Or she would fall in love with him so hard, so fast, she would crash straight through the floor.

“Amelia?” His voice was very near, and rough with fatigue. She pressed her ear to the door to make it out. He said, “I hope you didn’t like that china shepherdess.”

She smiled a wide, secret smile. Quintessential Spencer apology.

“I’m bloody tired,” he said, sounding defeated. “I’m going to sleep in your bed now.”

The door didn’t move. So she knew, neither had he.

Turning her head, Amelia spoke softly—at a volume he could only hear if he was pressing his own ear to the door and listening very hard. “Is your hand all right?”

Moments passed.

“I think so.”

“I’ll have a look at it in the morning.”

“On second thought, it may be broken.”

Smiling again, she ceased leaning against the door and stood under her own power. With a little rattle, the panel shifted as he removed his weight from the other side. She slid back the latch and pushed open the door to find him waiting for her.

“Let me see,” she said, extending an arm.

He laid his wounded hand in hers, palm up. His breathing was a slow, seductive rasp as she made her examination. His skin was dry and warm and a little roughened with wear, but each finger wiggled easily. She noted no swelling or blood.

“It’s fine,” she said.

“I know.”

They stood there in silence, just touching. Both staring at his hand, as if she were a gypsy fortune-teller, peering into his palm to divine the future.

He said quietly, “I’m not a murderer, Amelia. I know I’ve flattened a man in front of you and behaved like a brute since the night we met. But with God as my witness, I hadn’t raised my hand in violence for fourteen years before our wedding day. I don’t know what the devil you’ve done to me, but you make me lose control. You make me laugh. You make me chatty. You make me hard with a word, or even a look—and there’s damn near nothing I wouldn’t do right now to get inside you. But don’t run from me as if I were a villain, and don’t ever lock me out. I didn’t kill Leo, I swear it.”

She lifted her head, and their gazes tangled. He didn’t even try to mask the vulnerability in his eyes. At last, this was something he needed from her. She was a nurturer, and he didn’t want to be nurtured. She was a care-giver, and he didn’t wish to be looked after. But she had a trusting soul, and he needed this—someone to believe in him.

It just wasn’t in her to refuse.

“I know. Oh, Spencer, I know you didn’t.” She lifted his hand, dropping a kiss in the center of his palm before pressing it to her cheek. “In my heart, I never believed you did.”

He sucked in a shaky breath. “Then why—”

“I was afraid. Of getting hurt in other ways. To be truthful, I still am.”

His thumb stroked her cheek. “I would never hurt you.”

“I don’t think you can promise me that.” She squeezed his bruised fingers. “But it makes things a bit more equal, to know that I can hurt you, too.”

His gaze fell to her lips. He said simply, without any trace of irony, “You are killing me.”

He moved through the doorway, taking her into his arms in one swift motion. Together they fell to the bed, and his lips found hers. With no preliminary, he pried her jaw wide, probing her mouth with deep, unrelenting sweeps of his tongue. She clung to him, surrendering to the wild passion of the kiss, her only goal to take from him as much as she gave.

He lifted his head and stared into her eyes. “We’re going to do this.”

Again, that thrilling little word. We.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“No fears tonight. No regrets tomorrow.”

“None.”

He sat back on his haunches and pulled her up, until they both stood on their knees in the center of the bed. After fumbling with the row of buttons at her back, he peeled the bodice from her torso, and she helped by wriggling her arms free of the sleeves. He found the laces of her stays and impatiently yanked them loose, casting the entire undergarment aside within seconds and eagerly taking her breasts in his hands, through her thin summer chemise.

She swallowed hard as he admired them, lifting and kneading the soft globes with his fingers. He seemed lost in those curves—his touch unhurried, his breathing slow and thick. Her nipples grew painfully hard, gathering to tight, prominent peaks that chafed against the thin fabric.

He eased her neckline down. The gap wasn’t generous enough to afford him access to her nipple. Instead, he bent his head and suckled her straight through her shift. Oh, God. The sensation of his soft tongue licking her through the rough fabric … it was so intensely pleasurable, she couldn’t help but moan.

She reached for the hem of his shirt, tugging it free of his waistband and sliding her hands beneath, running her palms over the tight muscles of his abdomen and the faint trail of hair leading to his groin. Emboldened by his gruff sound of approval, she slid her hand downward, cupping the rigid length tenting his breeches.

“You’ll have to tell me what to do,” she said, lightly tracing the shape of him.

He raised his head from her breast. Seeming to abandon his efforts to undress her, he finished pulling his own shirt loose. “There aren’t any rules to this. If I do something to you, and you enjoy it”—he yanked his shirt over his head and tossed it aside—“there’s an excellent chance I’ll enjoy it if you do the same to me.”

“Oh. Very well.”

As he reached for the closures of his breeches, she bent forward and took his nipple in her mouth.

He hissed out his breath, and she jerked back. “Not good?”

“Good,” he assured her, sliding a hand over her neck. “Very good.”

Smiling to herself, she bent and tried again. This time she licked first, teasing the small, flat circle to a tiny bud. He groaned as she fitted her lips around it, suckling gently, then nipping with her teeth.

