But he knew. He saw and he understood.

On a groan, he brought his mouth down onto hers. Fear of losing her sharpened everything, and he wanted all he could take. He was ravenous, his hunger sudden and unchecked. She tasted of almonds and sweet woman. And she met his kiss with her own need. Their tongues stroked as their mouths opened. Each velvet touch spread desire through him.

She had lost her tentativeness. They both had. Over the course of the week, they had gained knowledge and confidence. How to touch each other. How to make demands and how to satisfy those demands.

She gripped his shoulders, rising up on her toes to press tight against the aching length of his body. They swallowed each other’s breath as the kiss went even deeper. A desperation in both of them, straining toward something, as if by the heat of their desire, they could burn away doubt.

Needing more, wanting all of her, he walked her backward until her legs met the edge of the bed. One hand he slid from her hair, down her neck, feeling the softness of her flesh and the thrum of blood beneath. He urged her down to sit on the edge of the mattress, though his mouth never left hers as he bent over her and she leaned up into him.

Pins and ties lined the front of her gown. His hands became huge and clumsy as he fumbled with these tiny, feminine fastenings. They seemed deliberately designed to bewilder and confound a man. Yet he had an ally. Anne also worked at her gown, her fingers making quicker labor of the fastenings. Until, with a sigh, the green silk came open, the stomacher peeled back like a fruit ready to be savored.

Beneath were her stays and chemise. He growled at these impediments, wanting the touch of her bare skin. He took his lips from hers and trailed hungry kisses down her throat, over the bows of her collarbone, and along the floral, lush flesh of her breasts, rising in silken curves above the stiff stays. She gasped into his hair as he touched her with his mouth and hands, dipping below the top edge of the stays to find, like treasure, the tight points of her nipples.

He’d never known greed like this. Not for a person. It filled him with dizzy madness, his body hard and aching in its hunger. And he needed her pleasure, too, with a voracity that outpaced his own demands for sensation.

Whit would not steal her from him. Leo would ensure it, branding her with his body.

They pulled at each other’s clothes. Her hands were quick and clever as she shoved his coat to the floor, as she plucked at the silk-covered buttons that ran down the length of his waistcoat. Each brush of her fingers against the tight muscles of his torso sent knives of pleasure through him.

He found the ties of her stays. Loosened them just enough to tug the stays down, so her breasts were free and luxuriant beneath the tissue-thin cotton of her chemise. He broke the narrow ribbon threading through the chemise’s neck, and pulled this down, as well. Baring her breasts.

She still wore her gown, her stays, yet with a small, vital core of nudity, her breasts exposed to him, her nipples succulent. As though he, and only he, could ever know her like this, the prize of her body beneath her clothing. She gazed up at him, eyes heavy-lidded. Her hands had been tugging on his shirt, pulling it from the waistband of his breeches, but they stopped now. She reached for his hands. Then placed them onto her breasts, his hands covering her. She arched up into his touch.

Leo sank to his knees. He seized her mouth again with his as he stroked her breasts. He circled her nipples, teasing them into even harder points. Then took them between his fingers, rolling, lightly pinching. Her gasp drew his own breath.

“Leo, yes.”

Nothing in the world felt like her. Nothing matched her as she writhed and moaned, a silken tempest. And when he licked her nipples, one and then the other, drawing them into his mouth, she clutched at his head.

Her skirts rustled as her legs eased open. He felt the press of her knees against his sides, her feet attempting to hook around his calves, yet hindered by the swaths of silk. Against the front of his breeches, his cock strained.

Hell. He couldn’t have enough. He needed more.

“I want you,” he rasped against her skin. “Let me have you.”

He urged her back, until she rested on her elbows, her legs draped over the edge of the bed. He continued to kneel between her legs. With shaking hands, he gathered up her skirts. They filled his hands with silk the color of spring, whispering a woman’s secrets, layer upon layer, her body restless beneath. Until he uncovered her legs.

He plucked her slippers from her feet and dropped them to the carpet. Stroking up her legs, he untied her garters and drew down her stockings. These, too, he let slip to the carpet, and they lay like discarded reveries, bearing the echoed shape of her legs. Such delicious legs, smooth and pale. He had to touch them. He did, gliding over her flesh, feeling her tremble and tense.

“I love your hands on me,” she whispered. “Their size. Their feel. Just a little rough.” She shivered.

“I love to touch you.” And he did. He stroked her legs with hot possession. Then peeled away her drawers.

He hissed in a breath. All around her were rivers of silk, yet here, here she was bared to him. He allowed himself a moment to admire her, the soft golden curls, the rosy flesh, ripe and ready. But it took far more control than he possessed to simply look. His thumb rubbed along her folds, and she gasped as he discovered sleek wetness.

“Give me everything, Anne.”

In response, she spread her legs wider.

With an animal sound, he bent down and put his mouth on her. Her taste flooded him, rich and sweetly musky, and the feel of her against his lips and tongue engulfed him in sensation.

This. This private joy, this secret pleasure. It belonged to them alone. No one and nothing would take that from him.

He teased, he delved. Hands spread over her thighs, he kissed her intimately, sucking and licking. She dug her heels into the small of his back. Her elbows gave out as she splayed across the bed, fingers woven into his hair. And when he drew her clit between his lips, she pulled him tight against her. He sank his fingers deep.

She bowed up and cried out her release, a long, liquid sound that filled him with wild pleasure. Yet he was not satisfied, not until he brought her to the edge and over again, and again.

At last, she fell back, gasping, arms outflung, legs spread.

“More,” she panted. “I want more of you.”

“Yes.” He began pulling off his remaining clothing—stockings, gaping waistcoat—but when he reached his shirt, he paused.

His marks. He could not show her, especially now, with Whit’s poison in the air. But he had to feel her bare flesh against his. Craved it.

He strode to the fire and banked it, extinguishing every last glowing ember, until it was nothing more than charcoal. Not a gleam of light shone. Still, the chamber was not dark enough. He paced to the windows and tugged the curtains closed, cutting off the wan moonlight and faint glow from London’s streets.

Turning back, he was satisfied. The chamber lay in utter darkness, black as the depths of the ocean.

He found her through sound, the soft rustling as she removed the last of her garments. Inflamed through sound alone, Leo tore off his clothes, shedding them like regret. He pushed through the darkness until he found himself at the bed. He touched the counterpane, the rumpled sheets, and then her, kneeling in the center of the bed.

On his knees, he moved over the mattress, feeling it dip beneath his heavier weight. He edged toward her, and when their bodies pressed against each other, length to length, finally, utterly stripped, they both moaned. God, the feel of her breasts against his bare chest, her curved belly to his flat abdomen, the whole of her—he was dizzy and demanding, aflame with need.