"Dammit-there's no patrol out," he roared down at Benson, who blinked frantically. "Where the hell are they?" He didn't actually expect Benson to know or to answer, so he turned on his heel and headed for Dedham's tap room, thinking they'd probably congregated in its warmth. But the tavern was empty as well, except for Uncle Harvey, who picked up his broom and braced it across his chest defensively at the sight of the major's blatant anger.

Frustration mounting, he roared back through his camp. And this time raw anger got the best of his gentlemanly pride. He snatched Benson up by the coatfront and gave him a throttle that promised greater retribution if answers were not forthcoming. Answers came, slowly. The muscular Dem Wallace was likely down at the widow Donner's cabin, splittin' wood. Ned and Albert were likely at Aunt Sarah Dunbar's, fixin' shed roofs and shuckin' corn from harvest. Kingery, he was likely at Uncle Radnor's helpin' to repair the smith's bellows... and on it went. Every damned one of them was out fraternizing with the locals. No! Not fraternizing-working! They were working for the locals! Threshing, chopping, repairing, husking, stacking.

Townsend stood in the middle of his deserted camp, quaking with volcanic rage. "How dare they?! Desert their duty and defy their commander to work-work- for these treasonous rabble?!"

"F-food, M-majur," Benson choked an explanation as Townsend towered over him threateningly. "They be workin' f-fer their's-suppers."

"Food?!" Townsend whipped upright and stared at him. "Food? They're working for the food these locals refused to sell us?!"

"They'da's-starved a long time past, Majur," Benson ventured, "if n Aunt Sarah hadn'ta seen they wus fed proper. I be dwindlin' away meself-" He looked balefully down at his baggy coat and the breeches that were bundled into his belt. His paunch was gone, his fleshy face was loose and haggard looking.

Townsend was speechless, staring at him with newly-opened eyes. He hadn't seen it, his own aide, dwindling before his very eyes. His Townsend obsession with succeeding in his duty had usurped awareness of everything, even the growling of his own belly! He looked down at his own middle and was shocked at how loosely his coatfront hung, at how loose his tight, gentlemanly breeches had become. Lord, what had happened to him?

He'd been so caught up in his pursuit of the elusive stills, he hadn't noticed his own men deserting, aiding the enemy! These crafty rubes had used food to get his men to do the work of the traitorous distillers that were off in Pittsburgh-defying the very federal authority he'd been sent here to uphold! The irony of it collected in his throat, a huge lump that was impossible to swallow. He burst into action, rousting his remaining men to accompany him. And he struck out to snatch his wayward men from the jaws of opportunism.

He collected them bodily from every dwelling and farmstead in and near the settlement, and they quailed before his very controlled fury, expecting the worst from their Iron Major once they were back at camp. But at dark, when he'd collected most of them, he left Lieutenant Brooks to implement discipline on a few chief offenders, sought the solitude of his room in the inn.

Mingled with his anger and frustration was an irksome sense of failure... to take things in hand, to secure proper provisions. These locals had realized from the first day where they were vulnerable, and had used it against them with diabolical effectiveness. From that very first day-he looked down at his chest-they'd had him by the damned buttons! And they knew it.

"Benson!!" he stepped to the door and roared for hisaide. When the fellow appeared, puffing and obviously dreading his commander's wrath, Townsend stripped his gentlemanly coat from his shoulders and held it out to him. "Cut the damned buttons off my coat, and then find me something suitable to replace them."

Benson did as he was told, eyes wide and lips compressed. When he had finished and brought the double handful of gold pieces to the major, he was held at bay with a dark look.

"Carry them to Dedham. Tell him they're to be used for the purchase of food for my men." The major spoke through clenched jaws, avoiding Benson's sober nod of understanding. But when Benson reached the door, the major called him back and fished through the glittery fastenings to extract one, then dismissed him on to his task.

Townsend stood in the quiet of his room, looking at the teethmarks in the button he held, feeling every bit as hollow as that squashed bauble.

