“I promise,” said a smoky voice just at her ear, “that I feel that way about you, Sophie.” A wicked, seductive tongue toyed with the delicate curves of her ear, warm breath igniting the burning warmth between her thighs again and numbing the surprise in her brain. Despite herself, she relaxed as Patrick drew her face toward his, lips descending to inflame hers. Oh, this was right; this was so right. She abandoned the tangled thoughts of cloaks and elopements, marriages and engagements, which had so plagued her during the day.

The moment Sophie’s small fingers lightly touched his cheeks, running down the angles of his chin, something in Patrick relaxed as well. Her lips opened to his with the eternal allure of the seduced who seduces the seducer.

He almost growled, rolling over and pinning her beneath his body. Sophie gasped as his muscled male weight settled on her. Instantly, he rolled back on his side, lifting his weight.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” The words drifted to her ear through a cloud of disappointed sensation. “I forgot what a little bit of a thing you are.”

Sophie didn’t bother to answer. Something within her was longing, aching, for his body to lie back on hers again, to press her down into the bed with his intoxicating weight. She reached up and tugged fiercely on his shoulders, straining up to meet his lips, her mouth open and inviting. So Patrick half rolled on top of her, one leg pinning her to the bed, his mouth caressing her lips.

His hands started to migrate over her body, pulling aside the soft gathers of her bodice, exposing the perfect cream of her breasts to the night air.

“Oh God, Sophie, you’re so beautiful, so beautiful,” and then Patrick’s voice trailed off as it was smothered against her soft flesh, and the next sound was Sophie’s whimper as his mouth followed his hand. She was writhing against him now, uttering weak murmurs that set Patrick’s blood on fire. He swept a hand under her gown and twirled his fingers in the soft curls there, loops that looped around his fingers with a softness that gave way to dewy promise.

Sophie’s body went rigid.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was panicked, shaky with passion but afraid, and a small hand gripped his wrist like steel.

Patrick stilled instantly, but left his fingers where they were. The sensation sank into Sophie’s bones like wildfire and her eyes blurred, looking at him through the pale, incandescent moonlight in the room.

“I won’t do anything you don’t like, sweetheart.” His voice was a husky promise, his lips sweeping over her face, licking her lips apart, plunging into her mouth with a gesture that made her understand, suddenly, all those details that she’d heard tell of, things that happened between men and women. And his fingers moved, dipping restlessly, driving her into a frenzy of sensation.