He tasted of both, of a dark flaring need that tempted and taunted, that teased her with a promise of illicit and dangerous pleasures, of atavistic delights beyond her ken.

His lips met hers without hesitation, returning the pressure, but no more; he took what she offered, but made no demands, left her to make the running as if aloofly sitting back to see how far she would go-how serious she was about persuading him.

Not in her wildest imaginings did she think she could, certainly not like this. Her wish to see the register wasn’t the reason she leaned into him, traced his lower lip with the tip of her tongue, boldly entered his mouth when he parted his lips, and tempted him more.

Asked for more. All but pleaded.

He moved; his arm left the back of the sofa and slowly encircled her, then tightened, urging her to him. His other hand rose, fingers splaying to cradle her head as he smoothly slid the reins from her grasp, drew her nearer yet, all but into his lap as he angled his head and took control.

Of the kiss, and all else she would cede to him, but passivity wasn’t her style; she drew a line and held to it, letting him kiss her as he would, show her what he would, but reserving the right to redirect their play if she wished. If she wanted.

Now, this minute, she wanted him. Wanted to feel his tongue stroking hers, wanted to experience again the hot tide of wanton desire he so readily called forth. His lips moved on hers, demanding, definitely commanding, yet still unurgent, still effortlessly, arrogantly, controlled.

She met each questing stroke of his tongue, dueled, retreated, allowed him to explore, then grasping his head tightly between her hands, boldly returned the plea sure.

Sensed, then, just for an instant-a second of hesitation when she felt his control momentarily crack, and she saw past it-what he hid behind his sophisticated façade.

Something not sophisticated at all. Something primal, powerful, and predatory, something with teeth and claws and burning eyes, a desire so wild, so reckless and passionate that, if let free, unrestrained, it possessed power enough to shake both their worlds.

The ultimate temptation for the wild and reckless.

The ultimate sin for those who couldn’t resist the lure.

She saw, craved. Hungered. She reached for it, without hesitation sank into him, drew him deep into her mouth, and with lips and tongue invited.

Dillon inwardly cursed, and resisted. He’d intended calling her bluff, nothing more. Intended letting her masquerade as the femme fatale she pretended to be-he knew it was a pose-to let her play out her hand and learn she couldn’t win…

He’d forgotten how susceptible he was. Not to her, herself-the simple appreciation for a female body he could and would have easily controlled-but to the passion she evoked and sent racing down his veins, to the sheer unadulterated lust that, with her in his arms, fogged his brain.

He tried to ignore it, battled to block it out-and failed. Heat swirled through him, rose like a tidal wave he couldn’t hope to hold back. In desperation, he gripped her waist and tried to ease her back, to create space between their heating bodies, preferably to break the kiss-an engagement that was rushing down an increasingly slippery slope to raging, mindless need.

She wouldn’t have it, simply wouldn’t be denied; she came up on her knees, clamped her hands on his shoulders, and used her leveraged weight to wedge him into the sofa’s corner. The angled sides restricted him; she compounded his problems by sinking more definitely, more enticingly against him, and letting her hands roam.

Under his coat, over his chest, opening and brushing aside his waistcoat, sweeping wide, then down to grip his sides while her tongue played havoc with his senses, and the soft weight of her firm feminine curves, supple and giving, beckoned and lured…that prowling, predatory side of him he barely recognized, yet knew to be him. That facet of him she so effortlessly provoked into being.

He fought to catch his mental breath, to get a firm grip on his wits if not his senses. Metaphorically girding his loins, he gathered his will and tried his level best to sit up and move her back-

She felt his muscles bunching, countered his move.

He raised his shoulders free of the corner, only to have her determinedly bear him down, fractionally to the side and around so that his back hit the raised arm of the sofa. The shuffle of female limbs screened by fine silk over and between his thighs, the shushing shift of her skirts as she twitched them and wriggled, totally distracted him.

Then somehow he was leaning back against the sofa’s padded arm, his legs angled across the seat, with her poised over him, in his arms, straddling him, her warmth seeping through the cloth of his trousers as she settled over his hips.

His mind, his wits, his senses reeled, struggling to assimilate every aspect, every contact.

Her lips had never left his; now they firmed, and she brazenly engaged him, flagrantly incited, sirenlike, sinuously shifting over him…

Was she really as innocent as he’d thought?

Before he could accumulate sufficient wit to attempt an answer, she blew all chance of rational thought from his brain.

At his waist, her small hands gripped his shirt, tugged it free of his waistband, then slid beneath.

Her touch-the feel of her small, warm, intensely feminine hands pressing avidly, greedily to his already heated skin-seared like a brand.

And incinerated every civilized safeguard he possessed, shredded his vaunted control, and blew the tattered remnants away.

He reacted. Caught her head, palmed her nape, and ravenously kissed her back, but it was no longer the he who usually was, but a merged entity, a seamless melding of the dangerous predatory male and the cool, clever, experienced gentleman.

The primitive and possessive, and the arrogant and demanding.

He was lost, and so was she. Some distant, disconnected part of his mind knew it, but was helpless to act, to access sufficient will or strength to pull them both free.

Of the completely ungovernable, totally irresistible tide of passion that roared into being and captured them both.

Swept them into a sea of desire and hot, urgent yearning. Onto a plane where for both of them nothing mattered beyond the next heated touch, the next explicit caress.

