He glanced a quelling but incendiary kiss across her lips. "With excitement."

"You're a vain coxcomb." In her own ears, she sounded considerably more breathless than she had before he kissed her, and she hadn't exactly sounded self-possessed then.

It wasn't just his kisses, intoxicating as they were. Unwilling emotion cramped her heart. He'd never brought a woman here. At least in that, she wasn't just another conquest.

"You're more talkative than my other mistresses." His voice roughened as his gaze dwelled on her lips.

"Poor things were probably struck dumb by the size of your conceit."

"By the size of something at any rate." His short laugh did nothing to disguise his determination.

Sweet preliminaries drew to a close. Within moments, he'd slide inside her. Her skin tightened with delicious suspense.

"Do you really want to talk?" he whispered. "Isn't there . something else you'd rather do?"

He turned something into a salacious invitation to sin. She was so afire, everything seemed an invitation to sin. She really was a hopeless case.

She pulled his hair with less force. "You're a wicked man, Nicholas Challoner."

In unmistakable demand, he pressed his erection into her belly. "My darling Antonia, you don't know the half of it."

Chapter Twenty-two.

Ranelaw stirred from a restless doze. The candles on the sideboard burned low, the room was hushed as if waiting. Something had disturbed him. Then he heard the sound again. The lark's sweet trill from his garden. The new day dawned.

He lay on his back with a warm, relaxed body curled into his side. Silky hair trailed over his naked chest. A slender arm draped across his belly. He held her close as if even in sleep, he didn't want this woman too far away.

Although he'd never shared this particular bed in this particular room before, he knew exactly where he was and who he was with.

Antonia .

Sweet, sweet Antonia.

She'd suffered in the past, his beautiful girl. His gut knotted at how she'd paid for her passionate nature. Listening to her story, he'd burned to pulverize Benton, to horsewhip her narrow-minded father, to slam his fist into her unknown brother's face.

Ranelaw wanted to jump to her defense, spare her every ounce of misery.

This helpless, frustrated drive to protect was agonizingly familiar. He'd struggled with the same futile rage when Demarest ruined Eloise.

The stark truth was that no amount of anger had saved his sister. Nor could it save Antonia from tragically similar circumstances. Ironic that this woman who drew him so powerfully had been betrayed just like his beloved sister.

As if she knew he thought about her, she made a soft, contented sound and cuddled up against him. Her naked breasts flattened into his side and one thigh crooked across his.

Her drowsy murmur was astonishingly arousing. His cock twitched with immediate interest. He was a man who rarely ignored his physical urges, but he didn't immediately slide her legs apart and lose himself in her.

Although the temptation was devilish strong.

Instead he tightened his embrace and stared sightlessly into the shadowy room. His eyes were scratchy with lack of sleep and his body was heavy with pleasurable lassitude.

After her confession, he'd taken her again. In a languorous exploration that had spun molten seconds into hours and sensation into an inferno. Tonight had contained one surprise after another. He'd imagined he'd captain this voyage to ecstasy. Swiftly he'd realized Antonia held the key to unknown and dazzling worlds. She certainly ripped restraint to shreds. Once again, at the crucial moment, he'd lost control and pumped into her. It was as though his body wouldn't forgo that final primitive act of possession.

Much as he prayed no child resulted from his recklessness, how could he regret such transcendent joy? What he shared with Antonia held a dimension that was new, astonishing.

Terrifying .

He'd rolled off her, sated, drained to the lees. Then, even though the time allotted was so precious, he'd plummeted into dreamless sleep.

No other lover left him so replete. No other lover swept him to the edge of endurance. No other lover threatened to crack the hard shell he set over his emotions.

Not just when they had sex. And that was the most worrying revelation of all.

Her arm shifted a few inches. The brush of satiny skin on his bare belly heated his blood. Part of him wanted to nudge her awake, to have her again. When she said she could stay until morning, he suspected she meant some uncivilized hour that permitted her to slip unnoticed into Demarest's house. Ranelaw's gorge rose at the prospect of her crawling from his bed back under that bastard's roof.

He wondered with another surge of anger if the cur had ever made advances to her. Demarest was a man of unconstrained appetites and surely he'd long ago recognized Antonia's beauty. Perhaps he'd decided a quick tumble wasn't worth risking the convenience of someone taking responsibility for Cassie. Or perhaps Antonia's connections with her unidentified yet indubitably influential family made him mind his manners. By now, Ranelaw had picked up too many hints to imagine her blood was anything other than blue.

