Her eyes came up to his though she did not raise her head.

“Alas, Duchess,” he said, “I do plan to run a race. A marathon. Do you know your Greek history?”

“Many miles?” she said. “Many hours? Almost superhuman endurance?”

“You do know it,” he said.

Her hand slipped downward to rest on his shoulder. Her other hand came up to rest on the other.

“You had better not expend any more energy on talk, then, Mr. Huxtable,” she said. “You had better begin this endurance race, this marathon, without further delay.”

And her glorious blue bedroom eyes gazed dreamily into his.

He lowered his head and set his lips to hers.

He rested his hands on either side of her small waist while she slid her hands about his neck and pressed her lips back against his own.

She was hot, already very much aroused despite her clear warning to him not to forget the importance of foreplay.

He had not expected a passionate woman, and perhaps he would be proved right once they got fully launched into this encounter. Perhaps after all she would be the skilled, experienced, sensual, controlled lover he had thought she would be. And perhaps she was clever enough, confident enough, to throw passion into the mix as well.

He enjoyed passion, though he rarely got it with any of his mistresses, he realized. Passion involved some feeling, some emotion, a little bit of risk. Most of the women he had bedded had been looking for some companionship and a lot of vigorous sex. And that had always suited him too. Better no passion at all than too much of the wrong sort.

Passion could lead to an unwelcome emotional attachment. He did not want any woman attached to him that way. It had never been his wish to hurt any woman.

But the objective thoughts were only fleeting. She had pressed her bosom against his chest, her abdomen and thighs against his, and her mouth had angled and opened over his.

He felt a flaring of intense desire.

At last!

It was many months since he had had a woman. He had not realized quite how famished he was.

He lifted his hands to cup her face, to hold it a few inches from his own. And he slid his hands around the base of her head to the jeweled clasp that kept her hair confined. He unclasped it and let it fall to the carpet. He took her hair in both hands to rearrange it. It needed no encouragement but spread across her back and over her shoulders in a gleaming cloud of soft waves.

He almost hissed in an audible breath.

She looked ten years younger. She looked … innocent. With bedroom eyes that even in the dim candlelight looked very blue. An innocent Siren—an enticing oxymoron.

“I cannot do the like for you,” she said, “though some might say your hair is a little overlong for fashion. You must not cut it, though. I forbid it.”

“I am to be your love slave and ever obedient?” he asked, dipping his head to kiss her behind one earlobe, holding her hair back with one finger as he did so. He flicked his tongue over the soft flesh there at the last moment, and had the satisfaction of feeling a slight tremor run through her.

“Not at all,” she said, “but you will do what pleases me because it pleases you. I shall remove your coat since you wear no hair clasp.”

It was not easy. His valet had a hard enough time getting him into his coats so that they fit him, as fashion dictated, like a second skin. But her fingers fluttered over his chest beneath it and up over his shoulders and down along his arms, and his coat obediently followed the path her hands took and soon fell to the floor behind him.

It was not, he thought, the first time she had done that.

Her eyes moved over his shirt and cravat, and then her hands moved up to the latter and deftly removed it. She undid the buttons at his throat and opened the top of his shirt.

Constantine watched her as she worked, her eyes on what she was doing, her lips slightly parted.

There was no hurry. Absolutely no hurry at all. They had all night, and there were no prizes for the number of times he would mount her. Once might well be enough on this first occasion.

“You look magnificent in a shirt,” she said. “Manly and virile. Take it off.”

She was not going to do it for him?

He looked into her face as he pulled his shirt free of his waistband, undid the buttons at his wrists, crossed his arms, and drew the garment off over his head. She watched what he was doing, and then her eyes roamed over his shoulders, his upper arms, his chest and down to the waistband of his pantaloons. She set her fingertips against his chest.

He nudged her hands aside with the backs of his, drew the satin of her gown to the edges of her shoulders, and then slid his thumbs into the décolletage of her gown at the center. He slid them outward, hooking the bodice under her breasts as he did so—something he had wanted to do every moment as they dined.

Her breasts were not particularly large. But they were firm and well shaped and uptilted—helped by her stays, it was true—and they fit, warm and soft, in his hands. Her skin was fair, almost translucent in comparison to his. Her nipples were rosy and pebbled with sexual desire. He lowered his head and sucked one into his mouth. He rubbed his tongue over the tip.

He felt, rather than heard, her deep inward breath.

He moved his mouth to the other breast.

“Mmm.” She made a sound of appreciation deep in her throat, threaded her fingers through his hair, and lifted his head. She tipped her own head back, hair streaming behind her, her eyes closed, and brought her breasts against his chest and then the rest of her body against his. She brought his face to her own, her mouth opening as it touched his.

He wrapped his arms about her, bringing her even closer, and abandoned himself for a long while to a kiss in which tongues thrust and parried and circled and stroked and teased and arms strained and breath quickened.

Then her arms moved down his back, her fingers pressing hard into his flesh. They kept on going when they reached his waist—beneath his pantaloons and his drawers. They spread over his buttocks.

“Take these off,” she said into his mouth, pressing the backs of her fingers against the fabric.

Again—she was not going to do it herself? But she had already proved to him tonight that she was mistress of the unexpected. She watched as he removed first his shoes and stockings, and then his pantaloons and drawers. And she held her gown beneath her bosom—until he was finished. Then she released her hold, and the emerald green satin slithered down to the floor, and she stood before him in her stays and her silk stockings and slippers.

He would surely have taken her there and then if he had not had a glimmering of an understanding of how confining stays must be for a woman—and if he had not promised a marathon. He unlaced her instead and dropped the stays on top of her gown.

A strange thing, fashion. She doubtless would not feel dressed without her stays, but she did not need them. She was slender and firm-muscled and shapely. Her breasts were firm and youthful. Her legs were long and slim. Sometimes she gave the illusion of being small in stature, but it was an illusion.

She sat on the side of his bed, her arms braced behind her, and lifted one of her legs toward him, her toes pointed. He drew off her stocking and then the other when she offered him that leg.

He leaned over her, bearing her back to the mattress, and kissed her deeply and open-mouthed, covering her breasts with his hands as he did so. He moved between her spread legs. Her arms were stretched out along the bed.

“How long does it take to run a marathon?” she asked when he lifted his head some time later. There was color in her cheeks, he could see.

“A whole night if necessary,” he said. “Of course, it is always possible to cheat a little, to take shortcuts when no one is looking, to reach the finish line in considerably less than the whole night.”