In the two nights that followed, the nightly chase in the hills became frenzied in the extreme, and Uncle Julius and Uncle Ballard came within a hair's breadth of being caught. The Iron Major's determination had apparently been strengthened by his improved diet. And his gesture of sacrifice, rendering up his fancy buttons to provide them food, had built something of a bond between him and his men, and they followed more willingly now. Then, when they uncovered a barrel of new whiskey that had been hastily buried in the abandonment of a still-site, the major promised it to his men when the distillers were caught, and they began to search in dead earnest.

Whitney had sent word for the old uncles to dump the fermenting "mash" altogether and to bury the still, literally in the ground. One of the Delbarton bucks was dispatched to help them and to see that they arrived safely at the Daniels farmstead to stay for a while. Their presence in the Daniels's household was duly reported to the major, who sent his lieutenant to investigate. It was explained to the lieutenant that Whitney's two old uncles had come for a visit, pure and simple. The major snarled that nothing about Whiskey Daniels or her household was either "pure" or "simple," and declared they should be watched all the more carefully.

Whitney saw the noose closing on her people and implemented her plan. She was going to see that the major was forced to withdraw from the valley in disgrace... and haste. His much-vaunted Townsend pride was the key. A man of his exalted social standing would far rather suffer a minor military setback than spend his life yoked to a whiskey-drinking "Jezebel"; she was certain of it. And that was the choice he would face when Uncle Ballard and Uncle Julius caught them together in his room, in his very bed. She'd plant herself in his bed while he was on patrol and have Robbie Dedham fetch the old uncles as soon as he returned. There would have been just enough time for the obvious to have occurred... except, of course, that it wouldn't have occurred... when the old uncles would break in on them, toting squirrel guns and demanding the major do the decent thing by her.

Whitney's "Daniels grin" always faded when she came to this part of her plan. He'd be outraged at the prospect of a shotgun wedding, and so would she. And she'd propose an alternative-his withdrawal from the valley. And they wouldn't let him out of the room until he agreed and called his lieutenant to issue the orders. It was a simple plan, actually, one that targeted the major's one flaw, his one weakness... his pride.

She'd finally gotten the old uncles to agree, though they hadn't liked the idea at first. Now, the only difficult part would be the time between the major's arrival and their discovery; Her eyes fluttered closed and she quelled a stubborn quiver in her loins. She'd deal with that when the time came.

"Majur!" Benson ran to meet him as he came from stabling his mount the next afternoon. The all-night patrol had netted only days-old fire sites and old tracks that always managed to disappear into streams. So they'd spent the morning desperately combing cold trails they'd already searched, for signs of more recent activity. He was exhausted and bitter and desperately in need of some hot food and a bit of sleep. What he got was: "Th-the colonel... he's come! Th' lew-ten-ant set me out to warn ye, Maj-"

Townsend saw the tie-line of horses at the side of the tavern at the same moment the tavern door swung open. Just inside the doorway stood the paunchy, flinty-eyed shopkeeper, Colonel Oliver Gaspar... his commanding officer.

Chapter Ten.

"Well, Major," Colonel Gaspar appraised Garner Townsend across a tavern table and a temple of pudgy fingers with dirt embedded under their ragged nails. "I must say, I am surprised by your lack of progress here. We were reliably informed that this valley was a hotbed of traitorous activity, yet you've made only one arrest, and nabbed not a single still." The fleshy folds around his dark eyes tightened and narrowed accusingly.

"And the supplies that were to be sent after us, Colonel?" Townsend parried regally. "They never arrived. Hungry men are more apt to search for food than for outlaws and traitors."

"Discipline in your ranks is your responsibility, Major... results are mine," Gaspar sneered, goaded by the Bostonian's undimmed air of condescension. "To that end, I offer a bit of news that may enable you to redeem your sad efforts here. The meet of distillers in Pittsburgh broke up two days ago and the treasonous wretches are fleeing to their burrows. They didn't have the backbone for a decent fight. Put down their guns when they saw our forces massed and realized President Washington would permit no such treason. But some have vowed to continue resisting the tax, and may be headed here. Let us hope you can manage to arrest them when they arrive."

"I cannot manufacture evidence, Colonel," Townsend said, gray with suppressed rage. "How am I to prove they are distillers, if they have no stills and no liquor?"

