Even unresponsive, she was delicious. The most delicious woman he'd ever kissed. The voice at the back of his mind screamed that she was untouched, a virgin, deserving of care. He'd frighten her.

To his shame, he frightened her now.

For the first time in his life, he didn't know if he could restrain himself. He wanted her so much. Flattening her breasts against his chest, he tugged her closer. Clothes became an unbearable barrier.

He must stop. He must stop.

With shocking suddenness, her arms snaked around his neck. She released a strangled whimper and kissed him back with frenzied passion. Her tongue stabbed into his mouth, danced with his in dizzying fervor. He growled with masculine satisfaction and dropped his hands to her buttocks, pulling her into his erection. The sensation, even through her skirts, nearly blew off the top of his head.

Their earlier kisses had been powerful. This . this was like being crushed in an earthquake, whirled away in a flooded river, blasted into the sky. He'd always known she was extraordinary. But what flared now promised to fling him, the famous debauchee, into a universe beyond his experience.

Reluctantly he wrenched his lips from hers. Some minuscule trace of reason yet remained. He was mad for her, but he couldn't take her here on the ground. Not her first time. He swung her into his arms and swiftly mounted the steps. She was restless, touching him, kissing his neck, shaking and gasping with the desire that crackled between them.

It was darker inside the summerhouse. He felt a momentary yen for light. He longed to look into her eyes at this moment and know her lost to passion. As was he.

Next time.

His arms firmed around her and he kissed her again. His heart thundered so fast, his senses were so crammed with her scent and taste, he wasn't sure he'd survive the night. This was what he'd perceived in her from the start. This voracious goddess. A woman who matched his passion ounce for ounce.

More by luck than calculation-calculation was beyond his ken-he bumped into the cushioned bench circling the room. With roughness born of urgency, he lowered Antonia and came down over her, shoving up her skirts as he straddled her.

The voice that insisted he take care shrieked in protest.

He was deaf to its cries. The roar in his blood swamped everything, caution, plots, even this squeak from his long disregarded conscience. He'd waited so long for Antonia. It felt like an eon. He'd have her and he'd have her now.

She didn't lie quiescent under him. Her hands tugged and tore at his clothing, rubbed his flanks, curved around to press into his buttocks.

His hand unsteady, he stroked up her thigh to the sleek, silky cleft. To his wondering astonishment, his fingers encountered nothing all the way but hot, bare skin. Reckless Miss Smith wasn't wearing drawers. Thank the Lord Almighty. She must have guessed hindering undergarments would end up shredded on the floor.

Reckless indeed. With breathtaking eagerness, she curled her legs around his hips. A hot drift of her musky scent made him crazy. Her body breathed its longing for him. His nostrils flared to draw her female essence deep into his lungs.

"Wait . " he grunted, trying to wrench his shirt over his head.

"No," she panted, angling up toward him. "No waiting."

She seized his shirt and ripped it down the front. Her palms flattened against his heaving chest. She pressed her mouth across his torso in biting kisses that shot his arousal higher. Her teeth scraped his nipple and he released a hoarse groan.

Hell's bells, she really would kill him.

He stroked her deeply, thrusting a finger into creamy heat. She was so tight. The searing prospect of that snug passage closing hard around his cock made him shake. On a strangled cry of pleasure, she pushed into his hand, demanding more, demanding everything.

Slowly, testing her, he eased a second finger inside, the first knuckle, then pressing up to the second knuckle. Her passage clenched and a flood of hot desire drenched his hand.

Again he struggled to slow down. Vaguely he remained aware of the need to coax her into climax, to prepare her with his hand before he thrust inside. But he'd moved past the point where he could wait. Her womanly scent intoxicated him, made him drunk till next Sunday. Her body tensed around his fingers. Her incoherent litany as she scattered eager kisses across his chest indicated she wanted him now.

"Stop me," he groaned, hardly aware of what he said. "Stop me before I hurt you."

"No," she moaned, wriggling closer to his hand with shuddering impatience. His fingers curled in a subtle caress that made her buck. "Never."

She tangled her hands in his hair and dragged him down for another agitated kiss. He'd never witnessed such passion in a woman. Every breath emerged from her throat as a sob. Her need fed his, made it unbearable.

He stroked her once more, relishing the succulent tug of her muscles, then withdrew. She deserved better from him, but he could resist no longer. With unsteady hands, he tore at his breeches, desperate to free himself.

