She whimpered. “Val,” she begged him without words, with only his name, to not stop this time. To continue.

“Open for me,” he pleaded against her mouth, and she let her lips part, and he swept inside, his tongue a firebrand against hers.

The fiery heat of him, the rush of desire as he tasted of her and she explored him in like measure, sapped her of the ability to stand.

Only, Val was there to catch her. He scooped his palms under her buttocks and drew her deeper into his arms.

Myrtle met every thrust of his tongue in a dance more entrancing and forbidden than the scandalous waltz she’d been so very eager to learn.

Only, there was no dance like this one, and she knew there never would be.

It was with every glance of that hot flesh against hers, a fire was set to each part of her person until an inferno threatened to consume her whole.

She registered Val’s hands shifting between them, and his fingers at work as he loosened the belt of her night wrapper. He slipped the garment from her so that she stood before him clad in nothing more than her nightshift.

Val drew back, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out and begging for him to not stop.

Only, he passed a heated gaze over her frame. “You are so beautiful,” he murmured in that baritone that had gone husked with desire.

Her belly fluttered. “I’m really at best passably pretty, Mrs. Belden s-said,” she said, passion making her voice falter.

He growled. “Mrs. Belden is a twat.” He repeated his opinion of the old harpy a second time, and Myrtle leaned up, twining her palms about his nape and lifting herself so that she could touch her nose to Val’s.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

She knew the moment another shift had occurred.

She felt it in the way Val’s tall, powerful body tensed against hers.

Sensed the connection had been severed, and she clung tightly to him, determined to hold on to him and this moment. “Please, don’t,” she entreated.

“Myrtle.” And worse than begging him, he pleaded with her. “I don’t know much, but I know two things with a certainty: you deserve more than settling for some pasty-faced, dull English fellow who won’t appreciate you and your smile and your wit.” Her lips parted and a sigh slipped out. “And you deserve more than a night with me.”

She cut him off. “I deserve to have a man honor and respect what I want.” She tipped her chin up a notch, angling her head back to better meet his stare. “And I want . . . this,” she said softly. “I want this with you.”