"It is not up to you to prove it, Major. I will not go back to my superiors emptyhanded and they will not go back to the nation's courts without the leaders of this fiendish plot against our nationhood. Your duty is simply to make arrests, Major. The courts will do the rest!" He rose with a cold smile that revealed yellowed and decaying teeth.

"My aides and I shall leave first thing in the morning, Major, and depend on you to take the steps necessary to insure a commendation for us all. But for tonight, my aid and I shall require accommodations in this establishment."

Night fell over Rapture settlement like an icy black cloak. No moon lit the dimness, and even the stars seemed to be hoarding their light in the inky sky. Whitney sat with the old uncles in the kitchen after Aunt Kate went to bed, and reviewed the night's plan one last time. Uncle Ballard yawned and nodded and Uncle Julius frowned and agreed and they toddled off to Black Daniels's bed, where they'd been sleeping these last two nights.

Whitney waited in the quiet darkness of her room until she was sure Aunt Kate was fast asleep. Then she dressed in her breeches and boots and slipped from the house, sticking to the shadows to avoid the six soldiers that now watched the house night and day. She kept near the main road, her heart drumming, her hands growing icy in her coat pockets. There was no time for second thoughts now, she chided herself. No time for squeamishness or wretched womanly misgivings. And for heaven's sake, don't think about what he'll think when he finds you in his bed, she grumbled mentally. Just tell him it's nothing personal.

She slipped through the settlement, from cabin to cabin, silent as a shadow, and eased into the tavern through the kitchen door. The hewn-log stairs creaked under her feet as she made her way up in the pitch-darkness, feeling her way along. The major's door groaned slightly on its rough iron hinge, and she heid her breath. But the quiet continued, uninterrupted, and she released her breath and closed the door behind her. As her eyes adjusted, the placement of the room's meager furnishings became clear and she looked at the ghostly outline of the bed and swallowed hard.

Removing her coat and boots, she placed them neatly aside and paused. The breeches had to go as well, she knew. But halfway through unbuttoning her shirt, she stopped, feeling an unwelcome fluttering in her middle. She left the shirt half-buttoned and crawled beneath the covers of his bed. Lying rigid and cold beneath the quilts, she tried to turn her mind away from his impending fury, tried to focus on the fact he soon would be gone from the valley.

Gone. It was a depressing thought, she realized with no small alarm. He'd pack up and leave, hating the very ground she walked on, and she'd never see his sculptured face, never watch his lean, muscular body move, never feel the heated press of his mouth and his body on hers again. And that silky brown-black hair, those hard-soft lips... she turned her head to the side, as if warding off those unwelcome remembrances, and her head filled with the lingering male scent of him that clung to the bedclothes. Her blood began to flow again and her body began to warm as his bed stood proxy for him, cradling her in its arms. She sighed and breathed deeply, holding this much of him inside her. She didn't want to think about what it would be like in Rapture after he left. She didn't want to think about how much had changed, within her and around her, in so short a time.

"Good Lord!" Kate Morrison bolted upright in the middle of her darkened bed, having to hold her pounding heart in her body with her hands. The entire house was shuddering, reverberating with a thunderous snarling sound that made the back of her neck prickle. She got her bearings and took a deep breath. Either the house was being attacked by packs of ravenous wolves or it was the old uncles, snoring again. Merciful Heaven-how could even they sleep through the monstrous racket they made?!

Kate slipped from her bed and drew on her shoes and a woolen wrapper and lit a candle to see her way down the stairs. She had to knock loudly, for some time, on the old uncles's door before the deafening volume was reduced by half. And shortly she was met at the door by a foggy-headed Uncle Julius.

"You're doing it again, Uncle Julius," Kate fairly shouted above Uncle Ballard's snoring. "I'm sorry, but I can't get a minute's rest... can't you do something?!"

Julius scowled and scratched his head, blinking at Kate. Years of living together had inured the old brothers to each other's nightly thunder. But he seemed to hear it now. He shuffled back to the bed they shared and rousted Ballard, trying to get him to turn on his side, to no avail. Finally, he climbed on the bed and bent next to Ballard's ear and shouted, "Wake up, y'old fool!"

Ballard came flapping up in the bed, disoriented in the extreme: "Wha-what? Is it time?!"

