"Is he still alive?"

"Very much so."

"Why did he not stop you from enlisting in the Army?"

Robert smiled at the indignation in her voice. "One less mouth to feed. But your blame is misplaced. Very few people can stop me when I make up my mind."

"What does he do, this father of yours?"

Robert tensed, but knew he had come too far to lie now. "He's a street vendor. He sells ices."

Abigail's response at learning his pedigree was as unpredictable as her response to his lovemaking.

"Oh, I love ices!" she enthused, as if she was still the little girl who had played in the ocean. "Strawberry is my favorite."

"Take my advice, Abigail. Eat lemon ice or cream ices. But stay away from strawberry."

"Why?"

"There are no strawberries in strawberry ice."

"Yes, there are." Her voice in the darkness was endearingly earnest. "Not whole ones, of course. They are all mixed up in little pieces."

"They're not strawberries, Abigail," he murmured wryly.

"Then what are they, pray?" she asked tartly.

"Cochineals."

"You mean…bugs?"

"I meanbugs."

He could feel her coming to terms with the fact that she had eaten bugsthe initial stiffening of her body, the slow relaxation when she realized there was not going to occur some sort of delayed reaction. Finally, "Is that why you joined the Army when you were thirteen?"

He smiled in cynical amusement. "Eating insects is hardly the worst thing that happens on London streets. Aside from the constant threat of being killed or robbed of your profits, making and selling ices is hard labor. You work from four in the morning until seven at night.That is why I joined the Army."

And had ended up working far longer days surrounded by far more danger than that met on a London street.

"Would you do it over if you could?"

And miss Abigail and the storm?

"I don't know."

"Are you going to go back?"

He gently squeezed her breast. "I don't know."

The rain was a comforting play of sound and motion. He had never thought to have a throbbing erection and be content to merely hold a woman. No more than he had ever thought that there would come a day when he prayed that the rain not stop. On the battlefield the cold wet and the slippery mud was a harbinger of death. Here, in England, it had brought him Abigailand life.

"Robert."

"Hmm?"

"I want to fulfill a fantasy of yours."

He inhaled the warmth of her hair. "You already have."

"Nonsense."

"You allowed me to fulfillyour fantasies."

"But I want to beyour fantasy woman, Robert." She delved behind her and grabbed his turgid flesh. "I want you to give me everything you give her."

Robert grabbed her hand, deliberately curt. "I told youI don't fantasize about what a woman does to me."

Abigail was not to be denied. "Then what do you do to her? You said that you fantasized about doing everything. What is everything, Robert?"

Robert closed his eyes as the old need came over him. "You'd be shocked, Abigail."

"No, I would not.How could I? Tell me… Tell me what you want, Robert. Let me be your fantasy woman. Tell me what we do before a battle."

Robert desperately resisted. "You said, before we ate, that you had another fantasy, Abigail."

"Thisis that fantasy, Robert. To be your fantasy."

God help him, it was his fantasy, too.

Heart suddenly pounding, he molded his body more firmly against hers, chest against her back, her rounded buttocks pressed against the flatness of his stomach, and cupped the silky nest of hair at the apex of her thighs. "I do this."

Her body tensed expectantly. "What else?"

He sifted through the silky hair, found the indescribably soft flesh hidden inside. "Open up your legs."

Robert smiled in pained satisfaction against her hair, noting how quickly she complied with his request, and worked his finger between the seam of her lips. Inside the tight little valley she was hot and wet. Her soft lips curled around him as he gently slid back and forth, lingering at the head of her clitoris, sliding back down, pausing infinitesimally at the small opening there that he had created, then sliding back up again to her clitoral hood.

"When I am alone at night, exhausted by death and dying," he murmured gruffly into her hair, "I fantasize that I have a woman who feels what I feel. And that I can feel what she feels."

He slid his hand back up, over her moist mound, through the triangle of soft hair there and across her stomach.

Abigail wriggled in disappointment. "Robert, I assure you,you were feeling her."

He laughed shortly, gaining confidence at her ready acceptance. Nipping her shoulder, he slid his hand over her hip, between their bodies, down her buttocks, between her plump cheeks.

Her legs clamped down.

He fluttered his fingertips against the wet heat of her. "I want to feel her again, Abigail. Open your legswide. Put your right foot flat on the bed" He followed the line of her thigh, arranged her leg. "There. Now you are wide open for me."

"Is that what you fantasize about, Robert? That a woman is wide open for you?"

"Yes." He petted and stroked her wet, clinging lips, preparing her. "Wide open. Give me your hand."

"Why?"

"I told youI want my fantasy woman to feel what I feel. Give me your hand."

But she did not give him her hand. So he took it.

She struggled feebly when he guided it down between her thighs.

Her ribs rose and fell underneath his arm. "We did this last night, Robert."

"Not like tonight, Abigail." God help them both,not like tonight, he thought. "You wanted to know what my fantasy woman and I do before battlethis is part of it. Be her. Feel yourself as I feel you. The silky wetness here" He rubbed their joined hands against her petal-soft lips until they were slick with her essence. "The tight sheath of flesh inside."

Gently he parted her slick lips with their intertwined fingers. Slowly, so slowly, her flesh stretched to accommodate them.

Her breath caught. "Robert"

"What do you feel, Abigail?"

