Calmly, almost languidly, he trailed his fingers up between her breasts and around their swells. They

hardened in response and an itching anticipation started making her mad again.

He caressed as if he sought nothing more than to do this for a while. She gritted her teeth and tried to contain what was happening inside her.

His fingertips gently grazed one nipple. She barely swallowed a cry. He circled so lightly, so effectively,

that she thought she would scream.

"How long has it been, Pen?" He watched his hand make its patterns, and also watched her body react.

"How long since you have been touched?"

His thumb rubbed the tip of her nipple. The sensation defeated her control and she moved, arching her back.

"Not so long." It amazed her that she could speak, since she could hardly breathe. "But"

His fingers continued their sweet torture. "But what?"

"I had to be careful, didn't I? Be on my guard. They could not be trusted, not really, so I could not risk losing control."

He absorbed that thoughtfully while he continued the slow arousal of her body. His head dipped and he

gently kissed the side of her other breast. "How long since you have made love?"

She could touch him now, and slid her fingers into the hair of his head while he pressed gentle kisses to her breast. "Do you mean completely?"

"Yes. Completely."

"Almost forever. Since I left the earl."

"Not even with Witherby?"

The name released a stream of sadness into her bliss. An old humiliation and disappointment slid through her heart. She was surprised that Julian would mention Witherby now, of all moments. No one ever spoke of that old love to her. Not Julian nor her brothers nor anyone else who knew of it.

"I could not risk having a son. Glasbury could claim him as his own and take him away, and my child would be condemned to that household and that man's power."

He appeared surprised by her answer. He had assumed there had been at least one complete affair. She expected that everyone believed that.

"No, I suppose you would not risk that," he said. "So even when making love incompletely, you could not abandon yourself to it because you could not trust the men." His hand resumed its meandering path. "Do you trust me, Pen?"

Did she? Her body seemed to. Or else it was betraying her in the worst way.

"It appears that I do."

"I am glad." He kissed her breast again. This time on the tip. His tongue flicked at it, making her gasp. "Now,no more talk. I do not want to hear any sounds except the sea and the wind and your crying with pleasure."

He made sure that she cried. He used his mouth and his hand to breach whatever control she still had. Her breasts grew more and more sensitive as he teased each one with his tongue and teeth. Abandon beckoned, closing in on her awareness, fed by pleasures that ached demand for the completeness she could not have but furiously wanted.

She could not fight it, did not want to. She knew in her heart that she did not need to. Not this time. All of her, body and mind, relinquished control. She entered a place where only pure sensation existed, a state of pleasure and desire and wonderful physical responses.

She did not hear the sea or the wind. Only the pulse of need and her own moans and cries entered her head. And his voice, asking once more, "Do you trust me, Pen?"

A new caress explained the question. Lower, to her hips and thighs, pressing through her petticoat. Her body answered for her, rising to that touch, heedless of any risk now, careless of the danger.

He pressed the hot center between her legs and she almost swooned with relief. Nothing else mattered now except being touched there. Every sensation, every excitement collected at that place and moaned for more pressure, more everything.

She felt a new nakedness, vulnerable and wonderful, and a warm palm smoothing over her legs. She opened her eyes to see a rumpled ledge of skirt and petticoat mounded at her waist.

He rose in her embrace and looked at what she could not see. He caressed her thighs as slowly as he had her breasts.

He turned back to her and she grabbed him close and kissed him madly, giving vent to her sexual fury.

He caressed up until his fingers touched the one single spot where her whole essence focused. A stroke, one slow touch, made her cries catch in her throat. The intensity of the pleasure shocked her.

He kissed her cheek softly. "Do not lose courage now. If you can finally risk abandon, you should know what that can mean."

He touched again, deeper. She grasped him tighter, gripping his back to contain what little sense she had left.

"Spread your legs, Pen."

Her body obeyed. It wanted to. Even the shock was too delicious to deny.

He showered slow kisses on her face and breast while his hand created shivers that quivered up through her blood then down again to that spot. The flesh he caressed pulsed so strongly that it became the rhythm of her whole life.

She heard the waves now, in her head, mixing with the cries she could not contain. Cries of pleasure and frustration. Her body screamed for something. The intensity just kept getting deeper and her madness more engulfing.