In slumber, her face was calm and beautiful. He battled the impulse to kiss those softly parted lips. The craving to take her set up an urgent throb in his veins, but still he resisted.

Staring at her was a luxury. She lay in profile, her lashes dark blond fans on her cheeks. He dwelled with voluptuous pleasure on details, the slope of her cheekbone, the pink fullness of her mouth. Her skin had a bloom like a ripe peach. A slightly abraded peach where his stubble had chafed her.

Even as satisfaction ripped through him, he knew himself for a barbarian. He'd marked her. There would be traces of his teeth and beard everywhere on her body. On her neck and breasts and thighs. Pleasure flooded him as he remembered tasting her. She'd been delicious. He thirsted to do it again.

Not yet. Although he was achingly aware that every second they lay wrapped in radiant peace was a second closer to parting.

It was unprecedented, disturbing that he wanted a woman to stay. Usually after a conquest, he became impatient for the next lover. And the next.

Antonia made him eager to linger.

Almost surreptitiously, her hand slid from his rib cage toward his navel. She released another husky sigh and pressed closer.

Ranelaw tensed under that seeking touch. The witch tortured him. She buried her face in his side and he felt her breath against his skin. Oddly, that was almost as arousing as the erratic path her hand traced across his body.

For a few seconds, they lay unmoving. Then slowly, oh, so slowly, her hand dipped lower. Lower. His chest rose and fell with every jagged breath. Serenity rapidly sizzled into need.

She verged so close to his aching cock.

"Stop teasing me," he growled, burying his hand in her thick, tangled hair.

She released a husky giggle and nipped him sharply on the flank. A shock of heat made him start. "You knew I was awake."

"Of course I did." Although he'd only just realized. Her meandering caresses had suddenly struck him as too deliberate to be accidental.

"Liar."

She kissed the place she'd bitten and another shudder of arousal shook him. Nothing to compare with the jolt when she slid her palm the few last inches and closed hard around him.

"Damn it, Antonia . " he protested in a constricted voice, one hand digging into her hair, the other clenching in the sheet.

"Lie still," she murmured, squeezing him with a steady rhythm that turned his vision to exploding stars.

He closed his eyes and stretched out, releasing her hair. "I'm at your mercy."

Another of those soft laughs. She sounded utterly self-confident. That built his arousal. Hell, just the fact that she breathed built his arousal. She turned him into a complete satyr.

To his regret, she paused after a few heart-stopping caresses and knelt over him, giving him a breathtaking view of her breasts. When his hand cupped one white globe, it was betrayingly unsteady. Her breath snagged, then again when he teased her nipple with his thumb. She had beautiful breasts. He'd already spent an eon exploring them with his mouth. It wasn't time enough.

Would he ever have time enough to get his fill of her? He feared the answer was no.

He wasn't a religious man, but as she bent her head and peppered his chest with nips and licks and heart-stopping kisses, he sent up a prayer of gratitude. He didn't deserve this but, dear Lord, he intended to enjoy it while he could.

She suckled his nipple and any thoughts of a sacred bent disintegrated. He tangled his hand in her hair, feeling her head move as she pleasured him.

Her exploration continued and he gradually realized she'd spent the night storing away everything he'd done to her. Something about that intense focus on his actions made his heart lurch with unfamiliar emotion. Now it seemed she meant to devote the results of that study to his pleasure.

Or torment.

Thoroughly she tasted every inch of his torso. He suffered in gallant silence until she dipped her tongue into his navel. He released a long groan.

"Don't you like it?" she murmured, raising her head and staring at him with curiosity but no pity.

He'd seen the same expression in the farmyard cats when they played with a mouse. Hard to equate this seductive enchantress with the woman who had wept distraught in his arms in the Merriweathers' library. The memory of her distress enlisted a protectiveness that did nothing to ease the pressure in his balls.

"Of course I bloody like it." Talking was difficult when arousal made him light-headed and his cock ached like the very devil.

"Good." She rose with a natural grace that sent his heart smashing against his ribs once more. Her lips took on a triumphant curve as she straddled him.

She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Her pale hair flowed around her slender shoulders, her breasts jutted in impudent invitation, her long legs framed his hips.