"I feel youyour fingers"

"Your fingers, too." He tamped down the mounting desire. "Our fingers. Your skin is soft inside, like wet silk. I have never touched another woman like I am now touching you. Feel that? That is your sheath contracting around us. Further backthere you can feel the spongebehind that is the entrance to your womb."

He prodded the sponge, soft and springy, forced her to prod it, too, knowing that the minute movements were rubbing her wrist against her clitoris. Her sheath sucked and nipped at their fingers.

"That is what you feel like when I am inside you. When I push our fingers into you, like this, relax your muscles and bear down, just as if my manhood filled you. Now when we pull out, grip our fingers, tighter, as tight as you can…" He sucked in silky strands of hair, feeling the safety of the cottage and the warmth of the bed dissolving into a muddy field and a wet, dirty sleeping roll. "I need you to feel what I feel, Abigail. I need you to feel how hot and wet and tight you are."

Ineed you to feel my pain.

I need to share it with someone, else I don't think I can live with it.

Abigail's hair tangled around his chin. "What about the other part of your fantasy, Robert? I feel whatyou feel, but how can you feel what I feel?"

Robert protectively curled his body around her. "Promise me that if what I am about to do is repugnant you will say so."

"You said that once we embarked on this journey there would be no turning back. I want you to feel what I feel, Robert… If it is possible."

"More than possible, Abigail."

"But how"

Robert released her fingers, gently withdrew from her body. Planting a kiss on the nape of her neck, he turned over and slid out of bed.

"Where are you going?" The husky arousal in her voice was laced with impatience.

Robert took a deep breath. "To get the butter."

The silence was electrifying.

Robert waited for the rejection that must surely come, of him, of this fantasy, of the life he had lived, dreaming about this moment. He could sense her shock, her uncertainty, and then, finally

"It's in the cupboard."

For a second he thought his knees would collapse from the unadulterated surge of relief. It was followed by the primitive need to possess.

No man would ever do to her what he was about to do.

He grabbed the damp washcloth draped over the sink, then found the small crock of butter in the cupboard.

She was sitting up in bed, a dark silhouette against a slash of pale linen. "What should I do?"

"Lie down on your stomach. Then lift yourself up onto your knees and put your head down on the pillow."

"Have you… ever done this before?"

He reached out, found her nose, her chin, smoothed tangled hair back from her face.

His handshands that aimed a rifle with deadly precision were trembling.

"Never. You don't have to do this, you know."

"But I want to. I want you to feel what I feel. I want to be your fantasy woman, Robert.Iwant you to give me everything you give to her."

Robert threw his head back to study the darkness.

If he did this, he didn't know if he could ever go back to a life of killing.

If he did this, he didn't know if he could die, knowing what he was leaving behind.

If he did this, he didn't know if he could let go of Abigail when the storm ended.

The sound of the mattress shifting told him she had positioned herself.

He looked down at the dark silhouette, buttocks arched in the air, and knew that it didn't matter what the repercussions were he was going to have her.

The bargain had been everything, and everything was what he was going to take.

Leaning over the dark silhouette that was Abigail, he found the iron headboard, draped the wet washcloth over it. Then, reaching into the crock, he scooped up butter and smeared it along the length of his penis. Nine inches, she had said during her mock measurementhe felt like he was twelve inches long going on twenty, hard and powerful and never more aware of his masculinity. Scooping up more butter, he set the crock down onto the floor and knelt on the bed behind her.

He touched her lightly, reverently.

Abigail tensed.

"Relax, Abigail. This is part of the fantasy. To touch you everywhere." Gently he worked the butter around and around her tight opening, rimming it over and over and over until unwittingly she thrust back toward him.

His middle finger slipped inside her.

She gasped.

He gasped.

She was unbelievably tight.

And hot.

Everything and more that he had imagined a woman to be.

Deep inside her the flesh ballooned out. He wriggled his finger. "Does that hurt?"

"No."

His voice was hoarse with desire. "Do you take me, Abigail?"

Her voice, when she responded, was equally hoarse. "I take you, Robert."

Leaning down, he planted a kiss onto her upraised buttocks, her skin taut and cool on the outside, soft and hot on the inside, then slowly withdrew his finger. Carefully he cleansed it with the wet washcloth.

"I'll try not to hurt you." Kneeling on the bed between her legs, he rubbed himself round and round her tightly puckered flesh, pressing inward, harder and harder with each circle until he felt it blossoming open, and then suddenly he was inside her and Abigail was crying out in the darkness.

He sucked in a deep breath and held still. Her flesh nipped and milked him. The soft mounds of her buttocks quivered against his groin.

Robert felt an emotion so strong that for a moment he thought he would be unmanned.

Lust. Tenderness.

He wanted to ram her so hard and deep that she screamed. He wanted to hold her until the tears passed and she never felt loneliness again.

Reaching out, he followed the trail of her spine until it merged into the nape of her neck, then reversed the trail, bringing his fingers back to the place where he was buried to the hilt.

She arched her back, drawing him deeper inside her.

Leaning over her, he cupped her breast with his left hand while, with his other hand, he found her right fist balling the pillow. "Feel the two of us, Abigail."

Threading her fingers with his, he relentlessly brought their joined hands to the apex of her thighs. "Spread your legs."

The motion brought him even deeper inside her. "No, don't pull back. Here." He found her slick, pouting nether lips, nudged them apart, rubbed their joined fingers back and forth until they were slick with her essence, until her body opened and accepted the first tentative thrust.