She meandered to an open doorway and peered inside. Grew still, and he knew she recognized a bedchamber when she saw one, especially as this one contained a larger than normal four-poster bed. “Is this where the gents with red buttons bring ladies?”

“No.”

She faced him, a thousand questions reflected in her eyes, or perhaps it was merely the flames from all the candles. He crossed over to her, touched his fingers to her soft cheek. “These are my lodgings. I’ve never brought a woman here.” For some reason, he thought it important she know that.

“Why me?”

Because she was different, because she touched him in ways no other woman ever had. Because he wanted to walk in here and inhale her fragrance, wanted to sit in a chair and bring forth memories of her within these walls, wanted to lie in his bed and recall how it had felt to have her beneath him there. “Because you asked to be bedded, and I want you to have more than that. I intend to seduce you.”

“With strawberries and wine?”

“For starters.”

She wound her arms around his neck, pressed her body up against his, and he went immediately hard. She undid him so easily, and he wanted to have the same effect on her.

“You seduced me from the beginning, Aiden Trewlove, until all I think about, all I dream about is you.” Her voice was low, throaty, sensual.

Lifting up on her toes, she planted her mouth on his and he was lost. He cursed her for being the seducer, cursed himself for falling, then cast all his plans onto the wind. For what did it matter when they were of a like mind, when they each craved the other?

And he did crave her, as he’d never yearned for anything in his life. It was not her beauty but her spirit that drew him. Her adventuresome nature that had her searching for what she’d never acquired after the bonds that held her to an oath had been severed. She’d not hesitated to come after what she wanted. She’d rebelled against a mourning period that would have held her in seclusion. Her strength was apparent.

But it was tempered by her caring and concern, her depth of grief for a kind husband who had left her unsatisfied. Tonight Aiden would satisfy her in every way possible. He would take her, possess her, claim her until she thought of no one other than him, until she was convinced that only in his arms would she ever find complete satisfaction, acceptance, fulfillment.

When he was done, she would leave, but would do so with the knowledge that she would return.