The Lady Most Willing

of the word.

And Byron was caressing her breasts, and every time he rubbed a thumb past her nipples, he would nudge upward, just the smallest amount, just enough to remind her that he was there.

Part of her.

The very thought ran like liquid gold over her skin. She, Fiona, was finally not alone any longer. Even though they’d known each other for almost no time at all, she knew it with a certainty that flooded her whole body. His face, that beautiful, beautiful face, was contorted, savage, not graceful . . . because of her.

“You will always love me, won’t you?” she asked, the words coming out with a gasp. Every time he moved, it made spirals of heat shoot through her legs.

He opened his eyes at that. She knew instinctively that there wasn’t a woman in London who would recognize, who had ever seen, the look of savage possession that she saw now on the face of the cultured and urbane Earl of Oakley. “Always. You are mine,” he snarled, thrusting up again. Her body had adjusted now, accepted him.

More than that, it welcomed him, sent a shudder of heat through her. She swayed, caught herself on his chest, her fingers curling against hard muscle.

Her eyelids dropped closed. It felt as if her body was narrowing to one point, to this—

His big hands caught her hips and lifted her easily in the air, away from him, into unwelcome coolness. She let out a sobbing cry, but he was moving like a whirlwind, throwing down the fur cape, laying her gently on her back, bracing himself over her.

“I have to have you,” he said, his mouth just touching hers, his voice strained but gentle. “It’s this bloody possessive side of me, Fiona. I need to—I need to—”

She looked up at him, feeling the fever race through her blood as he started to come to her, and knew that this would always be their fulcrum point.

He would need to possess her, to know that she would never leave him, to believe it with every speck of his soul. And she would need just as desperately to know that he loved her. That he would be tender, and stand between her and the world’s opinion, and always defend her.

It was the blazing truth in his eyes, clear in the way his huge body was frozen over hers, even as he obviously struggled to control himself. He was braced on his elbows, his hands clenched beside her head.

Fiona drew her fingers voluptuously down his back, all the way to the hard muscles of his buttocks. “I want you,” she whispered, her voice aching with the truth of it. “I am not complete without you.”

The hunger in her voice was matched by the rumbling groan that broke from his throat. He stretched her, and completed her. And then they were both lost in the storm, his head bent so that he could dust her with sweet kisses, catch her panting breaths, lick the line of her lips . . .

While he ravished her.

And she ravished him.

They spoke to each other without words, made promises without words, loved each other without words.

Chapter 18

Earlier that evening, shortly after supper

“Well, Taran, you found me a perfect woman, I’ll grant you that.” Robin lifted his glass in a mock salute before tossing back the contents.

He’d absented himself from yet another dinner. Absented? Fled, pure and simple. Not that anyone cared except Oakley, and that only because it reflected poorly on the family. She certainly wouldn’t object to the absence of a known libertine. He narrowed his eyes against the embers glowing in the library hearth. “Damn you to hell, Taran,” he muttered.

“Oh! That’s a very, very bad word, isn’t it?”

Robin swung around. Marilla Chisholm stood artfully arranged in the doorway, leaning against the jamb in such a way that her breasts jutted out like the prow of a ship. Three of her little fingers covered the “O” formed by her lips.

“My pardon, Miss Chisholm,” Robin said. “I did not realize I had company.”

“Oh!” Marilla repeated, shoving off the doorjamb and mincing toward him. “You mean . . . we are alone?”

She stopped within easy hand’s reach and tipped her head up, blinking rapidly. She put him in mind of a myopic spaniel, making up in eagerness what she lacked in discernment.

“Hardly alone,” Robin assured her. “Not only is the library door wide open but there’s all of Taran’s retainers lurking about, eavesdropping. Shouldn’t be surprised to find some old man huddled under the cushions over there.” He pointed at the library’s lumpy old sofa standing before the hearth, its back turned toward them.

Marilla gave the sofa a suspicious glance. “Your uncle is not in my good graces right