When the begum had worn the outfit, he hadn’t had a problem. After the first glance, he’d felt voyeuristic and uncomfortable, and had had no difficulty averting his eyes.
But Emily in gossamer silk, Emily’s body…
“The only woman I want to share a bed with-”
He stopped, shocked. He’d said that aloud.
And even he could hear the lust thickening his voice.
His gaze remained locked on the pale, subtle curves of her breasts.
The silence stretched.
He had to think, but couldn’t. Lust had suborned his brain.
“Yes?” A soft, expectant-hopeful-prompt.
He dragged in a tight breath, looked up, met her eyes-saw in the mossy hazel understanding and…
Enough blatant encouragement to knock his defenses flat.
He swore, and reached for her, hauled her to him.
Bent his head, crushed her lips beneath his-and kissed her with all the pent-up fury, frustration, and sheer need inside him.
She grabbed his head and kissed him back, equally fierily, equally hungrily.
The clash of emotions made his head spin. Transmuted anger and frustration to potent passion and powerful, spiraling desire in one short heartbeat.
Made him achingly hard, every muscle turned to steel.
Releasing her arms, he set his hands deliberately to her silk-clad body, and felt his pulse leap.
He closed his hands about her waist, and sensed her heart thud.
He’d been furious not just because she’d put herself in danger, but because he would have been helpless to protect her had things gone badly. Yet he’d had to let her handle it-he hadn’t known how to, so he’d had to sit and keep silent, and let her risk…
Angling his head, he sank into her mouth, ravaged, plundered.
The countering pressure of her lips, the evocative taste of her, the hunger in the passion that rose to meet his, reassured him as nothing else could.
She’d pulled it off, and they were safe. Alive.
And both of them now wanted, each of them needed…
The other.
The rational remnant of his brain quibbled that this was a typical reaction to triumphing over danger. He shouldn’t take advantage-
He shut out that chiding voice. He didn’t understand her motives, but he couldn’t, wasn’t strong enough to, deny her. Or himself. To hold back from what they both so openly, and blatantly desperately, wanted.
Needed.
Had to have.
He flexed his fingers, felt silk shift, sliding against skin equally smooth. Beneath his palms, the material had heated. He let his hands slide, glide over her back, felt the gossamer silk shift over silken skin in evocative, provocative temptation.
Spreading his hands over the long supple planes, he pulled her to him. Stepped into her as he did.
Gathered her-all warm womanly curves encased in featherlight silk-against him, locking her to him.
And she came.
Eagerly, wantonly, Emily pushed her arms up, stretched up on her toes the better to meet his lips, the better to return the increasingly fiery kiss. Winding her arms about his neck, with an abandon born of absolute certainty, she plastered herself to him.
She-her senses-leapt, then rejoiced as his arms locked and tightened, steel bands trapping her against his hard length. Obeying the dictates of her racing heart, she sank into him.
Gave herself up to the intoxicating heat, to the swirl of her senses, the giddy thud of her pulse.
Wanted-she wanted.
Even as, high on her toes, leaning into him she yielded her mouth and knowingly taunted him to take, she desperately wanted.
More.
All.
Now.
Here in this room, bathed in moonlight, she wanted him with a certainty that blazed through her veins.
An absolute longing, one she’d never felt before, one far too vibrant, too acute to be questioned.
Her need simply was, just as she was his.
Just as he was hers.
Nothing else mattered. Nothing else held the power to break the compulsion-one she wholeheartedly embraced.
His hands slid, palms burning, over the sensitive skin of her back, the silk a tantalizing, senses-teasing barrier. It whispered of sultry nights, promised heated delights as it shifted over her skin, caressing not just where his hands pressed, but elsewhere, further, sending prickling awareness washing over her.
Sending heat sinking into her. He angled his head and plundered her mouth anew, reclaiming her attention, his tongue sliding heavily over and along hers as, with a blatancy she found impossibly arousing, he feasted.
Hot, heavy, his hands traced her hips, slid down, around, gripped.
He lifted her against him, molded her hips to his. The insubstantial silk did nothing to mute the thrilling male hardness of him, the solid rod of his erection that pressed through his breeches to impress itself against the taut softness of her belly.
With reined deliberation, he shifted against her, an evocative, provocative thrusting that made her fingers curl.
Heat streaked through her, an eruption of sweet warmth that spread beneath her skin, then slid sinuously down to pool low.
To swell. And throb.
On a gasp she broke from the kiss, desperate to breathe, and caught a glimpse of his face, of the dark fire in his eyes.
Her hands had found his hair, her fingers tangling in the soft locks. Forcing her heavy, passion-weighted lids wider, she stared, oddly aware of her lips hot and swollen, slicked from their kiss, of her harried breathing, of the tightness of her chest.
Of the giddiness of her senses, the yearning in her blood.
Of the need that beat an irresistible tattoo in her veins.
Her eyes searched his, and she saw in the dark depths the heat ease back a notch. Saw rationality and a stubborn, bone-deep honor fight to rise above the heated compulsion, to transcend it and reclaim him.
Yet she stood on the brink. Teetering. So aware…
Of the heat that rose beneath every inch of her skin. That made itself known in the throb of her lips, and even more insistently in the throb of the soft flesh between her thighs.
For the first time she knew, felt, fully experienced the telltale greedy fire that flooded her and made her yearn. That made her body soften, melt. Made it long for a completion she’d never known with a violence that made her ache.
She caught and held his gaze. “Don’t. Stop.” Her tone would have done the begum proud-command, demand, wrapped in sultry, lustful, open greed.
The heat in his eyes flared anew. His chest swelled as he fought-the damned man fought!-to contain it. To suppress it.
But he didn’t succeed.
Every muscle in his large, hard body grew hotter, harder. Forged steel, tempered and scalding, powerful and unyielding.
But if she wanted him tonight, she would have to fight, too.
Fight him-his too-noble nature.
Eyes locked on his, she drew breath-and felt the power within her rise. Sensed, felt, that intangible fire come to
