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He knelt to settle her on the marble basin, parting her knees, wedging between them. She helped him shove her skirts around her waist, their hands fumbling together in the silk and lace.

“That cotton frock was easier,” he murmured.

“It’s like comparing apples to oysters.” She sniffed. Neal was a marvel, but he offended against fashion. He laughed as he rolled down her stockings. When he touched her bare legs, his laughter quieted. He drew in his breath and glanced up at her, eyes shining between those long black lashes.

He banished the shadows, this man. The sunniness of his passion turned her to gold. Made everything radiant.

He pulled the stockings over her toes, catching her foot and nuzzling her instep. He raised her leg higher and she had to catch the edge of the basin or she’d have tumbled back into the flowers.

“Stop or I’ll fall over.” It came out half gasp, half giggle. “I’ll crush the flowers.”

He raised his brows, patently unconcerned. “I’ll have to send someone out to replant them.”

He rested her heel on his thigh and leaned forward, putting his palm on her sternum, just above the neckline of her gown. He pushed. Pushed her until she lay on her back, petals soft on her neck, her arms. He slid forward then, covering her. His broad, heavy torso mashed her breasts; the cradle of his hips dug into her belly. She exhaled, shuddering. Felt the jut of his erection, the rigid muscles of his legs. His weight drove her down, filled the air with the bruised honey of the flowers. He stroked her lips with his tongue, stroked inside her mouth. Then he was climbing down her body and over the side of the basin.

She heard herself make a strange humming sound as his rough fingers traveled up her inner thighs. She slitted her eyes, lifted herself on one elbow, and peered, but the froth of skirt and petticoat at her waist obscured her view. He had ducked between her legs. She could see only the bulk of his shoulders, the curve of his haunches, as he crouched.

This time, at the first intimate touch, she felt nothing akin to shame. She felt only eagerness—wild, wanton, shocking in its intensity. She dropped back into the flowers and rolled her hips up to meet his mouth.

The softness of her flesh and his suckling lips, the pulling, clutching pulse that throbbed there, where they merged. Dear God. The sensation. It gathered, more than physical. Elemental. She fanned her arms through sun-warmed blossoms, dug her elbows into the cool dirt, moaning as his teeth pressed into her, isolating the spot where his tongue now circled slowly, now flicked an agonizing rhythm. She spread her legs wider, opening to him. He could see, feel, taste every bit of her. She hid nothing. She gave all. And she took.

Pleasure shivered her legs. Harder darts shooting into her belly. The tension carried her beyond herself, made her call his name as knowing dissolved in a flash, a burst star sending heat streaming into her core. She arched with it, belly twitching, crying out again and again. His arm slid beneath her, and he twisted so he was under her and she straddled him, kneecaps grinding on the marble. He heard her cry of pain and levered them backward into the flower bed. The tickle of blossoms, leaves, stems, on her knees and shins made her laugh.

He wasn’t laughing.

His face was hard with need, lips swollen. That look alone plucked the taut ribbon of her own need, a need she’d thought sated. Her hands shook as she unbuttoned his jacket. He shucked it hurriedly, and she scrabbled at his cravat, popped a button on his shirt, then gave up, sliding her hand into the gap. His skin was smooth, stretched tight over the densely knitted muscles of his chest. Her arm made a weird angle as she scratched down the rippled musculature of his abdomen.

He worked his own hand down the front of her dress.

They had no more subtlety, no more finesse. His fingers mauled her breast, rolled her nipple roughly so that a groan tore from her throat.

She felt the brush of his knuckle through the slit in her drawers as he freed himself from his trousers. Their eyes met. She held her breath, rose on her knees as his cock nudged her slick, beating center. She watched him as she sank down, watched the sweep of his silken lashes, the gape of his mouth.

It excited her, to stoke this need, to cause this wildness to build in him.

Their mouths fused, his hands closing on her hips. He filled her, stretched her, grounded her. He rooted inside her, and she bloomed all over him, twining her arms around his neck.

She surged upward until she was nearly emptied, then bore down, gasping with the thick, shuddering impact. His own gasps threatened to separate their mouths, so she gripped his jaw. She wanted her tongue inside him, to fill him as he filled her. His hands squeezed her hips tighter, moved her in a faster rhythm. He thrust up, twisting, striking something higher and deeper within her, and she clamped with her thighs, the sweetness of the friction nothing compared to this sudden clutching at the center of her being.

She tossed her head back and screamed. He folded her in his arms, kissed her so that she swallowed his words.

I love you.

It tasted like sunlight.

He began to buck beneath her, then he stiffened, jamming his hands in her armpits, lifting her up. With a groan, he rolled and spent himself. She held on to his shoulder as he jerked and settled.

Laughing, he flopped onto his back in the flowers, dragging her onto him, her skirts a hopeless tangle.

She pressed her ear to his chest, listened to his pounding heart. His fingers toyed through her hair. She was still warm and loose, with sunshine in her mouth, sunshine flickering through her limbs, and the sun above, weighting her down.

“You said you wouldn’t let me go.” He stroked down her spine.

She nodded, rubbing her cheek on the exposed wedge of his chest.

“I won’t,” she said, and felt a shudder of exquisitely delayed pleasure. She gripped a fistful of his shirt, brought the other hand to her lips, and kissed the daisy on her finger. The florets were mussed but intact.

She’d kept it. Would keep it.