No response, show no response. Hannah repeated it over and over in her head like a litany. He didn’t press, he didn’t coax or demand. He simply tasted, more gently than she’d had known a man could be. And the flavor of him seeped into her until she was all but drunk with it.

His eyes remained open, watching hers. He was close, so close she could catch the scent of soap on his skin. Something that brought images of the sea. Hannah dug her fingers into her palms and fought to keep from showing him the turmoil within.

God, she wanted. How she wanted.

He didn’t know what he’d expected. What he found was softness, comfort, sweetness without heat or passion. Yet he saw both in her eyes. He felt no driving need to touch her or to deepen the kiss. Not this first one. Perhaps he already knew there would be others. But this first one showed him an ease, a relaxation that he’d never looked for in a woman before.

He was man enough, experienced enough, to know there was a volcano inside of her. But strangely, he had no desire to push it to the eruption point, yet.

Bennett broke the kiss simply by stepping back. Hannah didn’t move a muscle.

“I didn’t do that to frighten you.” He spoke quietly, for it was the truth. “It was just a test.”

“You don’t frighten me.” He didn’t frighten the woman he could see, but the one within was terrified.

It wasn’t quite the answer he’d wanted. “Then what do I do to you?”

Slowly, carefully, she unballed her hands. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean, Your Highness.”

He studied her another moment, then spun away. “Maybe not.” He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck wondering why such an unassuming, placid woman should make him so tense. He understood desire. God knows he’d felt it before. But not like this. Never quite like this.

“Dammit, Hannah, isn’t anything going on inside of you?”

“Of course, sir, a great number of things.”

He had to laugh. He should have known she would put him in his place with logic. “Call me by my name, please.”

“As you wish.”

He turned back. She was standing in front of the glistening white piano, hands folded, eyes calm and quiet on his. He thought it the most ridiculous thing, but knew he was very close to falling in love. “Hannah—”

He’d taken no more than two steps toward her when Reeve walked into the room. “Bennett, excuse me, but your father would like to see you before dinner.”

Duty and desire. Bennett wondered if he would ever find a full merging of the two. “Thank you, Reeve.”

“I’ll take Lady Hannah back in.”