"Hush up Ballard," Julius hauled him up out of the bed by the arm. "Ye wus snorin' so bad agin, ye woke Katie, here. Come on, I'm takin' ye out to th' barn to sleep."

Kate didn't object, in fact, she helped them gather their blankets and gave them her new candle to light the way. She climbed the stairs and slid back into her warm bed, praying for a bit of rest.

At that moment, a mile and a half away, Robbie Dedham was on watch from the depths of the straw pile beside the stall where the major stabled his horse. His job in Whitney's plan was pivotal, and he'd earned his position of trust by his reliability and quickness. He watched restlessly past the witching hour, and on past the hours of two and three o'clock. At half-past three, he was roused fully by sights and sounds of the major stabling his horse, and held his breath until the major left. He stood and flung off the straw and slipped to the stable door. The clearing was deserted and he crept out, running from cabin to cabin like a night-hunting fox, on his way to fetch the old uncles at the Daniels farmstead.

But when young Dedham reached the Daniels house and slipped through the shadows and the unlatched door, he found Black Daniels's bed empty. No Uncle Ballard, no Uncle Julius. He sneaked through the house, looking for them, finding nothing but darkness and quiet. Where could they be, he wondered, and what would he tell Whit when he didn't do what she'd asked? The ghostly quiet and unfamiliar shapes of the interior of the house began to work on his nerves and he exited quickly, forgetting to muffle the bang of the kitchen door.

As he slipped past the barn, his eyes widened on a dim, unearthly glow coming through the half-opened door and he was drawn closer, his heart thudding and his palms sweating. There was a growling, snarling rumble coming from the opening... growing louder with each step. The growl of a mountain lion about to pounce, he thought, or the ravenous rumbling of Old Scratch himself, doin' his mischief in the dead of night. He froze as the hellish noise seemed to stop. Then it thundered out again, twice as loud, and he strangled a cry of panic and began running, like a scared rabbit, straight across the yard and down the path toward home.

There was a rush around him, and Old Scratch grabbed and clawed at him! He fought the Old Tempter's clutches like a devil himself and jerked free, running as though his soul depended on it. He heard the fiend's graveled growls and breathing and his footsteps-cloven hoot-beats!- behind him for a ways. Then miraculously, as he prayed for deliverance, the devil gave him up to the good and he fled on through the night, alone.

"Who was it, Sarge?" Dem Wallace, jogged to a stop beside his gravel-voiced sergeant. "Did ye get agoodlook at 'im?"

"I think it were that innkeeper's kid... pro'bly jes pilferin' about," Laxault panted in his graveled voice. He drew a deep breath and ordered, "Git back to yer place, Wallace, an' stay warm."

Kate Morrison was awakened for the second time that night by the sound of the kitchen door banging shut. And just as she was drifting back to sleep, there was a muffled cry and she was wide awake, sitting up in bed, again. Her first thought was the soldiers... sneaking in, sneaking up... With a stifled gasp, she flew across the hall into Whitney's room, calling her.

But Whitney's bed was empty, the covers were smoothed and straight. Kate lit a candle and stood looking down at the undisturbed bedclothes. The horror of it dawned on her; Whitney's bed hadn't been slept in at all. She searched the house; no Whitney. She donned her heavy wrapper and shoes and trekked out to the barn. There were Julius and Ballard, still snorting and roaring; no Whitney. She went back to the kitchen and lit the oil lamp, her heart racing, her hands icy and shaking.

Whitney was gone. But she couldn't be at the still, Ballard and Julius were here. Where could she... ? Oh no. There was only one other place she could have gone secretly in the dark of a cold, moonless night. Kate sank weakly into a chair at the table, feeling suddenly bleak inside and helpless. Her sweet little Whitney had finally succumbed to her fascination with the Iron Major. She had gone to be with him.

The door hinge creaked loudly and Whitney stirred in the warmth of the major's bed. After a moment, her eyes flew wide and her heart gave a convulsive leap in her chest. Just inside the door stood the Iron Major, taut, searching out the source of the change he sensed in his room. She froze, watching his dark head as it made a visual sweep and turned to fix on her. His eyes were bright silver disks in the dimness that pulled her from the lethargy of sleep toward full awareness. She rose onto one elbow, baring a creamy shoulder between sliding shirt and quilt. But she could make no move to cover it. Hot and cold clashed violently inside her, just from witnessing the powerful, dark outline of his body in the dim light.

