"I think it best if I don't remain here where we might… succumb, as you put it." He nuzzled her ear. "Unless you'd prefer it?"

He felt her breasts rise and fall with unsteady breath. "Oh, that is brilliant," she said in a voice that would have been sarcastic if it hadn't ended on a slightly cracked and upward note. "So you intend to prowl about the house in a mask instead?"

"Take your choice, mon amour."

"I'm not your love."

"You are," he murmured into her hair. "You always will be."

She swallowed. "I'm your friend merely."

"Is it so?" He drew her against him, opening his lips against her temple. "Callie. A mere friend?"

A tremor went through her, but she was soft in his arms. "Don't," she said. "Oh don't."

He shouldn't, he knew. But her body pleaded in spite of her words. She wanted him—he could feel her desire vibrate under every touch. She'd be in Sturgeon's arms; the vision froze his heart, crushed what little remained of his tattered honor. His embrace tightened as if he could hold on to her by strength alone. When she yielded and turned and lifted her face, Trev was lost to it.

He took her to the bed in a swift move, pressing her backward until he tumbled her atop the counterpane. He leaned over her, braced on his hands, looking down at her face. "I want to see your stockings," he growled. "The plain white ones."

Her lips parted, as if to make a refusal, and then she blinked. Her puzzled look only made her more adorable to him.

"Yes, I was driven demented in your closet." He bent down to kiss her. "I'm passionately in love with your hosiery."

She twisted her ankles together. He could see that she tried to frown. Then she clutched his shoulder, tilting her head back as he ran his fingers along her leg and under her garter. She made a breathless sound and drew up her knee when he explored further, following the smooth muscle of her thigh upward. Her petticoat fell back, revealing the curve of her leg, the pale, pure white stocking and simple garter lit by firelight down to shadowed rosy curls, half-glimpsed and half-imagined. For a moment she looked up at him like an innocent, all fresh and maidenly with her shimmering red hair framing her face.

Then her lips curled and puckered. She began to giggle. "I'm keeping a gentleman in my closet," she said and laughed aloud.

He gazed at her as the sounds of mirth bubbled up. Her body quivered. She pressed her hand to her mouth, trying to suppress it, but the corners of her eyelids tilted up with hilarity.