her skirts, release his staff, and sheathe himself in her softness, but the beast within wanted much more. Demanded much more, from her, of her.

Nothing but complete surrender. Nothing less than sensual submission.

The world had already fallen away. Only the two of them remained, cocooned in the moon-glimmered dark in the silence of the summer house. A silence broken only by their panting breaths, by the shush of fine material shifting.

Pris had already dispensed with his cravat. She’d pushed his shirt up to gain access to his chest, but that wasn’t enough. She wanted to see as well as to feel. Wanted to know. Everything.

From beneath her heavy lids, she captured his gaze, held it as she unbuttoned his shirt. In the shadowed dark, his eyes were impossible to read, yet his expression as he watched her still conveyed a sense of control, of knowing, of deliberation.

But there was no longer any coolness in his gaze; it was hot, nearly scorching as it lowered and swept her breasts. As he examined, then raised a hand to lazily caress.

Her nerves leapt, tightened; her senses exulted in the light, taunting touch even as her mind reeled. She closed her eyes, briefly savored. She was straddling him, naked to the waist, yet far from feeling shocked or hesitant, she wanted to be there, wanted to feel his eyes on her body, ached to feel that fleeting, teasingly promising brush of his long fingers across her sensitized skin.

Her pulse beat strongly in her fingertips, under her skin, echoing the compulsion that thrummed through her, through every vein, down every nerve. How she could be addicted to something she hadn’t yet tasted was a mystery, but the effect was real. She simply wanted. And had to have.

The last button slipped free; opening her eyes, she spread the halves of his shirt wide and looked down. Visually devoured as he had, then, shaking her fingers free of the material, she reached, touched, stroked. She traced the well-defined muscles banding his chest, let her fingers tangle in the crisp black hair that lay in a mat across the width, then arrowed down to disappear beneath his waistband. She found the flat discs of his nipples beneath the dark pelt, stroked, caressed, and felt them furl. Greatly daring, she leaned down and lipped, then nipped, and felt him catch his breath, felt him stir restlessly beneath her.

Rising, she slid her hands, fingers splayed, down, over the hard ridges of his abdomen; sitting back, she followed the same path with her eyes and swallowed. He was strong, steely muscled, an altogether dangerous male in his prime.

One she had half-naked beneath her.

Her lips slowly curved. Lifting her eyes to his, she caught the dark glimmer beneath his long lashes, held it, then deliberately skated her hands slowly up his chest. Following them, she leaned in and, with reckless abandon, set her lips to his.

Covered them, kissed wantonly, with lips and tongue boldly challenged, then retreated, enticed.

His hand skated up her back to once again cup her nape; he held her immobile, and blatantly, with an irresistible power, took control of the kiss. Blatantly, arrogantly, took all she offered.

And then all he wished.

A shiver shook her, a primitive recognition that here, now, he could have what ever he wished of her, that she wouldn’t resist, couldn’t resist.

Didn’t want to resist.

Here, now, this was what she wanted, what she had to have. Him.

Certain, sure, emboldened, she answered his passion with her own, brazenly incited, convinced beyond all logical question that what ever she could have of him was what she craved. What she needed.

The wild and reckless. The passionate male that lurked behind his cool façade.

That was what she wanted. That was what she was determined to have.

Regardless of the cost. What ever price he asked, she would gladly pay. With his body hot and hard beneath her hands, with his lips hard and urgent covering hers, his tongue a heated brand tangling with hers, she wasn’t in any mood to deny herself. Or him.

Wasn’t in any mood to do anything other than catch her breath when his hand slid beneath her skirts. His hard palm curved about her stockinged calf, then glided slowly up, sending sensations spiraling upward. His hand continued its inexorable climb over her knee, tracing her bare thighs above her garters, pushing aside her gown and chemise to gain better access.

His questing hand found her bottom. Her heart seemed to stop as he caressed, gently fondled, then lightly shaped. His grip about her nape eased, then slid away. His fingers trailed over her bare shoulder, delicately brushed one peaked and swollen breast, sending sensations cascading through her, sending heat and molten delight flowing down her veins to gather and pool low in her body.

Those descending fingers continued on, tracing downward. He continued kissing her; she continued kissing him as he slid that hand, too, beneath her skirts. He cupped her bottom in both hands, kneaded, yet she knew he was biding his time, that his ardor was still leashed, that he was still in control and would remain so until she paid his price.

She didn’t know how she knew; she simply did. The knowledge was there, inside her; she didn’t question its rightness.

Hands lightly gripping, holding her, he drew back from the kiss. Caught her eyes as she raised her heavy lids, and murmured, his breath a hot promise across her lips, “I want to see all of you. Take off your gown.”

She didn’t hesitate. Awash on a heady tide, faintly giddy, she sat up, bunched her skirts in her hands, and drew the garment up and over her head. Extending one hand, she let it fall to the floor, then looked down at him.

But he wasn’t looking at her face.

His gaze had locked on the apex of her thighs, on the dark curls her filmy chemise, in loose folds about her hips and upper thighs, veiled but didn’t hide. She wondered if he wished her to remove the chemise, too.

As if he’d heard her thought, he said, “Leave the rest.”

The words were little more than a low growl.

One that sent sensual anticipation streaking through her.

His hands left her bottom, slid forward around her thighs, slid down and closed around each above the knee. Slowly he eased his grip, slowly slid both hands upward, sliding beneath the insubstantial chemise, tracing the tense muscles, his thumbs cruising the quiveringly sensitive skin of her inner thighs.