It might have been her name he’d been trying to say. Or it might have been a grunt of surprise. She didn’t know. She didn’t care. She was much too far gone to worry over such trivialities. She had his face in her hands and she was kissing him. Clumsily, perhaps, but with all the crazy energy that was burning through her.

She loved him.

She loved him. Maybe she hadn’t told him, and maybe she’d never be given the opportunity to do so, but she loved him. And right now she was going to kiss him.

Because that’s what a woman in love did.

“Thomas,” she said, because she would say his name. She’d say it over and over if he’d only let her.

“Amelia…” He put his hands on her shoulders, preparing to push her away.

She could not allow it. She threw her arms around him, pressing the length of her body against his. Her hands sank into his hair, pulling him toward her as her lips pressed against his. “Thomas,” she moaned, the word sinking into his skin. “Thomas, please…”

But he didn’t move. He stood stiffly, with no reaction to her onslaught, and then…

Something softened. First it was in his chest, as if he’d finally allowed himself to breathe. And then one of his hands moved…slowly, almost shaking…to the small of her back.

She shivered. She moaned against him. She let one of her hands sink into his hair. And then she begged.

“Please.”

If he rejected her now…She didn’t think she could bear it.

“I need you,” she whispered.

He went very still. So still that she thought she’d lost him. But then he exploded with passionate energy. His arms wrapped around her with stunning speed, and he wasn’t just kissing her back…

Dear God, it felt as if he were devouring her.

And she wanted to let him.

“Oh, yes,” she sighed, and she sank more deeply into him. This was what she’d wanted. She’d wanted him, yes, but more than that, she’d wanted this. The power, the knowledge that she had started something. She had kissed him.

And he wanted it. He wanted her.

It made her shiver. It made her melt inside. It made her want to knock him to the ground and straddle him and—

Good God, what had become of her?

Whoever she was, whoever she’d been just hours earlier—that woman was gone, replaced by some wanton spirit who had not spent twenty-one years of life learning to be a proper lady. When she’d kissed him—no, when she threw herself at him, praying he wouldn’t push her away—it had been a thing of her emotions. She was angry, and desperate, and sad, and wistful, and she’d wanted, just for once, to feel as if she were in control.