He grabbed handfuls of her skirt and pulled it upward, forced her legs apart with his knee, and leaned into her. "We'll do it the first time standing. You used to like that," he murmured, lust twisting in his belly, his fingers nimbly unfastening his breeches. "And after that, we'll take this"-he swept her skirt aside-"off."

But when he entered her a weight of memory saturated his senses and his hands gentled on her shoulders. "I missed you," he whispered, her fragrance striking familiar chords, the feel of her engulfing him. And he kissed her then with a tenderness.

And wishing she didn't and not wanting to, she breathed, "I love you."

His eyes went shut briefly, a feeling of peace, contentment overwhelming him.

She was his.

He had her back.

It didn't matter where they were; it didn't matter that they'd come together in frustration and anger. It only mattered that they were together, joined in passion.

"You're staying with me," he said, his voice low, intense, his lower body firmly set, plunging, withdrawing in a ravishing, penetrating rhythm.

She clung to him, wanting him as she always did, hot-blooded desire coursing through her veins, all the thorny difficulties dissolving.

"You're staying," he repeated, his hands sliding down her back, cupping her bottom, securing her for his upstroke.

"I don't know," she weakly equivocated, trembling, already near orgasmic.

"I know," he said, tightening his grip, plunging deeper. "This time you're having my baby," he whispered, withdrawing marginally, driving in again, restless, forcing himself to the finite limits. "Do you hear me?"

She was shuddering, a millisecond from climax. "Yes," she gasped, no longer grounded in logic, irrepressible need blurring reality. And she felt it begin, the explosive ecstasy, the heartfelt delirium. It had been so long....

He felt the same wildness, as if he couldn't wait a second more, his need to possess her so violent he shuddered under its spell. His fingers bit into the tender flesh of her buttocks, his lower body took on an annihilating force. "You're mine," he growled, convulsing into her, his savage ejaculatory thrusts punctuation to his words. "Mine ... mine."

"I should hate you," she panted, bliss and torpor numbing her senses, dying away in his arms. "I should ..."

"Not now," he murmured, holding her up as she leaned weakly against him. Maybe later, he candidly thought, resting his forehead against the wall, utterly drained, drawing great gulps of air into his lungs.

When he could breathe again and a degree of consciousness returned, he took note of the bed, and lifting Serena into his arms, he carried her over to it and placed her on the rumpled covers. He stripped away her gown and chemise, her slippers, stockings while she lay drowsy and replete, his actions competent, efficient-like a man with a mission. "And now we'll start working off those hundred thousand florins," he said, trailing a proprietory fingertip down her wet cleft.

"A formidable task even for you, Glory," Serena breathed, her face flushed from passion, her body still pulsing, carnality animate, alive inside her. "Undress for me," she softly said. "I haven't seen your grand body in months."

His brows quirked briefly-he was always surprised by her calm acknowledgment of her sexuality-and then he quickly discarded his clothes, like a man who'd done it countless times before. "Well?" he said brief moments later. "Do I pass?"

Her assessing gaze slowly ranged over his tall, athletic form. "Oh, you always pass, Rochefort." She smiled the way he might in flattering a woman. "I have a taste for you."

He disliked her easy charm; it smacked of masculine privilege and accessibility when he wanted her locked away for his eyes only. "My taste for you borders on obsession," he murmured, spleen in his soft tone.

"Does it really?" she purred. "And you hate it, no doubt."

"I'll survive," he muttered.

"As you'll survive without me, you mean. Don't look so sullen, darling. I won't make you marry me. As if I could. There. I like your smile better. I like to fuck too, Rochefort. It's not exclusively your domain."

His scowl reappeared.

"Are ladies not supposed to say that?"

"You're not." She'd never seemed like all the others.

"You can't stop me."

"I can ... I will."

"But not for long, we both know that. See, I can be realistic too. All women don't want to be shackled to your title. You're leaner, darling." Her gaze traveled leisurely over his body, his powerful muscled form honed, attenuated, like a monk too long in the wilderness. "Have you been fucking yourself to death again?" No monk, the Earl of Rochefort.

"I've been looking for Bonaparte," he said, his voice still fractionally sullen, not sure he liked her arch and degagee anymore than he liked her contentious. "I've been on the move."

"Perhaps you could move in my direction then. That hard cock's caught my fancy."

"Don't talk like a whore."

"You just paid a hundred thousand florins for me. For that amount do I classify as a courtesan instead? Is that more to your liking? Although I particularly like your cock," she silkily added, sliding up on the pillows. "I always have. So come and give me my favorite toy," she murmured, slipping her hand downward to rest between her thighs.