Her desperate fingers fumbled with his cravat; he groped blindly with one hand, trapped the swinging end of the braid that anchored her cape at her neck, and wrenched it free.

The cape slid from her shoulders, down and away with a sibilant shush. His palm touched the silk of her gown, rose, and found her breast, cupped, then he closed his hand and kneaded. He was incapable of disguising the need in his touch, the possessiveness that drove him. Releasing the firm mound, he sought and found her laces, and quickly, expertly undid them.

The instant her bodice loosened, he drew it down, slid his hand beneath, pressed the material farther away as his palm caressed hot silken skin. She shuddered. A prickling tide of sensual relief swept through him at the contact, not easing but flagrantly arousing, heightening his need, deepening his lust. The kiss turned incendiary; he held her head immobile as he plundered her mouth, soft, giving, intensely feminine. Intoxicating. His hand surrounded and seized; his fingers closed, possessed, then captured the tightly furled peak and tweaked, squeezed.

On a gasp, she broke from the kiss. Desperate for air, she tilted her head back.

Inwardly he smiled, and seized the moment. He released her nape, let that hand trace down the line of her spine to settle at the back of her waist, simultaneously took advantage of her instinctive offering; leaning forward, he set his lips to her vulnerable throat, pressed a heated knowing caress to the sensitive spot beneath her ear, then skated hot kisses down that tempting line.

He paused to lave the pulse that beat wildly at the base of her throat, paused to taste, to savor the galloping desire that held her in its grip. Satisfied, he moved on, down, with his lips tracing a path over the swell of her breast to the tightly ruched bud his fingers had teased to aching, throbbing hardness.

He closed his lips about it. She jerked in his arms.

He soothed it with a wet lick, and she trembled.

His mind took note, but the beast within him, aroused and needy, saw no reason to stop and consider. Instead, he bent to the task of teaching her all he could make her feel, all she could experience if she gave herself to him.

With expertise aplenty on which to call, he quickly reduced her to a state of sobbing need. Fractured and ragged, her breathing rang with a sensual desperation that was music to his ears.

His own need clawed and roared; anticipation wielded a sharpened spur. He drew back, leaning back against the sofa arm, surprised to find he needed to catch his own sensual breath, that he was breathing rapidly, too…

Her gown had fallen to her waist, her chemise crushed with it. With his eyes he devoured the lush mounds revealed, the swollen, heated female flesh to which his hands and lips had already laid claim.

The sight more than pleased, it delighted, sent a hot rush of passion surging through his loins, increasingly urgent, increasingly insistent. The sexual compulsion was beyond anything he’d felt before, stronger, more powerful, more real.

Somehow more aligned with who he really was, with what he really was. Reckless and wild.

One glance at her face, at the slivers of emerald bright with desire that glowed beneath her heavy lids, told him beyond doubt that she felt it, too-the ungovernable, irresistible craving, the desire that was simply impossible to deny.

He could have her now. She was straddling him, her knees sunk in the cushions on either side of his hips. He could simply lift her skirts, release his staff, and sheathe himself in her softness, but the beast within wanted much more. Demanded much more, from her, of her.

Nothing but complete surrender. Nothing less than sensual submission.

The world had already fallen away. Only the two of them remained, cocooned in the moon-glimmered dark in the silence of the summer house. A silence broken only by their panting breaths, by the shush of fine material shifting.

Pris had already dispensed with his cravat. She’d pushed his shirt up to gain access to his chest, but that wasn’t enough. She wanted to see as well as to feel. Wanted to know. Everything.

From beneath her heavy lids, she captured his gaze, held it as she unbuttoned his shirt. In the shadowed dark, his eyes were impossible to read, yet his expression as he watched her still conveyed a sense of control, of knowing, of deliberation.

But there was no longer any coolness in his gaze; it was hot, nearly scorching as it lowered and swept her breasts. As he examined, then raised a hand to lazily caress.

Her nerves leapt, tightened; her senses exulted in the light, taunting touch even as her mind reeled. She closed her eyes, briefly savored. She was straddling him, naked to the waist, yet far from feeling shocked or hesitant, she wanted to be there, wanted to feel his eyes on her body, ached to feel that fleeting, teasingly promising brush of his long fingers across her sensitized skin.

Her pulse beat strongly in her fingertips, under her skin, echoing the compulsion that thrummed through her, through every vein, down every nerve. How she could be addicted to something she hadn’t yet tasted was a mystery, but the effect was real. She simply wanted. And had to have.

The last button slipped free; opening her eyes, she spread the halves of his shirt wide and looked down. Visually devoured as he had, then, shaking her fingers free of the material, she reached, touched, stroked. She traced the well-defined muscles banding his chest, let her fingers tangle in the crisp black hair that lay in a mat across the width, then arrowed down to disappear beneath his waistband. She found the flat discs of his nipples beneath the dark pelt, stroked, caressed, and felt them furl. Greatly daring, she leaned down and lipped, then nipped, and felt him catch his breath, felt him stir restlessly beneath her.

Rising, she slid her hands, fingers splayed, down, over the hard ridges of his abdomen; sitting back, she followed the same path with her eyes and swallowed. He was strong, steely muscled, an altogether dangerous male in his prime.

One she had half-naked beneath her.

Her lips slowly curved. Lifting her eyes to his, she caught the dark glimmer beneath his long lashes, held it, then deliberately skated her hands slowly up his chest. Following them, she leaned in and, with reckless abandon, set her lips to his.