For God's sake, man, go easy. She's a virgin. You'll split her in two if you don't control yourself.

He was past heeding anything beyond arousal. She sank her teeth hard into his shoulder, inflicting real pain that stoked the blaze of desire. Blackness filled his head. He must have her. He tightened his buttocks, sucked a rattling breath through his clenched teeth, and thrust hard between her slender thighs.

He went deep on a perfect, smooth slide. She closed tight around him and arched on a guttural cry. He shut his eyes, the wonder of finally being inside her drowning his overloaded senses in honey.

Heat. Desire. Completion. She held him inside her as if she never wanted to let him go. Time, the world, everything he'd been before, everything he promised to become disappeared into one radiant moment of sublime communion.

She was perfect. She was everything he'd dreamed she'd be. She was his. At last.

Reluctantly he opened his eyes. In the darkness, he discerned only the faintest details of her face. But her scent filled his head, drugging him with Antonia. Her body squeezed him as she curled her arms around his back. She sighed luxuriantly, shifting so he slid further into her.

Into paradise.

She shifted again and raised her knees, cradling him. He had to cling to this instant.

He had to move or go mad.

On a jagged breath, he slowly withdrew, loving the powerful slide of his cock in her satiny wetness. He paused on a panting instant of suspense, then thrust deep once more.

Again that ineffable feeling of welcome.

She sighed as if she too measured the boundaries of pleasure. With a natural acceptance that made his heart slam against his ribs, she tilted her hips to take more of him.

The world exploded into light. Everything turned physical. Fierce heat sizzling through his veins. The pull and release of his body moving in hers. Her breathy moans of encouragement. He wanted her to come more than he wanted the promise of heaven.

She was close. So close. He felt the sweet change in the grip of her inner muscles. He rose on his arms to watch her although her face was only a pale shape in the gloom.

His change in position made her gasp and push up against him. Her desperate search for consummation made him burn to satisfy her. His balls tightened in agony, but he beat back the savage urge to lose himself.

Not yet. Not yet.

He felt the ripples start inside her. It wasn't enough. He wanted her to shatter into a million pieces. He wanted to create her anew so she'd never forget him. He wanted her to admit she was helpless under the dominion of this magic.

Changing the rhythm, he penetrated as deep as he could, then held still at the end of each stroke.

Still she didn't give him what he wanted.

He drove into her hard, sliding her up the bench. She moaned and clutched at his shoulders. The ripples intensified, tormenting him into a frenzy. Still she didn't break.

Ruthlessly he touched her between the legs. She released a hoarse cry and liquid heat doused him. He stroked again and felt her shudder. Her every move threatened to send him over. Holding back promised to destroy him. His jaw ached with clenching. Hunger blasted him like cannon fire.

Except in the end, he couldn't sustain the power games. He wanted her too damned much.

With a groan that expressed defeat as much as need, he plunged into her, spiraling higher and higher.

Nearer and nearer.

Her sobbing breath was a storm in his ear. He didn't know whether she quivered with rapture or pain. He was past stopping. His blood pounded the fevered necessity for release.

Just as he neared his peak, she began to convulse. Her moans broke on a sharp cry. For a moment, as he poised on the edge, he recalled his promise. He burned to pour himself inside her, to mark her in the most primitive way.

But she'd trusted him.

Grinding his teeth with painful force, he held back the swelling release, the agonized need to answer her quivering rapture with a flood of his seed. When her wildness receded, he wrenched free and spilled himself on her tumbled skirts.

Ranelaw collapsed on his back beside Antonia, his chest heaving in exhaustion. Gradually his body quieted. Satisfaction throbbed through him. The air was sharp with sex, mixed with the lake's muddy smell and dust from the neglected summerhouse.

His mind was pleasantly blank. For the moment, all his sensations were animal. That mighty release left him drifting in a glorious ocean.

He didn't resist oblivion. It seemed a gift. Just as the coruscating rapture seemed a gift.

Slowly he coasted back from the outer reaches of experience. His mind stirred.

As if she too emerged from another world, he heard Antonia exhale on a shaky breath. He waited for her to speak. He heartily wished she wouldn't. Not yet. Their union had been so perfect, he didn't want words.

Words inevitably meant argument.

He didn't want to argue. He wanted to remember how it had felt to move inside her magnificent body and know she was irrevocably his. He wanted to remember her wholehearted participation. Never had he known a woman who sought her delight with such openness.

Above all, he wanted to contemplate doing it all again.

