“Downstairs? Somewhere . . . below.”

Below. They looked at each other, arrested by the word.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked, and watched a sexy, slow grin spread across his face.

His voice dropped an octave. “Only if what you’re thinking involves my face between your legs.”

“Magnus!” Lu smacked him on the arm, scandalized, blushing. She couldn’t believe he’d just said that out loud.

“God, you’re adorable when you blush.” He grabbed her, kissed her again. This time it was she who broke the kiss, when the throbbing beat of the music became too loud and distracting.

“Okay, I’ve got to know what that music is all about!”

Magnus groaned, but allowed her to drag him from the bed. Feeling like a spy, she peeked out the bedroom door, looked up and down the long, deserted corridor. “Coast is clear,” she said, whispering, not knowing why but feeling like it was appropriate. “I think we should head that way.” She pointed to a spiral staircase at the opposite end of the hall from where they entered, half hidden behind a huge stand of artfully arranged potted palms.

Magnus’s big hands spanned her waist, reaching almost all the way around. “Your wish is my command, My Lady,” he whispered, raising the hair on her arms. She straightened, and his hands slid upward, resting on her ribs, just below her breasts. When he spoke again it was against the bare flesh of her nape, exposed by her new short haircut. “Or would you rather I called the shots?”

She turned her head and his lips met her ear. “I wasn’t kidding about my face between your legs, angel,” he breathed, his tongue darting out to softly lick her lobe, sending her heartbeat flying. “I need to taste you again. Soon.”

He slid one hand higher and swept his thumb over her hardened nipple. The other hand he spread flat over her belly, pulling her bottom against his erection, and she let out a soft moan in response. He cupped her chin and tilted her head, kissing her from behind.

“Okay. The faster we figure out what that music is, the faster we can get back to this bedroom,” she said, breathing heavily, liquid fire pooling deep in her belly where he was rubbing slow, teasing circles, heading lower. She pulled herself away, smiling when he groaned in protest, and tugged on his hand. “C’mon. Five minutes.”

“Five,” he said firmly, following. He lifted her hand to his mouth, and pressed his teeth into her thumb. “And then you’re mine.” His eyes were glowing, and her smile grew even wider.

They raced silently down the hallway. They took the stairs two at a time, their feet barely making any sound as they went. They came to another floor, but the stairway kept descending, so they passed it by, gaining speed, their noses picking up the scent of sweat and alcohol, musky perfumes, a dozen different fragrances pummeling them even as the music grew louder and louder. They were getting close.

Finally the stairway ended in a long, dark corridor, its floor bare stone. At the opposite end, lights flashed bright between the slit in a pair of drawn velvet curtains. Shadows crawled along the walls. The music was almost deafening, a bold, base-heavy techno beat, and Magnus guided Lu down the hall toward the curtain. They pushed it aside, and were shocked at the scene laid out before them.

A story below, hundreds of people bounced and twisted, dancing with arms overhead or around a partner or flung wide. Lu barked a laugh at the sheer, unexpected spectacle of it all. There was a DJ booth on one wall, a bar on the other, and an old-fashioned mirrored ball dangled from the ceiling high above. The place was mobbed.

“A speakeasy, of all things!” said Magnus. She barely heard him above the music.

“Our friend MacGregor certainly is an interesting character,” Lu conceded, watching in fascination as the bodies surged and spun. “It must be an underground thing—it’s after Curfew!”

No one on the dance floor looked concerned about Curfew. In fact, there were quite a few couples who seemed far more concerned with getting a good grope in under the flashing, blinding lights.

Magnus turned his head and looked at her. His eyes glinted in the light, and the desire and intent in them was unmistakable. Her heart skipped a beat.

Not here!

No? He prowled toward her, a scant smile lifting the corners of his lips. Why not?

Lu stepped back, looking nervously down at the crowd below. Magnus! Anyone can see us!

His jaw tightened. He gave her a look of pure, possessive lust. You think I’d ever allow another man’s eyes on your body? You think I’d ever share what’s mine with anyone else? Even a look?

He kept moving forward, and she kept stepping back, assuming she’d come into contact with the wall at any moment. But then she brushed past another curtain she hadn’t noticed, and stumbled into a small alcove off the main corridor, lit with candles. She realized it was a curtained balcony just as Magnus reached out his hand and curled it around her upper arm. He pulled her against his chest, staring down into her eyes with a fierce, burning need.

“I don’t share,” he growled. With his free hand, he ripped a second curtain hanging on a rod above the entrance around to close the gap between the main set, then guided her to the far back corner of the balcony, around a trio of high-backed chairs to a tufted velvet settee strewn with cushions. He sank down onto it and dragged her onto his lap. The music blared and thumped and throbbed, but it was quieter inside their little cocoon above the fray, and she could hear the irregular rasp of his breathing. She put both hands on his chest, felt the pounding of his heart, and smiled.

“Good,” she said, leaning over to whisper directly into his ear. “Because I’m only for you. All of me is only for you. And all of you is only for me.”

He kissed her then, hard, his eyes fluttering closed as a groan left his lips. He fisted his hands into her hair, devouring her mouth, then dragged his lips across her jaw and down her throat, licking and sucking, tasting her skin, ravenous and unrestrained. It excited her on some deep level, his loss of control when he touched her. She loved it.

She loved him.

She whispered it, head thrown back as he roughly unzipped her jacket and pushed it off her shoulders, tossing it to the floor. The words were lost to the music and the sound of his harsh breath; he made no indication he’d heard, and maybe she hadn’t said them aloud after all. She was reeling, breathless, drunk with him.

Her shirt came off next, then her camisole, and then his beautiful rough hands were all over her bare skin, his mouth and lips following everywhere he touched. He set her on her feet and shucked off her boots, dragged her pants down over her hips, tore off her panties. And when she stood naked before him, he looked at her for a long, silent moment, his eyes just drinking her in.

“Angel,” he said, staring into her eyes with a look of rapt ardor, “looking at you could bring a dead man back to life.”

“He wouldn’t be looking at me if he was dead,” she teased, cupping his face in her hands, “but thank you for the compliment.”

She bent and pressed a kiss to his mouth, then, straddling him, pulled his shirt off over his head. He tore his trousers open to his hips, freeing his enormous erection, then flipped her onto her back in one swift, confident move, setting her down carefully against the cushion.

Maybe it was the music, or the candlelight, or the hunger in his eyes, but in that moment, Lu felt like a different person. She felt powerful, strong, and mysterious, a thread of her long-ago dream self running through her veins, urging her on.

Show him what belongs to him. Show him what’s his.

Holding his gaze, she arched back against the settee, spread her legs open, cupped her breasts in her hands. He looked down at her, drawing in a sharp breath. A smile curving her lips, she slowly slid her hands from her breasts, down her rib cage, over her stomach, undulating erotically, totally unabashed, in love with the look of worship and passion in his eyes. He looked starving and brutally dangerous, hovering there above her, and what she said next pushed him right over the edge.