Everything about him was hard beneath his clothes. She started to retract her palm from his chest when

his fingers wrapped around her wrist. "How soft do you really think I am?"

Determined not to let him bully her, she left her hand on the cool metal clip of his suspenders. She should have known that Ryan was incapable of playing the gentleman for long. "You have the morals of a tomcat."

"So do you." His mouth brushed her lips, and she slid her hand lower, touching him where she had no

business exploring. "Were you really going to blackmail me?" His voice was husky."I'm perfectly capable of a fit of adolescence between us. I've proven that my entire life." Along with thenervous flutter in her voice, her parted lips joined her rebuttal. Or maybe her mouth never left his. "Butwhen it comes to carnal expediency, you're the one capable of tyranny."

"You like power as much as I do. Besides"-he leaned around her and shut the crack in the curtain-

"this isn't business. It's personal."Pressed against the crook of his arm, she could not escape the masculine warmth that pinned her againstthe seat. Her gaze rose to meet his, nearly black in the shadows. "Why aren't you visiting Snow White this afternoon?" she confronted him, her voice a breathy rasp.

"You tell me. Since you're so interested in my affairs."

Her arms relaxed of their own accord, doing battle with that traitorous vein of lust and something worse. Jealousy. "Is it an affair?"

His heavy-lidded gaze no longer held amusement. "Married men have affairs all the time. But usually not with their own wives."

She didn't want to be his wife.

And Ryan didn't want to be her husband.

But he felt the touch of her lips against his. His blood pounded in his ears and pooled in the most sensitive region between his legs. His senses erupted beneath the heat of her mouth. He opened her mouth and took her in a full, deep kiss. Luxurious and alluring, the fluid exploration of his tongue, drawing a groan from his chest. He deepened the kiss a little more and stoked the embers between them. Part of his mind realized she was letting him stir fires that he'd wished to remain cold. His hand left the line of her jaw to move to her breast. Her fingers speared his hair, and everything became an intangible reality, a communion of mutual desires. Slowly, he drew away.

"Jaysus, Rachel..."

Their breaths hot and mingling, she regarded him, unable to hide her confusion. Neither one of them were in charge. He could feel a tug-of-war inside her. A vague flash of uncertainty that preceded retreat, yet the image was fleeting, as she pulled him back to her mouth for another kiss.

Her lips were warm and soft and moist, her breath steamy, his body a hard contrast to her softer curves. Her arms tightened around his neck, and he deepened the thrust of his tongue, sinking with her into a hot sleepy abyss of sensual bliss. With a groan, she surrendered her back to the cushion of the seat.

His kiss became relentless in its demand, the token armor of her jacket rendered inadequate as he unfastened the buttons. Her nipples grew taut. He could feel her heart thudding against his palm. His hand wandered over her breasts and her waist, paying deliberate detail to every curve and hollow as he followed the arch of her hip and pulled her upright into his lap. He was so sure in his actions. So sure in the knowledge of her body.

Sure that he shouldn't be doing this.

It should always be like this between them. "I'm insane to be here wanting to do this with you." His lips touched her brow, her throat, the fragrant lobe of her ear. Her mouth. "You taste like ale, Rachel Bailey." His rasp penetrated the haze surrounding them both.

"Very heady ale it was," she said.

Pulling away, he looked into her flushed face. She gave him a coy smile, daring him to comment. She wasn't going to apologize for drinking a glass of ale with her meal. She wasn't going to apologize for anything.

His gaze lowered to the pale mounds of her breasts spilling over her lacy corset.

He dipped his head to suckle and taste her. He made his mouth a brand against her flesh. He drew each nipple into his mouth, his tongue moving over the crest of each breast, and he listened to the sound of her throaty moans. Slipping his other hand beneath her sodden skirts, he took more. She moved against his fingers.

"Do you like my touch?" He breathed in her scent, traced the outline of her cleft with his finger, and felt her body respond. He wanted her to say the words.

"Yes." She lowered her body toward his probe. "It's...nice."

The thought refocused his mind. "Nice is another word for polite." His other hand worked his trousers to free his erection.

With a sigh, she moved against him. "I...don't want polite."

Her knees hugged his hips. His finger razed her, spreading her. With a helpless cry, she dropped her head back against her shoulders. He steadied her, moving one hand against her nape, waiting for her to regain a moment of equilibrium. He opened his palm around her bottom and shifted her upward, pulling her higher onto his lap. Then he shifted slightly, and with one sure movement penetrated her. She closed around him.