She waited, holding her breath, for him to speak and give some indication of his reaction. It was a long moment before he broke the silence, and the deep, invasive rumble of his voice was far from comforting.

"What are you doing here?"

It echoed about in her body, vibrating inside of her from toes to fingertips, and causing an abrupt tightening of the sensitive tips of her breasts. Every inch of her bare skin contracted into gooseflesh beneath the quilts. Her instinctive bodily response to him was alarming. But not completely unexpected, she reminded herself sternly; she'd responded in the same shameful ways before and survived it. She had a mission to accomplish here. Talk- she thought-you have to make him talk-to buy time.

"I... was cold," she murmured half-truthfully, finding her voice had a sleep-lulled velvet quality that only heightened her anxiety. His eyes fled her briefly to discover her boots, sitting by his open leather kit, and on the breeches draped over the stool beside them.

"If you were cold, wench," he had to swallow to finish it, "you might have left your clothes on."

The Iron Major had trudged up the steps to his room with every joint and sinew in his body in a state of agonizing protest. Everything about him had been cold and frustrated and hardening irreversibly, even his anger. Then he stepped through his door to find her lush warmth in his bed, and in one heartbeat the slow contraction of his entire being halted and began to reverse. He fastened on her light eyes, on the moonstone glow of her skin, and ached at the sight of them. A wave of fluid sensation washed over his tight skin and lapped at his loins, melting the killing frosts of a lifetime of impossible demands and coldly imposed duty.

"I didn't think you'd want dirt from my boots in your bed," she answered in a whisper that beckoned him forward to catch it all. She watched him lurch and stop and felt both the pull of longing in his look and the push of pride that had halted him. The battle he was waging for control of his responses was occurring inside her as well; icy contempt or passion's heat, the pain of righteous victory or the sweet pleasure of surrender.

He was so tall and straight and strong... and hungry, so very hungry. Whitney could feel him reaching for her, tugging at her senses^ and beguiling her reason. Talk - for heaven's sake! Just keep him talking- "I wanted to... talk with you." She tried to sound reasonable; as though those little fires weren't racing along her nerves to throw themselves into the growing flame in the middle of her, as though she weren't sitting half-naked in his bed waiting for him to... A serious tactical error, she realized, shedding her breeches along with her boots! But she had to be sure it would be convincing.

"Are you sure that's what you wanted, wench?" he breathed, taking another step forward and finding his hands reaching determinedly for the makeshift bone buttons of his coat. "Talk?"

She nodded, her eyes glued to the graceful movements of his hands and widening as each protective fastening unleashed more of his body into the covert battle of wills being waged between them. Where were Uncle Julius and Uncle Ballard? Noah's knees! It shouldn't take them this long to get here!

"I didn't want you to leave thinking... I don't want you to think... I don't... want..." Words deserted her totally as she watched his coat slide down his night-paled shirt and watched him toss it aside. "I... I've never seen you without your coat," her uncensored thoughts escaped in a rush, making her blush furiously when she realized how girlish and naive they sounded. But a moment later she was lost visually in the expanse of fine linen across his wide chest and in the sinuous folds that skimmed his ribs and tucked into his narrow waist. He was so large, she shivered noticeably, and so...

... so soft, he was thinking as his eyes probed the top of the quilt hungrily for the swell of her breasts... and so damned much trouble! He coiled inside, trembling from the power of the forces raging inside him. He should chuck her out on her curvy little bottom, or sound some outraged alarm, or just run like hell! Every minute she sat there, the peril to his ambitions, his dignity, his aristocratic life increased. She was a hot piece of temptation, a green-eyed bit of earthly torment. And for him she could prove the road to a final failure of honor and a lifetime of disgrace. But he couldn't make himself move, much less run. Disaster was breathing down his neck and he still couldn't seem to take his eyes from the lure of her skin, from the impudent tilt of her nose.

When he finally managed to move, it was to lean down and remove his tall boots.

