He came up to the door, stepped inside, closed it behind him. Locked it. In the dim light of the moon, he looked at her. As her panic subsided, she started to feel boiling mad. He’d scared her half to death. ‘What the fuck were you doing out there? The door was open, I thought . . .’ Her voice tailed away. She didn’t know what she’d thought. She only knew that he’d scared her, badly.

‘I thought I heard noises down by the stables,’ he said. ‘Nobody there, though.’

Belle clutched her arms around herself, shivering. ‘This is my fault.’

He said nothing. ‘Come on. Let’s try to get some sleep.’ And he went off to his room and closed the door behind him.

Irritated, Belle stood there staring down the hall at his closed door. Thank you very much, she thought. And what did that say? It said fuck you, Belle Barton. Angrily, she went back to his mother’s room and climbed back into bed and tried to sleep. She couldn’t. She tossed and turned for over an hour, then she grabbed the dressing gown and went back out into the kitchen and then down the hall and into his room, closing the door behind her. In the faint moonlight, she could see that he was awake, too, arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling. She went over to the bed and tossed aside the dressing gown and climbed in naked beside him.

‘Can’t sleep?’ he asked, slipping an arm around her.

‘How the hell could I sleep? Now you’re going to tell me not to think about it, but how can I not do that? They came here to kill me.’

‘They didn’t succeed.’

‘I was lucky. Maybe next time, I won’t be.’

He didn’t give her any reassurance on that.

‘You’re an annoying man,’ she murmured against his throat.

‘You’re a spoiled little princess,’ he returned. ‘And a bolshy cow.’

‘Yeah, true enough.’ She kissed his chest, feeling the reassuring heat of him.

Is this love? she wondered. This weird connection she felt to him, she’d never felt that before. The tingle when they touched, the leaping of her heart when he came into the room. Best not to question it too closely. He wasn’t repulsed by her scars, and that would have to be enough. She trailed kisses lower, over his belly and downward.

Jack gasped and bunched his fist into her hair, but Belle pulled back and straddled him, feeling him hard and ready. Greedily she guided him inside her, letting out a long groan of satisfaction.

‘Christ, Belle,’ he moaned, trying to thrust upward while she rode him. But Belle was in charge now, she wouldn’t allow it. She moved languidly on him, driving him demented with lust.