Christ. A cold sweat ran over him. What the hell was he supposed to do? He couldn’t think. His mind was too filled with illicit thoughts about what he wanted to do to the wicked enchantress who’d just invaded his chamber and offered him a bite of the apple. The most beautiful, succulent apple he’d ever beheld.

Eyes that heavily lashed and seductively tilted should be dark, but hers seemed impossibly blue as she stared up at him with her boldly carved features, snow-white skin, and wide crimson lips, offering to fulfill his deepest, basest desires.

He hadn’t realized how many he had until that moment.

Quite a few of them would involve the high, generously rounded, and tautly tipped breasts, the generous size and exquisite shape of which he could easily make out under the thin swath of linen. He swore, his cock twitching hard as he made out the deep shade of pink of her nipples. He wanted to suck those little pearls of pink deep into his mouth and nibble them between his teeth until she arched and squirmed.

He forced his gaze away from her breasts. But the slide downward didn’t help. The slim hips only made him think of holding on as he drove in hard and deep, and the long, slender legs were only too easy to imagine wrapped around his waist, squeezing him tighter . . .

He swore again and turned away, his body a rigid mass of throbbing steel. He was as hard as a rod and so primed for release he could come with one firm stroke.

She had no bloody idea how badly he wanted to take her up on her offer.

But he wasn’t going to do this. No matter how much he wanted to—and every nerve ending in his body reverberated with wanting to.

It wasn’t right. Not like this. The next time he made love to a woman she would be his wife. It wouldn’t be one night of passion and lust without promises, it would be making love with vows and a future.

Still, it wasn’t easy to get the words out. His mouth was pulled as tightly and angrily as the rest of him. “This isn’t what I meant, and you know it. You need to leave, Joan. Now.”

Those catlike blue eyes never flinched. She arched a very delicate, very dark brow in challenge. “Now who is pretending?” She walked toward him, holding the cup of whisky out to him. He waved it away. He didn’t want a damned drink, he wanted her. “I know you want this. You need not fear your prefect Sir Galahad reputation will slip. I won’t tell anyone.”