Patience was enthralled. He'd explored her, but she hadn't, yet, had a chance to explore him. She spread her fingers, and her senses, drinking in the warm resilience of taut muscle stretched over hard bone. She investigated the hollows and broad planes of his chest, the wide ridges of his ribs. Crisp brown hair curled and caught at her slim digits; the flat discs of his nipples hardened at her touch.
It was all perfectly fascinating. Eager to extend her horizons, she seized the sides of his shirt.
Just as he seized the sleeves of her gown.
What followed had her giggling-foolishly, heatedly. Hands locked on each other, they rocked and swayed. Simultaneously, they both adjusted their grips. While she fought to wrestle his shirt from him, he-far more expertly-divested her of her gown.
He hauled her into his arms and ravished her mouth, plundering deeply, one arm locking her to him while his other hand dealt with the drawstring of her petticoat.
Patience answered the challenge and returned the kiss avidly-while her busy fingers fought with the buttons of his breeches. Their lips met and melded, parting only to fuse heatedly again.
Her petticoats fell to the floor in the same instant she pushed his breeches over his hips. He broke from their kiss. Their eyes met, heated gazes colliding. With a soft curse, he stepped back and stripped off both boots and breeches.
Eyes wide, Patience drank in the sight of him, the brutally hard, sculpted planes of his body bathed in the fire's golden light.
He looked up and caught her watching. He straightened, but before he could reach for her, she grasped the lower edge of her chemise and, in one smooth movement, drew it up and over her head.
Her eyes locked on his, she let the soft silk fall, forgotten, from her fingers. Hands, arms, reaching for him, she deliberately stepped into his embrace.
The golden instant of meeting, the first touch of bare skin to bare skin, sent exquisite delight lancing through her. She sucked in a quick breath. Lids lowered, she draped her arms over his broad shoulders and pressed closer, settling her breasts against his chest, her thighs meeting his much harder ones, her soft belly a cradle for the rampant hardness of his staff.
Their bodies slid and shifted, then locked tight. His arms closed, a steel vise, about her.
And she felt the coiled tension that held him. The leashed tension he held back.
The power, the force, she sensed in his locked muscles, in the taut sinews that surrounded her, compelled her. Fascinated her. Emboldened and encouraged her. She wanted to know it-feel it, touch it, revel in it. Tightening her arms about his neck, she pressed even closer. Lifting her head, she brushed her lips across his. And whispered, "Let go."
Vane ignored her-she didn't know, couldn't know, what she was asking. Lowering his head, he captured her lips in a long, lengthy kiss designed to intensify the glorious sensation of her naked body sinking against his. She felt like cool silk, vibrant, delicate, and sensual; the slide of her against him was a potent caress, leaving him achingly aroused, achingly urgent.
He needed to get her to the bed. Soon.
She broke from their kiss to place hot, openmouthed kisses across his collarbone, across the sensitive skin just below his throat.
And to reach for him.
She touched him. Vane stilled. Delicately tentative, she curled her fingers about his rigid length. He stiffened-and hauled in a desperate breath.
Her bed. His demons roared.
Guided by unerring instinct, her fingers closing more confidently about him, she licked one flat nipple, her tongue scalding hot, and murmured, "Let the reins go."
Vane's head reeled.
Releasing him, she raised her head. Twining her arms about his neck, she stretched upward against him, and, bending one knee, lifted one firm, ivory thigh to his hip. "Take me."
She was out of her mind-but he was already out of his.
All thoughts of beds, and civilized sophistry, vanished from his head. Without conscious direction, his hands closed about the firm globes of her bottom and he lifted her. Instantly, she wrapped her long legs about his hips and drew herself tight against him.
It was she who made the necessary adjustment to capture the throbbing head of his staff in the slick flesh between her thighs, leaving him poised, aching and desperate, at her entrance.
And it was she who made the first move to sink down, to take him into her body, to impale herself on his rigid hardness.
Every muscle locked, Vane struggled to breathe, struggled to deny the impulse to ravish her. Sinking lower, she found his lips with hers, brushing them tantalizingly. "Let go."
He didn't, couldn't-to relinquish control completely was beyond him. But he loosened the reins, slackened them as much as he dared. Muscles bunching, flexing, he lifted her-and thrust upward as she sank down.
She learned quickly. The next time he lifted her, she relaxed, then tightened as he filled her, slowing her downward slide, extending it to take even more of him than before.