"What is it you don't want me to think, Whiskey Daniels?" He straightened a minute' later, his temperature rising a degree for each small step he took toward the bed. Lord! His senses were so open, so roused to her presence, he could smell the faint, spicy fragrance of her from six feet away. His blood was pulsing hard, pooling in his loins, starving his brain so that he couldn't maintain arational chain of thought, or resist the urge that impelled him toward her.

The knot that had formed in her throat drew tighter as she watched him approach on silent feet, stalking her. His coat and his boots were off. Ohhhh... Her mouth was drying and her lips felt thicker and very sensitive, and for some reason, she was afraid to lick them. When his long leg smacked into the wooden bedframe, she startled and her heart thumped erratically.

"What don't you don't want me to think?" he asked with a low, compelling hum in his voice that betrayed the fact that every cord in his body was vibrating.

"I... I don't know," she looked up at him, towering above her, and felt a panicky shiver. She was going molten and liquid inside, recalling what it felt like to be held in his arms, to have his body pressed tightly against her tingling breasts... and his hands molding her. "No-I mean-I... I wouldn't want you to think l hold anything against you. It's... nothing personal, Major."

As Garner Townsend stood there in his darkened room, staring into her night-paled features and luminous eyes, the heat that had been charging its way up his spine finally reached his muddled brain and breeched the last bastion of his legendary Townsend control. Desire exploded to life in him, freed, exultant... victorious! His entire body ignited.

"Wrong, wench," he whispered hoarsely. "It is personal. About as personal as it can be." And there his thinking stopped and feeling took total control. To her dismay, he eased himself down onto the bed, facing her. And when his hands came up to cradle her face, she rippled with involuntary pleasure at the contact. He was making her forget things... everything.

"I meant... I know it's been hard... between us..."

"Hard... I'd say that describes it perfectly," he murmured, "and it's about to get harder, still." His lean body flexed in one long, sensual undulation that demonstrated his point stunningly.

"Ohhhh... Major-" she was in a dry, crackling panic now.

"Garner," he corrected, leaning closer to join their breaths, "call me Garner." It was a silky, irresistible invitation that-poured into her on the air she breathed.

"Garner..." She tried the sound of it and just as the final "r" tightened her sensitive lips, his tongue darted out to stroke them. Fire flashed through her cheeks and spread down over her throat. "Garner," she murmured again. And again she was rewarded by another tantalizing stroke of liquid velvet. "Garner..." she shamelessly begged for more, "Garner... Garner..." And each time the stroke of his tongue lingered a bit longer, explored a bit more. It was hypnotizing, an intimate game that seemed as natural as breathing and as earnest as it was pleasurable.

She waited, head tilted, face raised, for him to join their mouths more fully, and when he hesitated, she opened her eyes and blinked to focus them. His eyes were closed and she could feel the warm tendrils of his breath against her lips and cheek as he spoke.

"What is that scent... on your breath?"

"Teaberry," she whispered against his lips, feeling him taking in, savoring, the breath she released. It was so intimate, so adoring that it sent a slow spiral of warmth plunging through her.

"It's wonderful... intoxicating. Say it again."

"Teaberry."

He breathed her deep into the middle of him, filling his head, his lungs, and even his heart with her. "It's just like you. You're intoxicating, too, Whiskey."

"Whitney," she corrected, brushing the tip of his nose with hers.

"Whitney," he repeated obediently, giving her control of the game and enjoying a luscious reward for his generosity. Her tongue drew a sinuous stroke across his parted lips and his hands tightened gently on her face.

"Whitney," he said again, demanding just compensation for his tractability. And again and again: "Whitney... Whitney..."

The game ended as naturally as it had evolved... dissolving into the deepening pressure of lips on lips and the mutual seeking of tongues. A shudder of pleasure coursed through her, tightening her deathlike grip on the quilts. She shouldn't enjoy this so much, some ravaged bittif reason nagged at the edges of her consciousness. But for the life of her she couldn't seem to remember why. He'd kissed all caution, all prudence, all her legendary Daniels guile from her. And when he growled from deep in his throat and crushed her to him in a feverish embrace, she gave up thinking altogehter. Her arms slipped around his lean ribs and her hands filled with the rippled mounds and valleys of his back. She returned his lush, penetrating kiss with all the feeling of her newly wakened womanliness.