Voluptuously nude, pinked from her recent orgasm, she languorously spread her legs and offered him a salacious display. As she gazed up at him, her fingertips lightly stroked her clitoris. "You taught me this, remember?" she insolently reminded him. "You taught me all of this, Rochefort-this hot wanting, this uncontrollable need, this hunger for sex.... I should thank you." Her lashes drifted seductively lower, her gaze warmed, the glisten of moisture materializing under her fingers.

And a barbaric anger suffused his brain as he thought of her thus disposed with another man-or men ... with Massena or Solignac, with Londes, who sampled all the ladies. She was the hottest piece he'd ever had-and tutoring had nothing to do with it. "You can thank me by screwing me," he said, low and heated, overcome with jealousy.

"Of course, darling."

"Don't call me darling," he bit out, annoyed with her flippancy.

"Yes, milord ... forgive me. You prefer more deference from your whores? I'll keep that in mind."

"I prefer more silence from my whores," he grimly said, moving to the bed in two strides, brushing her hand aside, settling between her legs in a graceful flow of muscle and sinew. "So kindly fuck me without any added commentary."

"Yes sir," she murmured, her voice laced with mockery, her eyes blazing up at him. "Whatever you wish, my lord."

He covered her mouth with his, cutting off her sarcasm with a bruising kiss and, hot-tempered, plunged into her tantalizing body. Instantly, her legs wrapped hard around his hips and she uttered a small luscious sound of delight, annoying him, reminding him how infinitely receptive she was. "Did you sigh like that for other men too?" he asked in a low, savage tone.

"Maybe I did." Furious, she raked her nails down his back.

Grunting at the sharp, stinging pain, he jerked away. Exhaling a string of obscenities, he lifted her bodily and flipped her on her stomach. "We'd better keep your hands where I can see them," he growled. "Up on your knees," he ordered, slapping her rump the way one would a horse that had to be moved.

When she didn't respond, he slid his hands under her hips, raising her on all fours. Clamping his arm around her waist to hold her firmly in place, he moved up against her from behind, touching her vulva with the tip of his penis, nuzzling it, teasing and rubbing against the sensitive flesh until she stopped struggling and began squirming, whimpering.

"That's better," he whispered, caressing her bottom with his warm palm in a sweeping arch from waist to heated cleft, inserting the swollen crest of his erection the merest fraction, readying her. "Would you like it rough now? Should I repay you for this blood dripping down my back?"

He pushed into her even before she could answer.

But as he moved inside her, she found herself moving too-out of shameful need, rocking back to meet each plunging stroke, craving him, an unbearable hunger intensifying with each gliding flow, the desperate, blissful sensations so compelling, so impossibly acute she felt faint from the pleasure.

She moved against him more and more urgently, insistent, demanding, and with the need to restrain her no longer an issue, his hands shifted, cupping her heavy breasts, caressing them as they swayed with the rhythm of her hips, tugging her taut nipples so she felt the bewitching frisson in her toes and down her spine and hotly in the melting center of her body.

Bending over her back, he bit her earlobe, the nape of her neck, nipping at her like a rutting animal, tasting her. "Jesus, I could fuck you mindless," he muttered, his voice husky, ragged, his hands clamped hard on her breasts, his body imposing his will on her, stretching her, making her shake, quiver with desire. He thrust into her hard, harder, his strength, his sexual demand unmistakable, seething, as if he could bludgeon her with his penis and make her submit.

"Tell me you want it," he hoarsely growled.

She was panting, frenzied, wanting him so fiercely she felt as though she were drowning. "Yes," she said on a sobbing breath.

He rammed himself further into her and she cried out, her climax jolting her like shock waves, her knees buckling as the exquisite rapture flared, flooded through her body.

Following her down, he didn't miss a stroke, agile in extremity, a curtailed orgasm unthinkable.

And dizzying moments later, momentarily sated, collapsed on her back, he said between labored breaths, "Christ, you're a good fuck."

Twisting around, she bit him.

"What the hell?" Sucking in his breath in surprise, grabbing his shoulder, he rolled off her.

She was already scrambling off the bed and standing beyond his reach a second later, barricaded behind the sturdy table, she coldly said, "I'm not here for your use."

"Yes you are," he said, his voice low, seething with fury, his palm coming up bloody. "And if you bite me again," he added, licking the blood from his hand, "I'll bite you back. Now get your ass over here."

"The first time you look away, I'll run." She spoke in a quiet, poisonous tone.

"No you won't," he said with suppressed violence, rising from the bed. "You like the fucking too much."

He was still aroused as he walked toward her, his erection waist high, hard, turgid.

Backing away, she retreated until she came up against the solid barrier of the wall.

"Come here," he said, arriving at the far side of the table, his voice chill.

She didn't move.