“Holy God,” he grit out.

Heat surged between Amelia’s thighs. She’d never felt so sensual, powerful. With a few swipes of her tongue she’d incited a man to blasphemy, and she cupped the proof of his rampant desire for her in the palm of her hand. As she transferred her attentions to his other nipple, she tentatively stroked up and down his length.

“Enough.” He clapped a hand over hers, pressing her palm firmly to his groin.

She lifted her head. “Not good?”

“Too good.” With a pained expression, he pulled her hand away. “I’ve waited much too long for this, for it to be over before it starts. Lie down.”

She complied, smiling to herself. He said “sit,” and she sat. He said “stand,” and she stood. He told her to “lie down,” and she lay down … because at her core, she trusted him instinctively. She always had, from that very first night.

Kicking her slippers to the floor, she drew the counterpane back before reclining on the pillows. With focused concentration, he divested her of stockings, petticoat, and drawers, until she lay atop the sheets in only her chemise. The dampened cloth clung to her nipples as feverish breaths lifted her chest. He sat at the edge of the bed, wrestling briefly with his boots and then standing just long enough to slide his breeches and smallclothes down over his hips.

Fully naked now, he straddled her thighs, making no attempt whatsoever to hide his erect member from her view. For about two seconds, a vestige of modesty diverted her gaze elsewhere, but she quickly gave into temptation and stared. His proud, thick shaft jutted out from a nest of black hair, making a dramatic impression against the white lawn of her shift. She had no grounds for comparison, but she found his sheer size and eagerness rather daunting.

“Don’t be timid.” The hint of amusement in his voice made her blush. “It’s going to be inside you. You ought to see it first.” He picked up her hand where it lay at her side, whispering, “Touch me.”

He wrapped her fingers around his shaft, guiding her hand slowly up and down his full length. Petal-soft skin slid with her palm, slipping over thick veins and rock-hard need. This softness, this strength—it would all be inside her soon. Her feminine places ached pleasurably at the thought.

She stroked him again, and a drop of clear moisture glistened at the tip. Intrigued, she dabbed it with her fingertip.

His hand tightened, immobilizing hers. “No more of that.”

He pulled her hand away and retreated to grasp the hem of her chemise. Skimming his hands up the slope of her calves, then her thighs, he pushed the fabric to her waist. After pausing briefly to adjust his weight, he hiked the shift higher still, exposing her soft, rounded belly and the swells of her breasts. Fabric wadded beneath her arms. Should she sit up, so he might remove the garment entirely?

He seemed too impatient to bother. His hands ranged greedily over her body, grasping her breasts, hips, thighs. With one hand, he reached between her legs, parting her sex. She was already damp there, and his fingers slipped easily between her folds. He explored her gently, his breathing growing rough. Growing self-conscious, she found herself wishing he’d at least kiss her while he touched her this way. But then his thumb found that sensitive nub at the crest of her sex, and she just didn’t care anymore. Her back arched, thrusting her breasts upward. With a low moan, he bent and took her nipple in his mouth, sucking firmly as he circled that needy spot with his thumb. He slid a finger inside her, and her intimate muscles clenched around it.

“Bloody hell.” When he spoke again, his voice shook. “You’re so tight.”

“Is that bad?” She moaned as he worked his finger in and out, dragging against exquisitely tender flesh.

“It’s unfair. This is going to be damn amazing for me, and damn uncomfortable for you, at best.” He increased the pace of his circular caresses, and her hips jerked with a fierce jolt of pleasure. “Can you come for me? If you come first, it will go easier.”

What a request. Just like him, to be so straightforward. Could she? Amelia wasn’t sure. She most definitely wanted to. His touch incited unbearable sensation in her, and he drove her closer to the edge with every tiny caress. But there was trusting him, and then there was trusting him. She’d never come for anyone other than herself. It was as though she hovered on the brink of pleasure, but a thin cord of inhibition held her back.

And then his words began to unravel it.

“I want to see you come. I’ve been dreaming of it, did you know?”

No. No, she hadn’t known. She could never have guessed, in a thousand years, that he would be dreaming of that.

“Both asleep and awake, I’ve been dreaming of it. What your face will look like. How tight your nipples will get. Exactly what shade of pink you’ll turn, and in precisely which places.”

Rocked by a fresh surge of pleasure, she let her head roll back and threw her wrist over her eyes.

He pulled her arm away, while with the other hand he stroked her in a brisk, firm rhythm. “Oh, no. Don’t you hide from me. I’m selfish, and I want to see. Right now I ought to sink between your thighs and bring you there with my tongue, but I won’t, because I have to see you when you come for me.”

She could barely comprehend the carnal picture his words painted, but her body responded to it with enthusiasm. She was so aroused, her body made wet, erotic noises as he plunged his finger into her again and again.

He had her so close, so close. She whimpered, desperate for release.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what you need.”

Were there words for it? She couldn’t find them. He’d decimated her vocabulary.

“Softly,” she managed. “Softly.”

He eased the pressure off his thumb, jiggling it lightly over her swollen bud. “Yes?”