She pressed against him again, and he was kissing her, and he didn’t have to stop. Desire encircled them, shutting out the world, making him blind to anything but her, deaf to anything but her. He wasn’t prepared for the quickness of the heat—like they held the molten center of a volcano suspended between them. It swamped him.

He pulled her up, needing her closer. She wrapped her legs around him, the fragile nightgown riding up to reveal smooth, ivory thighs stronger than he had expected. Deliciously stronger—they clamped around him, bringing him firmly against the astonishing heat radiating between them. His hands were on her gorgeously rounded bottom, every angle of that perfect curve burned forever into his memory.

Their mouths were frenzied, desperate. He didn’t know what was ahead of them, only that they were here now, that they could be together now.

And if he didn’t get himself under control, he’d be spending himself now, too.

He’d dreamed of this woman, fantasized about her for weeks. He wasn’t about to rush this, now that he had her wrapped around him. Carefully, deliberately, he slowed his movements. She wanted to feel alive—he could give that to her. Thoroughly.

“What do you want?” he asked, tracing a lock of hair that had escaped from her braid. It curled gently over her clavicle, and as his finger brushed her skin she trembled.

She hesitated. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re in charge. What do you want me to do? To you?”

Another quick intake of breath, another jolt of heat and need shivering through him. This woman was going to be the death of him. She was blushing again, the pink traveling down her chest, and … and he needed to focus if he was going to last until dawn. And this was going to take until dawn.

She shrugged, trying to school her face into a nonchalant expression. “I suppose just the usual,” she said.

“Interesting,” he said, pulling out the vanity chair behind him and pulling her into it on top of him, so her luscious backside was settled delectably atop him. “What’s your usual? Because I’m not sure I can say I have one. I mean, for example, if I were improvising, I’d be tempted mightily by your breasts, which have intrigued me for several weeks. But on the other hand, I’ve recently discovered you have a truly extraordinary posterior, which I had not previously had firsthand knowledge of, so that might lead me in a different direction—you see, already there are so many places from which to begin.”

A shiver ran down her spine under his fingertips. God, even talking to this woman was delicious. She was perched atop him like a bird that at any moment might take flight—but she stayed where he’d put her.

She cleared her throat again. “I want—”

“Yes?”