“Don’t say that.” It was unbearable, the thought of anything happening to him.

“ ‘It’s all come down to the hope of being with you,’ . . . Do you remember when I wrote that?”

Beatrix nodded and bit her lip as his hand slid farther beneath the transparent silk panels.

“I meant every word,” he murmured. “I would have written much more, but I didn’t want to frighten you.”

“I wanted to write more, too,” she said shakily. “I wanted to share every thought with you, every—” She broke off with a gasp as he found the vulnerable place between her thighs.

“You’re so warm here,” he whispered, stroking her intimately. “So soft. Oh, Beatrix . . . I fell in love with you by words alone . . . but I have to admit . . . I prefer this way of communicating.”

She could barely speak, her mind dazzled by sensation. “It’s still a love letter,” she said, sliding her hand over the golden slope of his shoulder. “Only in bed.”

He smiled. “Then I’ll try to use proper punctuation.”

“And no dangling participles,” she added, making him laugh.

But she lost all reason for amusement as he stroked and cradled and tormented her. Too many sensations, coming from different directions. She twisted in the gathering heat. Christopher tried to ease her as the rapture rose too high, too fast, his hands gentle on her quivering limbs.

“Please,” she said, perspiration gathering on her skin and at the roots of her hair. “I need you now.”

“No, love. Wait just a little longer.” He caressed her thighs, his thumbs stroking up to the humid folds of her sex.

She discovered that the most impossible thing in the world was to hold cl**ax at bay, that the more he told her not to, the more powerfully it surged toward her. And he knew it, the devil, a teasing light in his eyes as he whispered to her . . . “Not yet. It’s too soon.” And all the while, his fingers stroked idly between her thighs, and his mouth grazed over her breast. Every part of her body was filled with desperate craving. “Don’t give in to it,” he said against her twitching skin. “Wait . . .”

Beatrix panted and stiffened, trying to hold back the rush of sensation. But his lips opened over her nipple, and he began to tug gently, and she was lost. Crying out, she hitched upward against his mouth and hands, and let the wrenching delight overtake her. She jerked and moaned as the voluptuous spasms went through her, while tears of chagrin filled her eyes.

Looking down at her, Christopher murmured sympathetically. His hands moved over her body in soothing strokes, and he kissed away an escaping tear. “Don’t be upset,” he whispered.

“I couldn’t stop it from happening,” she said in a plaintive voice.

“You weren’t supposed to,” he said tenderly. “I was playing with you. Teasing you.”

“But I wanted it to last longer. It’s our wedding night, and it’s already over.” Pausing, Beatrix added glumly, “At least my part of it is.”

Christopher averted his face, but she could see that he was struggling to contain a laugh. When he had mastered himself, he looked down at her with a slight smile and smoothed her hair back from her face. “I can make you ready again.”

Beatrix was quiet for a moment as she evaluated her spent nerves and limp body. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I feel like a wrung-out kitchen mop.”

“I promise to make you ready again,” he said, his voice threaded with amusement.

“It will take a long time,” Beatrix said, still frowning.

Gathering her into his arms, Christopher crushed his mouth over hers. “I can only hope so.”

After undressing them both, Christopher kissed her sated body everywhere, tasting her leisurely. She stretched and arched, her breath quickening. He followed the subtle signs of her response, coaxing out heat as if he were nurturing a flame set to kindling. Compulsively her hands wandered over the masculine textures of him, the rough hair and hard satiny muscles, the scars that were slowly becoming familiar.

Turning Beatrix to her side, he pulled her top knee upward. She felt him enter her from behind, the pressure of him opening her, stretching her impossibly tight. Too much, and yet she wanted more. She dropped her head to his supportive arm, and sobbed as he bent to kiss her neck. He surrounded her, filled her . . . she felt her flesh swelling with heat and sensation, her body adjusting instinctively to his.

He whispered in her ear, words of lust and praise and adoration, telling her all the ways he wanted to pleasure her. Very gently he pushed her onto her stomach, and kneed her thighs wider. She groaned as she felt one of his hands slide beneath her hips. He cupped her sex, stroking in counterpoint as he began a deep, insistent rhythm. Faster than before, deliberate . . . ruthless. She moaned and gripped the quilt in handfuls as the sensation blazed.

When she was at the verge of another peak, he stopped and turned her over. She couldn’t look away from the molten silver of his eyes, storms stirred by lightning.

“I love you,” he whispered, and she jolted as he entered her again. Wrapping her arms and legs around him, she kissed and bit the thick, enticing muscle of his shoulder. He made a low sound, almost a growl, and cupped her bottom to lift her more tightly into his thrusts. Every time he lunged forward, his body rubbed intimately against hers, stroking her sex over and over, sending her into a cl**ax that shimmered through every cell and nerve.