Ryan didn't have time to think. Even if he could have thought at all. She opened her mouth to cry out, and he caught her lips in a melding kiss. A part of his mind recognized that he must have planned it this way. That she'd never had a chance.

That if he were honorable, he'd never have allowed this to go so far. The rasp of their breathing filled the interior of the carriage.

Somewhere outside he heard raised voices.

The carriage stopped and rocked in traffic. Slowly opening her eyes, she saw his gaze on her face. Self-consciously, she looked down at herself wantonly displayed for his eyes, her pale thighs spread wide over his, her skirts hiked to her hips, hiding what was beneath. But not the sensation. Heat flushed her cheeks. Her mouth looked swollen and ravished. Her vulnerability clashed with the possessiveness he felt for her. He leaned around her and pulled the curtain aside, but by then the carriage had jolted forward, bringing her to full awareness.

"Ryan-"

He was seduced by that single whispered utterance. By her absolute possession of his body. He slid the tip of his finger against her lip. "Shhh."

She tasted herself in that touch.

She tried to catch her breath. He could not.

The ends of her hair fell over her shoulders as she leaned forward and caught her hands against his arms, their corded mass hard beneath her clenched grip. His breath shuddered over an incoherent oath. Then he was thrusting inside her, his hands solid on her bottom, flagrantly carnal as he slid her against his sensitized flesh.

He ravished her mouth. She let him plunder her body. Or was she plundering his? His hands tightened on her waist, his hold on her restricting her movement, controlling her pace. She resisted, her every muscle moving sensuously to the melody and rhythm of his pulse. His head fell back against the squabs. He opened his eyes.

Their gazes met and held. Hazel green to black. Past to present. No farther, as neither had a wish to go anywhere but where they currently were. Then she was pressing her lips against his, drawing him deeper inside her body.

With a sound that was her name, he splayed his fingers into her wet hair, dislodging the pins from what remained of her coif. Her silly hat dropped unnoticed to the floor. Her mouth took his voice, his breath. Desire throbbed and seared. She seized what he surrendered. His hand gripped her scalp, and he suckled her racing pulse, her breasts, supporting her with his arm, before he was crushing her against him. He tried to halt his flight, but it was too late, for she was taking him with her into the fire.

She consumed all of him. A novelty that left him gravely exploring his own tenderized flesh as he lost himself to her in a shuddering orgasm.

When he opened his eyes, Rachel lay slumped against him, her every inhalation imprinting itself against his chest. He didn't know how long he sat listening to the return of reality: the carriage jostling over the street, the clip-clop of horses-and her weepy voice whispering against his ear. "I didn't have my sponge."

For the first time in his life, Ryan witnessed her collapse into tears.

What the hell?

"There is no sense worrying, Rache. We'll know soon enough."

She drew back, her direct regard watery and accusing. "I'm sorry." But her tone blamed him for her current state. She swiped the back of her hand across both cheeks, the movement contracting her muscles around him still deep inside her. "I'm not used to this...this manner of dominance."

Which meant that he had the power to make her come. "That's understandable." He could almost laugh at his own profound lack of logic-if he wasn't gritting his teeth, and nearly drunk on the arousing effect she was still having on his body. "I must be crazy to want you like this," he muttered hoarsely.

"This shouldn't have happened twice. Never. Not in a hundred million years." She pressed her lips against his temple and sniffled. Her body's movement continued to send jolting shocks through him. "We don't even like each other. To make a baby..."

He leaned his cheek against the cushion of her hair. "I imagine we like each other a little."

"We just don't want to be married to the other-for sound reasons. We would drive each other to murder before a year was completed." She turned her mouth to the lobe of his ear. "Wouldn't we?"

"A child...would certainly complicate...matters."

He caught her hard against him, thinking through that senseless haze that surrounded his growing erection, that he might have been insulted by the tragedy of Rachel's teary declaration had he not already realized the implication to himself. They were adults. Such things were handled discreetly, though thank Providence, he'd never experienced the problem. But Rachel was different.

Indeed, theirs was an interesting, if not unstable, predicament, to say the least, and the paradox of his emotions when it came to his feelings for her suddenly reeled his thoughts into focus.

How in God's name could someone who was so wrong for him on almost every level of his life feel so bloody perfect on this one?

His fists, filled with the wet fabric of her skirts, settled on her round, smooth buttocks. "Jaysus..." He pressed his face into her damp shoulder, the evidence of his desire now hot and hard inside her. "Just...keep moving," he finally surrendered the words, closing his eyes, half-stunned by the warm mouth opening over his because her kiss cut him to his soul.

