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She didn’t know much about love, never having experienced it for a man before, but she’d run from the hall earlier after her sister had said, “He cannot leave Highgate soon enough.” She’d been upset with her sister, but it had also struck her that she might never see Reid Kerr again after the council ended.

The thought had filled her with emptiness, along with the knowledge that, once again, what she wanted did not matter . . .

And then he was there.

“You will?”

Oh God, was that not what he had meant? “I thought . . . when you said . . . did you mean—”

“Aye! I did . . . I do want that.” He grasped her by both cheeks and forced her to look at him. “But you still don’t understand.”

“I do,” she said. “And my answer remains the same.”

His expression softened. “You are too good—”

“Stop,” she said. “If your intent is to dissuade me, know that I can be quite stubborn.”

His smile elicited a tingling in her very core, a need to touch him back.

She covered his hands with her own. “You said you wanted to kiss me again.”

Reid groaned.

“So why don’t you—”

His lips came down on hers more firmly than before. This time, she opened for him immediately and was rewarded with an enveloping of warmth, as if she’d just stepped from a cold winter’s day directly into summer. His tongue swept inside, and when she touched it with her own, the sound he made burned a path straight to her soul.

Allie wanted to move closer, to feel him against her. Reid tilted his head, his lips seemingly everywhere at once. When he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer, Allie did the same with him. Their kiss consumed her, and she never wanted it to end.

“If we don’t stop,” he murmured, breaking away, “I will take you here in full view of him.”

It took a moment for Allie to understand. She followed his gaze up, and sure enough, a guard stood atop the outer wall, watching them. Though he immediately looked away, Allie moved back from Reid.

“He saw us!”

The corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly. “So he did.”

Reid pulled her back toward him. Lifting her hair ever so gently from her shoulder, he leaned in and placed a kiss on her neck.

“But . . .” She tried to look up. “Should we—”

“Find a more private place? Aye, but only if you’re willing to relinquish your virginity this very night.”

Was he jesting? Allie pulled back. “Surely you don’t mean—”

Reid cocked his head to the side. “Go on.”

She would never reference such a thing out loud. Allie was bolder than her sister, but she was not that bold. “I just meant . . . you are indelicate.”

He did not disagree with her. Indeed, he nodded.

“And arrogant.”

Another nod.

“And—”

“Enamored,” he said. “Enthralled, enchanted, and bewildered by my own actions.”