His blood was fire, his body instantly awakened and aware. He gathered her close and hated the elaborate cage of her gown, for he could not feel her completely, locked as she was in stays, panniers, and petticoats. The rustling of her silken dress sounded louder than a tempest. It maddened him, suggesting the movement of her body beneath her clothing.

He walked her backward, until the wall met her back. Pressed himself against her. This primitive need—it overwhelmed him. Never had the hunger for a woman been greater, the demand to take, and to give, in return. His cock was thick and impatient as he positioned himself between her legs, and as he rocked up, she gave a low, soft moan.

Hellfire, he wanted her. Like this. Now.

“My gracious!”

Leo swung around, snarling. Lord and Lady Overbury stood nearby, frozen in shock as they took in the sight of their guests on the verge of coupling right in the foyer. Several other guests gathered behind them. And the footman, holding Anne’s cloak.

Releasing Anne, Leo held out his hand toward the servant. The footman hurried forward with the cloak. Leo took it from him, then draped it around a stunned Anne’s shoulders.

“My carriage ready?”

The footman nodded and held open the front door. Leo flung a shilling at him before tucking Anne’s hand into the crook of his arm. They strode from the entryway, out into the night. He did not wait for the footman to open the waiting carriage door, but tore it open and helped Anne inside. With her seated, Leo threw himself into the carriage, sitting opposite his wife.

As the footman shut the carriage door behind them, Leo caught a glimpse of the assembly guests all standing in the doorway of Overbury’s house. They stared at the carriage as if it were the vehicle of the Devil himself. Leo smirked. They had no idea.

He rapped on the roof of the carriage, and it drove away, heading northeast toward Bloomsbury.

In the shifting shadows within the carriage, Leo’s arousal did not diminish. It grew only stronger. He thought about reaching across the space of the vehicle and gripping Anne about the waist, hauling her over so that she straddled him. Sex in a carriage could be damned enjoyable.

But a slight movement captured his attention. Anne was shivering within her cloak. And not from the cold.

Damn it. He had scared her. Again.

“You’ve nothing to fear from me.” His voice was rough, and he heard the hard consonants of his old accent.

When she spoke, her words were soft, barely audible above the rattle of the carriage wheels on the cobbles. “It’s what I want that frightens me.”

Anne felt a change during the ride back to Bloomsbury. A crisis point, after which nothing would be the same. She didn’t know if it was him, or her. Perhaps they were both transformed. The carriage ride felt both interminable and brief. Across from her sat Leo, and passing torchlight flickered on and off his face. One moment, he became a vision of golden masculinity, the next steeped him in darkness, save for the gleam of his eyes. Both aspects frightened and intrigued her.

For the whole of the ride, he did not attempt to touch her. Neither spoke. Despite the chill outside, the atmosphere within the carriage felt hotter and heavier than any tropics. She breathed in, and felt every one of her nerves absorb the heat.

From the time she left her home this evening to now, she had transformed in a way even she did not fully understand. She felt the profundity of her body, its taut anticipation, and also the barely leashed hunger in his.

“Sit beside me,” she said into the darkness.

“Can’t.” His voice was an almost subterranean rumble. “I touch you, I won’t stop. And I’ll not take your virginity in a carriage.”

Anne did not know one could engage in lovemaking in a carriage. Now that he had introduced the idea, though, her mind filled with possibilities. It wasn’t capacious, but surely there was room enough, and the curtains could be drawn ...

“Stop.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I know what you’re thinking, and if you keep thinking it, I’ll make it happen.”

“Perhaps I want you to.” God! She could hardly believe she had said that! Yet this night was abounding with possibility, just as she was.

Leo growled a curse. “Not in a damned carriage. Not the first time.”

A sultry need spread through her when she considered that at some point in the future, he might very well take her in a carriage. Or she might take him. Anything could happen.

She felt giddy with power. Hers, and his. For she had discovered her own potential at Lord Overbury’s. She had revealed her deepest secrets to Leo: that her love of cartography had led to thievery. Yet he had not chastised her, nor expressed disgust at her actions. He admired her for all of that, and she learned to value herself.

Never before this night had men looked at her the way Leo had. And he wasn’t the only one with frank interest in his gaze. When she stopped concerning herself with how others saw her, suddenly there were men everywhere, even asking her to dance.

She drew a visceral, primitive thrill from watching Leo stalk across the chamber to claim her, taking her away from her dancing partner. Nothing refined or cultured in his behavior. He simply took what he wanted. And what he wanted was her.

He still did. And Lord save her, she wanted him.

At last the carriage rolled to a stop outside their home. Before the footman could come and open the door, Leo already had thrown it wide and had leapt down. He reached in for her. His hands spanned her waist, swinging her down onto the sidewalk. She had no awareness of the street, of the servants, of anything but him staring down at her.

“You aren’t afraid.”

She shook her head. “Not anymore.”

Animal need flared in his storm gray eyes, and his hands tightened around her waist. “To hell with waiting.”

He released his clasp of her middle, only to thread his fingers with hers, then took the steps with long-legged strides. Fortunately, Anne felt the same urgency, and kept pace. In a moment, they were inside and hurrying up the stairs leading to their bedchamber.

Leo pushed the door open. Only the fire was lit, and the room held a dark, flickering glamour, like stories of ancient fairy kingdoms beneath the hills. In those stories, young girls wandered into the kingdoms, lured by sinister, beautiful Fae princes to become ageless consorts. Their families in the mortal world mourned their disappearance, little knowing the truth behind the loss.

As Leo drew her deeper into the bedchamber, its red walls bathed in firelight, she felt herself one of those folktale girls beneath the hills, and could not mind that she would never again see the sun.

Meg appeared in the doorway.

“I don’t need you tonight.” Anne’s gaze never left Leo.

“But your gown—”

“I’ll see to it,” said Leo. He, too, did not look away, but stared at Anne with fire in his eyes as they stood by the foot of the bed. “Close the door.”

If Meg answered or did as she was bade, Anne never knew. She saw only Leo, heard only the harsh rasp of his breathing and the thick beat of her heart.

Leo stepped toward her. She met him halfway.

Anne wrapped her arms around his wide, hard shoulders, sank her fingers into his hair after tugging it free of its queue. His hands splayed across her back, pulling her tight against him. They were large, and rough, yet she felt both fragile and resilient beneath them. They each drew in a breath, taking air from each other, and their mouths met.

What had begun in the Overburys’ foyer served merely as prelude. The heat and need that had been building gradually over days, weeks, lifetimes finally ignited. Their lips shaped each other’s, testing, tasting. Exploratory and claiming. She felt his hunger, his demand, and it didn’t frighten her. Her own desire did not send her, shivering and protective, into herself. She drew on their mutual need, took sustenance from it.