Captivated

was not wrapped up inside a blanket.

'Everything. You have to give me everything. Your body. Your needs. Your fantasies. Everything that you have.'

Abigail sucked in scorching airhis breath. Then her lips were sucked inside liquid, velvet heat, and his tongue was inside her and Abigail's first fantasy was made into a reality.

Only to find that a French kiss had no bearing whatsoever to the anemic thing experienced in literature and fantasy.

Books did not describe the incredible intimacy of a man's breath fanning a woman's cheek while his tongue filled her mouth and his fingers cradled her chin as if she were infinitely desirable.

Fantasy did not conjure taste.

But Robert did. He tasted like brandy. And man. And hot, wet desire.

The journal slipped out from between her fingers the same time his tongue slipped out of her mouth.

'Let me be your fantasy man, Abigail.' Hard skin whispered across her cheeka finger. 'While the storm lasts, give me everything you give to him.'

Abigail's breath caught in her chest.

He was accepting her offer.

His pain must indeed be great to bury it inside a thirty-year-old spinster.

She squared her shoulders.

The reason that he took her did not matter.

Shewanted him to be her fantasy man.

Shewanted to make him forget.

She wanted to forget… and for one night be the woman who he had made her feel like while he kissed her. Beautiful. Desirable. Young and full of hope.

She tilted her chin at a lifetime of denial. 'My fantasy man undresses me.'

'Think very carefully before you embark on this journey, Abigail. Because once we start, there is no turning back.'

Abigail inhaled, breathing in the faint odor of brandyhis breath; breathing in the smell of rain and spicy muskhis body.

Tangible reality instead of bloodless fantasy.

'I have no desire to turn back, Robert.'

The mattress dipped, shot up, leaving her alone on the bed. Then suddenly she was standing on the floor and the entire length of her body was bombarded by heat while intent fingers worked the row of buttons that lined the front of her dress.

She grabbed the invisible handshands that were nearly twice the size of hers. 'But you have to live up to what you said, Robert.'

The fingers stilled underneath hers.

'You have to make me beg and cry for it.'

Burning fire enveloped her body: Embarrassment at her boldnessand a wave of incinerating lust that radiated from the man in front of her.

His hands slid out from underneath Abigail's. Her face was cupped between calloused palms, lifted upward.

'I will live up to what I said.' Brandy-scented breath caressed her lips. 'But remember this: As long as the storm lasts, your body, your needs, your fantasieseverything that you haveis mine. AndI will hold you to that, Abigail.'

Abigail's heart skipped a beat. 'Then I would say we have struck a bargain, Robert.'

The voice in the darkness rang with finality. 'Then let me undress you.'

Chill air caressed her skin as one by one the buttons on her dress popped open. Instantly the chill of the night was replaced by heathard, hot hands slid inside her dress and peeled the faded cotton away from her breasts.

'You're not wearing a corset.'

His breath was raggedas ragged as hers.

'No.' It was inside a trunk, where she had packed it along with her chemise and petticoats immediately upon arriving at the isolated cottage.

The dress slid down over her shoulders, off her arms, a whisper of cool air and warm skin, to bunch around her feet. Then the hard, hot hands settled on her hips and gently pulled her forward. Equally hot, hard flesh prodded her stomach. 'Do you always wear silk drawers?'

She hesitantly raised her hands and gripped his shoulders. The muscles were hardeverything about him was hardand hot. 'Yes. I enjoy the feel of them.'

'So do I.' His voice was a husky murmur inside her right ear. Agile fingers sifted through the seamless vent in the back. He touched her in a place that made her knees buckle. 'You're soft here.'

Involuntarily she arched into his fingers as he repeated the caress, there at the top of her buttocks.

'And here…' He pushed deeper into the crevice, a tantalizing inch. 'I never had time to learn a woman's body. But tonight, with you, Abigail, I am going to take that time. When the storm is over, I am going to know what every inch of your skin feels like.'

She tensed underneath the unexpected invasion, his fingertips raspy hot against the tender flesh there. And determinedly smoothed her hands down the sleek, muscled flesh of his back to locate hair-roughened cheeks that were taut where hers were soft, concave where hers were plump.

She hovered over the place where his spine flowed into the crevice between his buttocks'When the storm is over, Robert, I am going to know what every inch ofyour body feels like, too'and lightly stroked him.

The flesh pulsing against her stomach jerked while the flesh beneath her hands stiffened.

'I do not need a woman to know my body, Abigail.'

She had gone too far to back down now. 'ButI need to know your body, Robert.'

'Do you often fantasize about fondling a man's butt, Abigail?' The voice in the dark was caustic.

'Do you, Robert?' she asked tartly.

'I can assure you, I havenever thought about fondling a man's ass.'

It took Abigail a second to realize that Robert was jesting to hide his embarrassment.

It emboldened her, to think that he was as new to this kind of intimacy as she was. And equally vulnerable.

She continued to stroke the soft vee of skin at the base of his spine. 'Is that what men think about during battle, then, fondling the posterior of a woman?'

His entire body stiffened. Black tension filled the air. 'Men in battle are too tired to think. Or too scared. It's before the battle that men think. Or while they lie dying.'

Abigail bit her bottom lip, momentarily diverted by the cold hostility in his voice. And the pain that it hid. 'Before battle what doyou think about?'

The calloused fingertip lightly strummed up the small of her back, down into the crevice between her buttocks another breathtaking inch. A hard weight pressed down on her foreheadhis forehead.

'I think about how to keep my men alive. If you are asking if I will kill again, Abigail, the answer is yes.'

'Only in battle, Robert,' she said firmly. 'And you are supposed to forget about that now.'

Suddenly the deliciously erotic finger was gone and her silk drawers slid down over her hipshe had untied the tapes. He stepped back and she was enveloped in darkness and cold air. 'Then make me forget, Abigail. Tell me what your fantasy man does after he undresses you.'

Uncertainty warred with desire, urgent little voices telling her to turn back: She was too old, too small, too plump, a thousand and one reasons why he would not find her attractive. Bringing her arms to her sides, she straightened her shoulders. 'He touches my breasts.'

Heat grazed the tips of her nipples. She locked her knees to keep from falling.

'You're hard.' The relentless friction was part caress, part prod. 'I can feel where you are made to discharge milklittle puckered indentations on the very tipshere. Does your fantasy man suckle you?'

The flesh between Abigail's thighs involuntarily clenched at the evocative words. 'Do you fantasize about