His gaze fell to the dark blond curls between her thighs. He sucked in a shuddering breath redolent of her hot scent and wondered if he'd survive long enough to penetrate the secrets behind that plump delta. Right now he wasn't sure he fell victim to pain or pleasure or a heady mixture of the two. He closed his eyes, but the image of Antonia naked and eager remained burned on his brain.

The effort of keeping still turned his belly hard as stone. Although not as hard as another part of him.

The provocative wench shifted from where he so desperately wanted her. When she knelt over his legs, black agony swept Ranelaw as he realized she wasn't going to take him.

Or not yet.

He closed his eyes and told himself he could endure. He could endure.

If only he believed it. He was a fraction away from dragging her under him. His hands clenched so hard in the sheets, he heard the linen rip. His teeth ground together as he battled not to fuck her like a randy animal.

Slowly, slowly, he regained some threadbare control. Then lost it again in a blast of light as her hand closed around his cock. Another tattered groan escaped and he fought to form words to warn her if she touched him there, he wouldn't last.

He opened his eyes. She stared down at him with an unreadable expression. Then through his daze, he watched incredulous as she bent. The thick fall of her hair tickled his belly.

Surely she wasn't about to .

Anticipation held him silent, waiting. With a shaking hand, he pushed her hair away to watch her.

She hesitated.

His balls threatened to explode. Even as he fought not to push her those last few inches, his fingers dug into her hair. He gasped so hard for air, he sounded like he suffocated. He prepared to beg her to move further off. To remove the temptation of those soft, pink, moist lips.

She lowered and sucked the tip of his cock into her mouth.

Antonia heard Nicholas's great inhalation, then nothing, as if he held his breath in suspense. He was quiveringly still. She had no idea if he wanted this or not, but the need to taste him became irresistible.

She closed her lips around the head, his rich flavor flooding her senses, and tentatively sucked.

He shuddered.

With enjoyment or revulsion?

She applied more pressure and Nicholas groaned. His hand fisted in her hair. Her tongue flickered out and she licked him with a slow thoroughness that made heat settle hard and heavy in her belly. The flavor of his skin was stronger here. He tasted warm and virile and salty.

With a surge of determination, she took more of him. He trembled and his breath sawed in and out as if he couldn't get enough air. Her nostrils filled with the heady aromas of fresh male sweat and arousal.

She paused. Wondering if she should stop. Wondering if she could. What she did held a compelling fascination. And there was a searing pleasure in seeing Nicholas helpless under her caresses.

"Hell, Antonia, keep going," he gritted out as though speaking hurt him.

She looked up. His head tipped back against the pillows, the sinews in his neck strained against the skin, and his features were stark with need. Triumph mapped a zigzag path through her. He liked what she did. More than liked it, if his ragged plea was any indication.

Feeling more daring with every second, she took him again. Imitating the advance and retreat of the act of love, she lifted her head and lowered it again.

She loved the hard slide inside her mouth. Her grip on the base of his rod firmed. She felt she held the source of his life. This final intimacy smashed the few crumbling barriers that remained between them. By tasting him where he was most a man, she staked her possession of him.

Instinct alone guided her. Instinct and the astonishing moments when he'd kissed between her legs. Johnny had once tried to make her do this but she'd been repulsed. Taking Nicholas into her mouth made her toes curl with excitement.

She set up an uncertain rhythm between mouth and hand, testing what drove him to the edge. Easy to tell. His breathing caught and released in unmistakable encouragement. His hand in her hair opened and closed in time with her movements.

Quickly, more quickly than she'd imagined, she discovered the pattern that provided his greatest pleasure. She made a low sound of satisfaction and concentrated on driving him mad.

When he groaned with frustration and his muscles were taut enough to snap, she glanced up. The skin of his face was so tight, she could see the bones beneath.

"Damned . witch," he grated out.

A smile curved her lips. Gently she squeezed his sac and kissed the swollen head of his rod with all the welling tenderness in her heart. She felt more than a physical delight in what she did. Performing this act, she offered Nicholas everything she was.

A creamy pearl of liquid oozed out. Delicately, knowing he watched, she licked the drop. His broken groan filled her ears. For a moment, she savored his taste, watching his face, knowing her pleasure in pleasuring him fed his arousal.

Then because she ached to feel him inside her, she rose on her knees and sank down in one smooth movement. She sighed with perfect joy. He filled her, invading her soul as well as her body.

He palmed her breasts, rubbing her sensitive nipples until she trembled. The familiar quivers began in her belly and thighs but she resisted her climax. She wouldn't relinquish this moment until she had to.