Captivated

for fear he would excite'he pinched her nipple'this?'

She caught his fingers and laughed softly. 'Cease, Colonel Coally, you have convinced me of the error of my thoughts. What about you? Do you have a family?'

Perhaps it was relief that prompted Robert's response. Perhaps it was the way her body bonelessly melded to his and her laughter chased away the darkness. Or perhaps it was merely that he did not mind sharing his past with this woman who was so willing to share her body.

'Four brothers and five sisters.'

'Are your brothers in the Army?'

'No.' He cautioned himself to stopshe was a lady, it was one thing to accept the fact that he killed in the name of duty. She would not want to know that her fantasy man came from low origins. But the words came unbidden. 'They followed in the footsteps of my father.'

'Is he still alive?'

'Very much so.'

'Why did he not stop you from enlisting in the Army?'

Robert smiled at the indignation in her voice. 'One less mouth to feed. But your blame is misplaced. Very few people can stop me when I make up my mind.'

'What does he do, this father of yours?'

Robert tensed, but knew he had come too far to lie now. 'He's a street vendor. He sells ices.'

Abigail's response at learning his pedigree was as unpredictable as her response to his lovemaking.

'Oh, I love ices!' she enthused, as if she was still the little girl who had played in the ocean. 'Strawberry is my favorite.'

'Take my advice, Abigail. Eat lemon ice or cream ices. But stay away from strawberry.'

'Why?'

'There are no strawberries in strawberry ice.'

'Yes, there are.' Her voice in the darkness was endearingly earnest. 'Not whole ones, of course. They are all mixed up in little pieces.'

'They're not strawberries, Abigail,' he murmured wryly.

'Then what are they, pray?' she asked tartly.

'Cochineals.'

'You mean…bugs?'

'I meanbugs.'

He could feel her coming to terms with the fact that she had eaten bugsthe initial stiffening of her body, the slow relaxation when she realized there was not going to occur some sort of delayed reaction. Finally, 'Is that why you joined the Army when you were thirteen?'

He smiled in cynical amusement. 'Eating insects is hardly the worst thing that happens on London streets. Aside from the constant threat of being killed or robbed of your profits, making and selling ices is hard labor. You work from four in the morning until seven at night.That is why I joined the Army.'

And had ended up working far longer days surrounded by far more danger than that met on a London street.

'Would you do it over if you could?'

And miss Abigail and the storm?

'I don't know.'

'Are you going to go back?'

He gently squeezed her breast. 'I don't know.'

The rain was a comforting play of sound and motion. He had never thought to have a throbbing erection and be content to merely hold a woman. No more than he had ever thought that there would come a day when he prayed that the rain not stop. On the battlefield the cold wet and the slippery mud was a harbinger of death. Here, in England, it had brought him Abigailand life.

'Robert.'

'Hmm?'

'I want to fulfill a fantasy of yours.'

He inhaled the warmth of her hair. 'You already have.'

'Nonsense.'

'You allowed me to fulfillyour fantasies.'

'But I want to beyour fantasy woman, Robert.' She delved behind her and grabbed his turgid flesh. 'I want you to give me everything you give her.'

Robert grabbed her hand, deliberately curt. 'I told youI don't fantasize about what a woman does to me.'

Abigail was not to be denied. 'Then what do you do to her? You said that you fantasized about doing everything. What is everything, Robert?'

Robert closed his eyes as the old need came over him. 'You'd be shocked, Abigail.'

'No, I would not.How could I? Tell me… Tell me what you want, Robert. Let me be your fantasy woman. Tell me what we do before a battle.'

Robert desperately resisted. 'You said, before we ate, that you had another fantasy, Abigail.'

'Thisis that fantasy, Robert. To be your fantasy.'

God help him, it was his fantasy, too.

Heart suddenly pounding, he molded his body more firmly against hers, chest against her back, her rounded buttocks pressed against the flatness of his stomach, and cupped the silky nest of hair at the apex of her thighs. 'I do this.'

Her body tensed expectantly. 'What else?'

He sifted through the silky hair, found the indescribably soft flesh hidden inside. 'Open up your legs.'

Robert smiled in pained satisfaction against her hair, noting how quickly she complied with his request, and worked his finger between the seam of her lips. Inside the tight little valley she was hot and wet. Her soft lips curled around him as he gently slid back and forth, lingering at the head of her clitoris, sliding back down, pausing infinitesimally at the small opening there that he had created, then sliding back up again to her clitoral hood.

'When I am alone at night, exhausted by death and dying,' he murmured gruffly into her hair, 'I fantasize that I have a woman who feels what I feel. And that I can feel what she feels.'

He slid his hand back up, over her moist mound, through the triangle of soft hair there and across her stomach.

Abigail wriggled in disappointment. 'Robert, I assure you,you were feeling her.'

He laughed shortly, gaining confidence at her ready acceptance. Nipping her shoulder, he slid his hand over her hip, between their bodies, down her buttocks, between her plump cheeks.

Her legs clamped down.

He fluttered his fingertips against the wet heat of her. 'I want to feel her again, Abigail. Open your legswide. Put your right foot flat on the bed' He followed the line of her thigh, arranged her leg. 'There. Now you are wide open for me.'

'Is that what you fantasize about, Robert? That a woman is wide open for you?'

'Yes.' He petted and stroked her wet, clinging lips, preparing her. 'Wide open. Give me your hand.'

'Why?'

'I told youI want my fantasy woman to feel what I feel. Give me your hand.'

But she did not give him her hand. So he took it.

She struggled feebly when he guided it down between her thighs.

Her ribs rose and fell underneath his arm. 'We did this last night, Robert.'

'Not like tonight, Abigail.' God help them both,not like tonight, he thought. 'You wanted to know what my fantasy woman and I do before battlethis is part of it. Be her. Feel yourself as I feel you. The silky wetness here' He rubbed their joined hands against her petal-soft lips until they were slick with her essence. 'The tight sheath of flesh inside.'

Gently he parted her slick lips with their intertwined fingers. Slowly, so slowly, her flesh stretched to accommodate them.

Her breath caught. 'Robert'