The heat of his wild kiss seared through her, purging all resistance, all other sensation. When she floated back to conscious awareness, she was in his corded steel arms, clasped against his hot chest, too weak to support her head, resting it on his collarbone. His hands moved to the long, carelessly woven plait of her hair, unbinding and loosening it. He spread her hair over her shoulders and she saw him lift a handful to his face, nuzzling it. Then he took her by the shoulders and set her back a few inches.

"I want you, Whitney Daniels," he murmured, ripping the quilts from her and determinedly reaching for the few fastened buttons of her shirt.

The frigid air and the searing intensity of his movements clashed, rattling some of the langor from her love-lulled senses. He wanted to take her like a man took a woman, she realized. The thought roused vague confusion in her. As her last button gave and he swept the fabric aside, uncovering her breasts, she grasped his wrists and held them. They were hard and powerful and trembling; his entire body was trembling. And a moment later, she realized she was trembling, too.

"You want me, too, wench," he whispered against the grip of desire on his throat. He caught the silvery glow of her eyes with his and lifted it, unveiling the raging fires of need she'd built in him since their first encounter. His desire rushed over her cool skin like a hot wind that carried in it the scent of paradise.

"You want me," her tongue flicked out to moisten her dry, swollen lips, "and I want you..."

"A proper bargain, if I ever heard one," he urged quietly, so attuned to her and her responses that he could almost feel the tilting of the scales in her mind as she weighed the trade. And for some unfathomable reason, making a proper bargain of loving her mattered very much.

"A proper bargain." He set the words resonating in the very fiber of her being. "It's what you came for, wench."

Something in her tried to deny it; there was more, something more... But the flame of desire in his light eyes claimed her reason before she could fully recall it. Perhaps she didn't want to recall it. Perhaps he was right, she had come to seek his loving. The rightness of his touch, the tender command of his kiss, were so perfect that she shoved the uncertainties aside and accepted the bargain he offered.

The force of her hands on his wrists eased so that her fingers only rested on him. In the dim light, she saw the flash of his white, even teeth in a lusty grin of triumph. As his hands moved to cup her breasts, they carried hers along and soon her fingers splayed over the supple strength of his hands, caressing him even as he caressed her. She arched against those heavenly sensations, gasping, and heard an impatient growl from deep in his throat as his hands withdrew.

He fairly ripped his shirt from his shoulders and only half-unbuttoned his breeches before shoving them down. Then he returned, sliding onto the bed beside her, reaching for her with eager hands. He captured her waist and slid his hands up her ribs to brush her cold-tightened nipples.

"You have such beautiful breasts," he spoke against her tingling lips, then continued his descent into the sleek, wet recesses of her mouth. He pressed her down onto the straw-filled ticking with his body, luxuriating in the cool softness of her skin against his inflamed length. His hands traced the valleys and curves he'd possessed many times in his mind, claiming them, branding them with his touch.

A slowly winding spiral of pleasure was begun in the depths of her loins, coiling through her in relentless cycles that were similar but never quite the same. Heat rose beneath her skin to meet his hands wherever they roamed her, until she was deliciously warmed and wriggled with small raptures. Then his kisses left her face and covered her ear and throat and trailed a familiar path downward. But this time it didn't stop, and when his warm mouth reached one pebble-hard nipple, she held her breath. He took her nipple into his mouth and suckled it, sending wild vibrations of pleasure all the way to her woman's hollow, where they focused into one burning, pulsing point of desire.

She went taut and her muscles tightened instinctively around that shocking concentration of pleasure, creating yet another overwhelming wave of raw sensual delight. What was he doing to her... what was happening to her body? His hand followed the path of those unthinkable joys to the curls at the base of her sleek belly and his fingers invaded the silky moistness of her womanly cleft. She gasped and stiffened and her hand flew to hover over his uncertainly. But the slow, knowledgable circling of his fingers around that burning pleasure point charmed her anxieties and stirred a steamy sense of expectation in her. When his hand withdrew, her hips arched to follow it partway.