Maggie’s senses were leaping and her face felt hot. She had a good idea of what would happen if she led Reeve to that attic room, but she couldn’t find it within herself to refuse him. She loved him too much and needed him too badly. Still, she hesitated. “I’m not sure.”

He laid an index finger to the tip of her nose, and though that wasn’t an intimate contact, it stirred responses in other parts of Maggie’s body that longed to be touched in just that way. “I’m going to sea, Maggie,” he said hoarsely. “I want to make sure that all these little domestic matters are settled before I go.”

Maggie began to think that she might have misinterpreted Reeve’s insistence on seeing her room. She led the way through the house to the kitchen and up the first set of stairs but faltered at the foot of the three steps leading to her room. “Where are all the servants? I haven’t seen anyone except for Cora since I arrived.”

Reeve gave Maggie’s bottom a surreptitious pinch. “This is their day off,” he said.

Maggie’s cheeks were flaming. “I’m not going into that room, Reeve McKenna, unless you promise me something on your honor!”

He reached out boldly to caress her breast. “What?”

“You have to swear that you’ll marry me the minute you get back to Sydney,” Maggie blurted out, and she was afraid to breathe while she waited for his answer.

“Done,” he said, just when he had stretched her patience to the breaking point.

Maggie pulled him into the little room and closed the door, and Reeve looked around with a mock frown on his face. Even while he was doing this, he was unbuttoning the bodice of Maggie’s dress.

“This will never do,” he said as he lowered her camisole, baring her breasts. “No air, no light—”

Maggie drew in a sharp breath as he suddenly bent his head and took greedy suckle at her right breast. Her fingers knotted in his hair. “The—door, Reeve—” she managed to choke out. “Someone might—come in—”

Easily, he maneuvered her so that her back was to the door. While he teased and tasted her puckered nipple, he slowly lifted her skirts. She felt the ties of her drawers give way and then he was pulling them down, kneeling before her.

“Hold your skirts, Maggie,” he ordered gruffly, and she did, bunching the stiff gray fabric in her fists. Her drawers were around her ankles now, like filmy hobbles, and Reeve made no effort to free her. All his attention was focused on baring the hidden rosebud he sought.

Maggie felt his breath on that nubbin of flesh and whimpered. The position of vulnerability was delicious, as was the suspense with which he teased her, giving her an occasional flick of his tongue but otherwise withholding the attention she longed for.