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Gwen’s toes curled, muscles tightening like springs against the overwhelming urge to grab him by the hair and drag his mouth to her breasts. Demand to know what that, too, would feel like. She hadn’t realised it could be like this. How did she not realise? But Walter never kissed anything but her lips—oftentimes, not even that—-before shoving himself between her legs. And heaven help her, but she wanted Michael there as well, felt achy and hollow and, oh God. She was wet. Her body was positively melting from the inside out.

She bit her lower lip and shook her head, but it felt like an utterly pointless denial when every part of her body was incontrovertibly begging for more. Gwen had never felt so completely transparent in her life.

“No?” His voice was teasing, but not unkind. He canted his head ever so slightly, strummed the hardened peak as he watched her thoughtfully, the notch in his brow making him appear uncertain… almost tentative.

And she understood then, with a bright, startling clarity, what all of this was about. The questions. His gentle, coaxing hands. The way he watched her, waiting rather than taking.

Whatever else between them might be tangled up in one of Michael’s games, this was not.

Michael wanted her to want him.

To want this.

Oh, he would tease and tantalize, would draw sensation from her body until her resolve eroded like pebbles on a beach, but he would take only what she freely gave. His pride would not allow their coupling to be something she tolerated, and, like everything else Michael set out to do, he would go about it with relentless determination.

He dropped his head, nosed lazily at the pert tip of her breast, before turning his cheek to nuzzle along the outside.

“I like the way you smell… of sea, and soap, and woman.” He shifted lower, pressed his face to her stomach and breathed deeply, his exhalation a long, rumbling groan. “Nothing like the cloying floral scents of the London season, and Christ, I could drown in it. Drown in you.”

Muscular back rippling, he stretched up with both hands to caress her breasts, kneading more purposefully as she arched up into his palms.

Her skin burned, nerves alight everywhere he touched—everywhere he hadn’t touched. The night rail, which had felt so necessary at the start, now smothered her, tangling about her legs, an unwelcome barrier that kept her from the undiluted sensations she craved. She tossed her head to the side, releasing her grip on the sheet to tug at the open collar of her night rail.

A helpless, frustrated whine rent the air, and somewhere in the back of her foggy mind, she realised it was her.

“Shh. Easy, love, I’ll help.”

Michael shifted to his knees swiftly, adjusting her body and tugging the nightrail until she was free, then halted just as abruptly once the threadbare material was gone. His breath fled on a short, sharp exhalation as he drank in the sight of her with unabashed admiration.

“Oh, God,” he rasped, a slower, less steady breath chasing the first… and then he was bending at the waist, silken heat covering her, surrounding her as his bare skin met hers. Resting on one elbow beside her head, he stroked her hair with his other hand.

His gaze softened as he looked down at her. “I’ve never wanted to kiss a woman so much in my life.”

God she wanted it. Wanted to feel his mouth brush over hers. Instead, he dipped his head and kissed the tip of her nose.

“That will do for now.”

His hand slid from her hair to her cheek, cupping her face in his palm for a long moment before drifting lower. His fingers ghosted the outside of her breast, traced the curve of her waist, then closed around her hip.

The muscles across his shoulders tightened as his hand swept lower, lifting her hips to span the curve of her rear with slow, reverent pressure. It took all her willpower not to reach for him, not to arch upward in silent supplication, desperate for release from the need pounding through her veins. He’d done this to her, and every fiber of her being cried out with the certainty that his touch, alone, could free her from this wild, unfocused wanting. But the delight he awakened within her didn’t change who he was, what he’d done. Gwen would not surrender the last of her reason to this man. She tightened her fists at her sides, fingers cramping with the force of her grip.

Michael’s gaze dropped to the hand knotted in the corner of the coverlet. He laid his open palm over her fist, then slowly traced the length of each clenched finger, back and forth over every knuckle, as though coaxing them loose one by one. When she still refused to let go, his hand settled over hers in a gentle squeeze.

“Hold tight then, sweetheart. Don’t let go.”

He slid lower, lips and tongue scorching a path down her abdomen, then lower still past her belly button. She trembled and squirmed, but Michael supported her body, his broad shoulders easing her thighs wider apart, making space for himself until his chest was flat on the mattress. Reflexively her thighs clenched around his ears.

Michael rested his cheek just above her mound and held there.

“I’ll make you feel good sweetheart, but I can’t… I won’t unless you want it. Open your legs, Gwen. Open them for me, and I will give you what you need.”

Did she want this? Dazedly, she realised that was no longer the question at all. She needed this. Needed him. He’d overwhelmed her body with longing until there was no space for anything else. And like a person stripped of all her reliable senses, she could do nothing but trust him to guide her through the dizzying rush of sensation until she reemerged on the other side.

Sweat slicked and trembling, slowly, she splayed her legs.

Michael praised her for every inch, his voice lust-roughened and low. “Beautiful, my pet. Yes. Just like that. That's lovely. Thank you.”

The muscles of his back and shoulders quivered as his hands climbed the wings of her hips like vines. Then his mouth, hot and wet, opened against her quim. He licked her.