Her spirit entered a place that was blind and senseless and dangerous. Still the pleasure increased, narrowed, rising higher until she tottered on the brink of sensation so powerful it was painful.

He kissed her hard as his touch forced the last step. Her scream entered him as the sensation penetrated her womb and exploded.

After the stunning lightning bolt came the most beautiful rain. Pleasure and peace flowed all through her, sparkling in a magical shower.

She was so lovely. His heart almost could not bear it.

Her astonishment appeared to match his, but he was sure it did not.

The beach became a mystical place, separate from his normal world, a spot hanging somewhere between dreams and wakefulness, between heaven and earth. Her sighs and gentle moves timed the pulse of creation and caused the rhythm of the sea's waves and the wind's swells.

He stroked his fingertips over her face, luxuriating in the sensation of her soft skin. He looked at her as he had always wanted, slowly and carefully, so his eyes and memory would be denied no detail.

He touched her, as he had often imagined doing so. Over the fullness of her cheeks; around the firm little bones of her jaw and chin; softly along the vague, tiny lines barely visible at the outside edges of her eyes.

He kissed those lines. Laughter had made them. They symbolized her sweet disposition, her ability to see good and have hope no matter what her own troubles.

They also represented all the time he had wanted her. At parties and at dinners. Alone in his chambers. Wanting her had been a calmly accepted part of his existence, much like being a certain height. It was not something he resented or regretted. It was just there, framing certain decisions in his life whether he wanted it to or not.

Now, finally, he had tasted what he hungered for. He knew he should not have done it, but he did not give a damn about that now. She did not say anything as she lay in his arms afterward. The embrace was so serene that he could have stayed there forever. The lowering sun made the wind cold, however, and their sand very shadowed. They could not stay like this.

She let him right her garments and wrap her in the blanket. She did not object when he rested his back against the wall and pulled her into an embrace beside him. Together they watched the late shadows claim the rocks and sea. His eyes saw it all but the images in his head were different ones, of Pen in her passion.

He would never hear the sea again without also hearing her gentle, lovely cries.

And her admission that there had been no lovers. At least not complete ones.

The man who wanted her had liked hearing that. The friend who knew her disappointments had not.

Over the years he had been jealous at the smallest evidence of lovers, but he had not wanted her lonely and unhappy, either.

He turned his mind from that, and to her and the way she nestled against him.

"What are you thinking?" He did not mind her silence, but he wondered what kept her so quiet.

She tucked herself closer and her head lolled on his shoulder. "I am thinking that I really must remember to put you on my list now."

She damn well better.

"We quite lost our heads, didn't we, Julian? It was very nice, though. I am thinking that intimacy with a good friend is nicer in ways than that with a great love. More trust, for one thing."

It did not surprise him that she was deciding this had been an impulse between two old friends. Perhaps it was for the best.

"I am also thinking that I need to decide if I will make use of that list, or find another way. What if he

does not react as we think he will? What if I embarrass him with a public affair, and he does not divorce me?"

"He will not be able to ignore it. This is not a man who will accept such a thing."

"No, but he may decide to deal with it in other ways." Her quiet voice communicated how deeply she had been contemplating this.

Yes, he might. Outrage could lead Glasbury to take the rash step that would lead to that Hampstead

meadow and the call to stations.

She eased out of his embrace and got to her feet. She brushed the sand off the blanket. "I need to decide soon. I cannot avoid it now."

No, she could not, and not only because of what had just happened on this sand.

The mood had changed. She had subtly retreated more than physically.

He stayed where he was. "I will sleep above the stable."

In the weakening light she appeared a little sad.

"You are still my friend, aren't you, Julian? We will continue as before, won't we? You will not let what

happened here change that, will you?"

"Of course not."

Her stance appeared to relax. "Then you do not have to sleep in the stable."

"I will use the chamber below, then."

She laughed lightly. "Yes, that may be best."

He watched her walk up the stone stairs. Sleeping below was not only best. It was essential. He would

never rest if he used the chamber beside hers tonight. He doubted he would be able to stay in his own bed. This was not the night to test his trustworthiness any further.