She shifted gingerly and a faint whimper escaped her. A needle of guilt pierced his well-being. She must be uncomfortable. He'd hammered into her like a battering ram at the end. He should be bloody ashamed. Instead he felt like he owned the world.

As though his arm weighed a hundredweight, he lifted it and laid it across her naked belly. Her skirts bunched beneath her breasts. He hadn't even bothered to undress her, he was such a barbarian.

A very happy barbarian. She'd drained him to the lees. No woman had ever done that. He loved sex but a niggling dissatisfaction had always remained.

As if there should be more.

It took defiant, difficult spinster Antonia Smith to show him more.

God bless her.

Under his arm, he felt her uneven breathing. Awe wouldn't silence her long. Not his spirited Antonia.

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against her shoulder. He drew a great breath, filling his lungs with her. He adored the way she smelled. That fresh scent, combined with musky essence of pleasured woman.

If only life was always like this.

She touched his hair with a hesitant caress, then lifted her hand. When he made an inarticulate sound of encouragement, she stroked his hair again. He was a fool, but the caress seemed to convey more about what had happened tonight than words ever could.

For an immeasurably long time, they lay unmoving. Ranelaw's mind settled into a drowsy dream. At his side, Antonia slid her hand to his nape. The gesture felt absurdly protective. Nobody had protected him since Eloise.

Lying here was utterly delicious. Peace was too rare in his life to sacrifice it precipitately. How odd that of all the gifts Antonia offered, including spectacular pleasure, this peace was the sweetest.

He let himself float. Savoring the woman's quiet nearness.

And realized something that pleasure had blanked from awareness.

Defiant, difficult spinster Antonia Smith hadn't been a virgin.

The fact was so astounding, he hardly credited it.

Another man had possessed her. He guessed some time ago. For all her passion, her unpracticed response indicated she wasn't used to lying under a lover.

Not a virgin.

When he looked at Antonia, he'd prided himself on seeing more than anyone else. His arrogance had been misplaced.

He wasn't sure what he felt. Shock, certainly. He'd always known she concealed secrets upon secrets. Layers remained hidden, perhaps would always remain hidden.

He'd wondered if possessing Antonia would shatter her mystery. Whether once she opened her legs to him, she'd become like every other woman. He'd hoped she would. He resented the way she affected his decisions, kept him awake at night, made him desperate to have her.

Sampling her lush, beautiful body only made him crazy for more. He wanted to strip her naked. He wanted to watch her when he slid into her. He wanted to touch every inch of her. He wanted to pleasure her in all the ways he knew.

Her lack of innocence made her more intriguing.

If tonight was supposed to break her spell, it had proven a rank failure. The last hour just meshed him deeper in enchantment.

Still without speaking, she slid her hand from his neck. Pulling her skirts down, she shifted to sit with her elbow bent on the windowsill. He couldn't help but feel her movement as absence.

Neither he nor Antonia was created for tranquil communion. He couldn't bask in recollected bliss forever. Still, only with the greatest reluctance did he lift himself up to lean against the wall at his back.

The stars through the summerhouse windows showed Antonia with the sky as her background. She raised her knees and linked her hands around them. Her moonlight hair hung loose around her shoulders, shadowy and soft in the darkness.

He couldn't remember unpinning it. He'd been so eager, he didn't remember much apart from the exquisite delight of taking her. He really had been a savage.

"That was . that was . " Her husky voice petered out.

He closed his eyes and remembered the moment of delicious resistance as he penetrated her body. "Yes, it was."

"No wonder you're the toast of London's ladies." He heard a sardonic and unwelcome hint of Miss Smith.

He didn't want to talk about his other lovers. Damn it, he didn't want to talk at all. He wanted her under him again. After that gasping release, he'd believed himself exhausted, but she already had him hardening. He hadn't been this hot for a woman since adolescence. Whatever magic she possessed, it was powerful.

"Come here," he said lazily. "You're too far away."

She turned to stare at the trees and starlight sculpted her profile, the high forehead, the straight nose, the delicate, stubborn jaw. Again a fleeting wisp of memory troubled him. He'd seen those features or something very like before. But right now he was too distracted to pursue the faint recollection.

He noticed her lips turned down. Why? He knew she'd found her pleasure.

"Antonia?" he asked when she didn't immediately answer.

He didn't like to think her sad. Which was absurd. He'd make her bitterly sad before he was done. Even apart from Cassie's ruin, he wasn't a man who offered happy endings.