Maggie was stunned by the tender warmth of his lips moving against hers, moist and undemanding. She shivered when the tip of his tongue encircled her mouth in one swift, featherlight foray, bidding it to open for him. Maggie responded by parting her lips in response to his mild command and nestling close to him. Her nipples tightened even more on contact with the cold, rain-drenched barrier of his shirtfront.

His fingers moved along the slender, moisture-beaded curve of her back, warming her, exciting her more with each pass over her flesh. Then, with the soul-shattering kiss continuing, Reeve caught his hands under her bottom and lifted her flush with the full force of his need. Even through her petticoat and drawers, all the clothing left to her except for shoes and stockings, Maggie felt the straining power of him and trembled for the want of it even as she recoiled inwardly in fear.

Reeve’s hand suddenly came up beneath Maggie’s chin and clamped around her jaw, and it was as though he were battling his own will to break away from the kiss.

He half groaned and half growled an expletive and stepped away from her. But soon enough his hands were back, briefly cupping Maggie’s full and throbbing breasts, then sliding down the sides of her waist to dispense with her petticoats and drawers.

Maggie was powerless to protest, much less flee, and when she felt herself being lowered to a soft bed covered in woolly blankets, she offered no resistance. She closed her eyes as she felt Reeve removing her shoes, rolling down her practical ribbed stockings with a sensual lassitude that heightened Maggie’s need to a pitch that made her toss restlessly on the bedclothes.

Reeve’s voice was thick with the brogue Maggie had heard only hints of before, and hoarse with needs she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. “You’re a virgin, then, aren’t you, lass?”

Maggie could not speak; he knew her answer because one of his hands had come to rest alongside her cheek and he felt her feverish nod.

“Then I’ll not be takin’ you this night,” he vowed in the dense gloom. Maggie couldn’t tell whether the roaring in her ears was the sound of the rain outside or just the rushing of her own blood.

She did know that her disappointment would have been fathomless but for the fact that Reeve’s thumbs were once again brushing her nipples. She’d lost all sense of propriety by then; her need of whatever Reeve was promising with his nearness and his touch was primal.

Reeve chuckled at her eagerness; when she regained her senses, Maggie promised herself, she’d call him to account for that. “You’ll ’ave the pleasure, lass,” he vowed in that same thick brogue, “without the ruinin’.”