Chapter 15.

T he sound of voices outside the carriage opened Rachel's eyes. She was lying cradled in Ryan's arms, with the coat wrapped around them. Despite warmth emanating from him, she was shivering. "You fell asleep," he answered the question in her eyes.

In the shadows, she couldn't read his expression. Didn't know his thoughts. But she felt his arms loosen, and she sat up. Her entire muscular structure ached as she bent to peer outside. The carriage had pulled onto a brick drive.

"Where are we?" she asked without looking at him.

"At my London residence." He adjusted his coat around her shoulders, covering her dishabille. "The least I can do is mend the damages to you before we talk."

She pushed his hand away. "I can do this, Ryan."

He caught her wrist. "You're like ice, Rachel." Her hands trembled and, for a moment as she looked into his hooded eyes, they softened. "Let me help you."

"Where is Mary Elizabeth?" she asked.

"With my sister." He opened the door and climbed outside.

Rain continued to fall in a drizzle. Rachel leaned into the doorway and reluctantly peered up at his house. Ryan lifted her easily from the carriage. He hurried her through the rain and up the steps. The front door opened as if by unseen hands, and he swept her into the entryway. He ordered a bath, sending the household into a flurry of activity. Without breaking stride, he walked her up a long staircase into an equally long corridor.

She stumbled on her dampened skirts and felt his hand tighten on her arm. A magnificent pair of Rembrandts hung on the wall. He was watching her take in the elaborate ceiling friezes, the beautiful fresco, and huge Venetian glass chandelier hanging in the tall foyer. "It catches the eye," she felt obligated to say.

"Money can buy anything, Rachel."

Had he bought her? Her cooperation? Her silence?

She looked at his stern profile, caught by the realization that everything surrounding him had its purpose. No doubt if something didn't meet his standards or expectations, it would find no place in his life.

Shivering from whatever it was that pervaded her bones, Rachel listened as he spoke to his valet and ordered tea. He left her alone in his private chambers. His bedroom was no less impressive than everything else she saw in his house. Royal blue velvet draperies adorned the long windows, and a matching canopy dressed the massive bed. No one seemed to question her presence.

"Let's get ye out of these wet things, mum."

She let a young maid undo the row of jet-black buttons on her jacket that Ryan had meticulously restored in the carriage. He'd repaired her garments and his, as if he had sexual congress with women in his carriage all the time-as if he hadn't taken her world and turned it wrong side out, upside down.

She could hear his voice coming from the connecting room as she slid out of her soaked clothes and stockings. Her corset and drawers followed, but for lack of anything else to wear, she kept her chemise. "We'll dry these at once, mum." The girl bobbed a curtsy. "They'll be good as new in no time."

Wrapping her arms around her torso, Rachel waited beside the window, shivering as the bathtub was filled. She'd wanted to rally together reasons for disliking Ryan, but the substance behind her emotions had dissolved. Still, anger was preferable to the confusion she felt. How could she have allowed this to happen at all?

A girl's shriek sounded from the next room, followed by a crash.

Rachel ran toward the connecting door. Quiet weeping drew her into the other room. Ryan sat on his haunches, a shattered teapot lying at his feet.

"Stop!" He held out his hand like a bobby halting traffic in the Piccadilly.

In dismay, Rachel looked down at her bare feet. She was standing among shards of porcelain and spilled

cream.

"I didn't see ye there, sir-"

"It is all right," he was telling the distraught girl. "Just clean this up. Have Mildred bring another pot."

Ryan shifted his dark eyes back to her and paused. Beginning somewhere around her toes, his gaze

ascended, taking its time, she thought, as he came to his feet. He was no longer wearing his jacket or waistcoat. She felt as naked and hot as she had when she'd sat astride him in the carriage, and the rest of the world receded in his eyes.

"Don't move," Ryan ordered her in a voice that brooked no disobedience.Ordered as if he sensed her will to flee him.He approached. "You're a lot of trouble, Rachel," he said, and lifted her.With a gasp, she caught her arms around his neck. His heavy shoes crushed the glass like so many eggshells.

"Put me down." She wriggled, but his corded arms were like a vise around her. "Everyone will see."

"Everyone has already seen everything."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Stand in front of the mirror. Then answer your own question." He sat her abruptly on a chair. He

walked to a cabinet. She listened as he poured something into a glass.