He gazed at her briefly before beginning to clear the table. Setting the sturdy brass candelabra on the floor, he neatly stacked the dishes from her lunch and placed them on a chair, the silence so intense that the clink of pottery was jarring. Straightening the coarse linen cloth, he carefully evened the edges as if the symmetry mattered. "Put your cunt right here," he said, tapping the tabletop with his forefinger.

"I don't perform on cue like a strumpet."

"But you always perform beautifully," he silkily said. "Better than Julia Johnstone or Amy Dubochet or any of the randy society ladies. I think I'll eat you first."

Her face colored at his reference to London's fashionable courtesans and his last words, hot, intrusive, pulsed through her body. "Stay away from me," she commanded, her gaze flicking from him to the table.

He shook his head. "I don't think so." His voice had calmed to a dispassionate drawl. "I'm wondering if you still taste the same."

The throbbing inside her accelerated.

"Remember the terrace at Minorca?" His dark gaze drifted downward, coming to rest on her pale, silken mons. "I don't have any marzipan here but I could improvise."

Her breath caught in her throat.

He noticed. "Do you want me to carry you?" She was holding herself rigid against the wall, but he knew it wasn't from fear. "I haven't been able to see marzipan cherries since then without thinking of you," he murmured, moving around the table, advancing on her. "You were in rare form that day."

"Give me a time limit," she quickly said as he neared. "When you'll let me go."

"Why?"

"I need that."

"And I need you." He came to a stop and drew in a small breath. "I can't give you a date."

"I cried for weeks after you left."

"I won't let you cry this time," he said, as if he could stop the world in its tracks.

"Beau, please ... just let me go."

"I can't." He took the last two steps and she could feel the heat of his body next to hers. "I wish I could," he brusquely said and abruptly bending, he slid his hand under her knees, lifted her into his arms and moved toward the table.

"I'll stay with you today and tonight," she bargained. "Then let me go."

"Sorry."

He deposited her on the rustic table and as she opened her mouth to speak, he gently touched her lips with the pad of his finger. "This isn't negotiable. If it were I wouldn't be here. Talk to me tomorrow or two days from now. Maybe I won't care then."

"So I don't have any choice at all?"

"Something like that," he murmured, running his palms up her inner thighs, spreading her legs with a gentle pressure. "Tell me how much you hate this." The heels of his hands had come to rest against the cushioned base of her pelvic bone, his splayed fingers cupping the soft flesh of her mons, his thumbs warm inside her. Gazing down at her, he said, "Tell me this is hell for you. How your cunt isn't throbbing around my fingers. How impossible it is for you to climax. How we don't fit together like perfection."

"And when you leave me-what then?" She was helpless with wanting him ... terrified.

"No one's leaving; I've offered you carte blanche. I'll lay London at your feet." His hands were caressing her, exerting a sensuous pressure and she felt herself opening for him, her treacherous senses concerned only with the self-indulgent moment.

Aware, attuned to female arousal, he lightly hooked a chair with his foot, pulled it close, and sitting down, lifted her legs over his shoulders. "You can have anything you want," he whispered, adjusting her hips to the proper angle, opening her delicately with his fingers. "I'll give you anything," he breathed, and leaning forward, he licked a cool path up her gleaming wet labia.

The sudden rush of pleasure spiking through her senses exploded in a rapturous cry and before she could draw another breath or further debate the shame and iniquity of her passions, his tongue plunged inside her and her perfidious whimper was audible capitulation.

He was meticulous in his attentions, taking pains to please her, his tongue caressing her clitoris and vulva slowly, gently, until she ached with desire, his fingers stroking her swollen, sensitive tissue, probing the sleek passage beyond until she was writhing beneath his hands and mouth, her fingers tangled in his hair, holding him close, her moans graphic with need. She was wet with longing-her pearly fluid converging into little jeweled droplets that coated her genitals and slid over his tongue and fell from time to time onto the tablecloth in a tantalizing display of sexual yearning.

"Do you think you're ready for me?" he unnecessarily said, rising from the chair, standing between her legs, her thighs lightly balanced on his forearms.

Eyes shut, she clutched at the table edge, her back arched, her pelvis provocatively raised to meet him. "Open your eyes," he quietly ordered. "So you can see me fuck you. Now," he added, his voice gruff.

Her lashes lifted in a slow, languorous movement. "I'm watching," she whispered. "Is that better?"

He smiled. "It is for me. Now open yourself."

She hesitated for the merest heartbeat and then her hands moved down and parted her pink, gleaming folds.

"Ask me," he gently said.

"Please, Lord Rochefort," she said, no hesitation now, her gaze direct. "I need you."

"Only me." He couldn't help himself. She was too sumptuous to be allowed her freedom.