It was like watching a shooting star bursting through the night sky over an endless ocean. A force of nature. Fucking beautiful. Rhystan wrung every drop of her release from her until she was limp against the squabs, eyes hazy with passion.

Putting her clothing to rights and fastening her cloak, he climbed back up her body and kissed her lips. “You are magnificent.”

“What about you?” she asked, eyes darting to the painful bulge in his dove-gray trousers. Her cheeks turned dusky rose in the light, and his stare followed hers down. A wet spot had gathered on his fly. His arousal, not hers.

“That’s what you do to me.”

Blushing hotly, Sarani reached for him, palm curving around his nape. For a moment, she looked uncertain, unsure, gnawing that plump lower lip between her teeth and making him want to kiss her again. “Should I? You need to…”

His smile was wolfish. “Oh, I’ll have my turn, don’t worry. When we get to my residence, I plan to take you to bed and ravage you until you can’t speak your own name.”

* * *

Rhystan’s filthy promises only made her want him more. She loved seeing the aloof, put-together duke stripped down to this raw, fundamental version of himself. He was savagery swathed in velvet, the jagged edge of danger tempered by decorum. A puzzling enigma that she was powerless to resist. She wanted him bare.

Sarani flushed. Did that make her a brazen hussy? She was a lady, but this man had always incited the devil in her. Twice now, he’d brought her to completion—first with his fingers at the ball and then with his mouth.

Oh, sweet heavenly stars, that mouth.

Even now, her body still quaked with tingling aftershocks. The fact that he had kissed her there had been utterly wicked. She’d opened her mouth to protest, but the only thing that had emerged when his hot, wet tongue had touched her body had been an unbecoming moan. And then her brain had ceased to function.

A part of her wanted to feel ashamed, mortified even, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. For the first time in months, she felt alive. Sarani had no doubt that what she was doing was what no lady in her right, decent mind would do with a man, much less a duke. But happiness wasn’t guaranteed. Life could be taken at the blink of an eye, with the slash of a blade. She’d already lost so much, and now she had a chance to keep one thing for herself.

She was aware of the absurdity. She would be losing the only thing she had left to lose—her precious virginity. Her calling card to respectability. A woman’s innocence…so valued and yet a commodity to be traded to the highest, most titled bidder, even if it was against her wishes.