Trembling, her hands entwined at the nape of his neck, Maggie told him. Soon Reeve was inside her, entering with one smooth, powerful thrust, and they were moving together in the first throes of rapture.

Maggie’s hands moved from Reeve’s neck to the broad, muscular expanse of his back, her nails digging into his flesh as her passion grew to intolerable levels. “Oh—Reeve—please,” she begged. “Please!”

He withdrew until he was barely inside her, silently taunting her for long moments. Then, in a long stroke, he moved inside her again.

Maggie grasped at his buttocks, frantic, but he pulled back once more, lingering there, at the very brink of leaving her. “Why?” she whispered wildly. “W-why are you d-doing this?”

He favored her with a long, sweet stroke of friction. “It’s all—part of your taming—little shrew.”

Maggie’s head was thrust back, her eyes closed. She felt the roughness of Reeve’s chest chafing her sensitive nipples as he sheathed and unsheathed himself in her aching warmth. She raised her fingers to touch his flat male breasts and began caressing them, and the teasing stopped.

With a rumbling groan Reeve slid his hands under her bottom and lifted so that he could possess her fully. Again and again he plunged inside her, and Maggie made a whimpering sound in her throat as each stroke set another, hotter blaze inside her.

Finally, she erupted with a lusty gasp, flinging her hips up to meet his as her back arched. A cascade of sensation pounded within her, and then Reeve cried out as he, too, reached the limits of his self-control. Shuddering, he sank to Maggie’s soft and pliant body.

She wound a finger in the hair at the nape of his neck. “Who’s taming whom?” she teased.

Reeve made a growling sound and slipped downward to kneel between Maggie’s legs. Grasping her by the ankles, he forced her to bend her knees, then kissed the tender flesh on the inside of one thigh. “We’ll see,” he said.

“I’d like to withdraw my challenge,” Maggie straggled to say.

“Too late,” Reeve replied, and he didn’t sound at all regretful.

Chapter 21

THE OVERLAND COACH WAS DRAWN BY A TEAM OF EIGHT bay horses. Maggie watched, holding Elisabeth’s hand, as trunks and valises were loaded atop the vehicle and strapped into place. Eleanor was in evidence, but there was no sign of the woman Reeve had promised to hire as housekeeper.

When he would have handed Maggie inside the coach, she hung back until Cora and Eleanor had both been seated. Reeve lifted Elisabeth through the open door, and then turned to his bride, a somewhat sheepish look on his face.

Maggie glared at him.

“She said she doesn’t mind being the housekeeper,” he whispered, irritated. “Great scot, Maggie—it’s only for a month!”

“You promised!”