“Kiss me, Nick,” Leah ordered, her mouth seizing his.

Too late, Nick realized he was in bed with that most voracious and fascinating of creatures, the near-virgin. Leah had lost her reputation when she’d run off with Frommer, but she had by no means had her curiosity appeased. She was already deemed lost to propriety, and she’d been royally cheated of the pleasures such a sacrifice should have gained her. She was bent on making up for lost time, and Nick was the lucky, bedamned man in her bed when her passions slipped the leash.

“Leah.” He lifted up then rested his cheek against her temple, caging her with his body. “We are gobbling up our pleasures. Can’t I savor you for just a bit?”

“This is as much frustration as pleasure,” she said, accusation in her tone, and Nick considered she might not like that she wanted him, but she wasn’t going to lie about it or linger over it.

“You will be more comfortable soon,” he promised, wishing the same could be said for himself as he shifted carefully to his side. “Let me touch you now. Your only job is to enjoy it, or tell me to stop if you don’t like it.”

Leah nodded against the pillows, her expression guarded and impatient.

“Close your eyes.” Nick leaned over to nuzzle her neck. “And keep them closed, the better to focus on my touch.” He ran his nose the length of her collarbone, and God’s unmentionables, she smelled divine. “Your skin is the softest thing I’ve felt in ages. Every inch of you begs to be stroked, handled, nibbled, and caressed. I need more hands, the better to enjoy you.”

He went on like that, half musing to himself, touching her with languid indulgence as he spoke, his tone admiring and his touch purely reverent. She was exquisite, she was passionate, and she was his to pleasure and protect.

Truly, truly, seducing his countess this way was his very best idea ever.

This is how he does it, Leah thought in some detached portion of her mind. This is how Nick Haddonfield charms his way into any woman’s bed, offering her all the pretty words and pleasurable touches she’s always craved, as if he could read her most secret, unacknowledged thoughts or see into her heart.

He must have sensed the direction of her thoughts, because he chose then—right then—to drift his mouth down over her throat, pausing to push his tongue against the pulse at the side of her neck. He nuzzled the juncture of her neck and shoulder then curled lower against her, so his cheek rested on her sternum.

“Your breasts,” he whispered, “are so lovely, so beautifully, abundantly womanly. I am aroused just looking at them, Leah, and now, you are going to let me touch you, touch your breasts.”

She’d been peeking, watching him in the dim firelight, but when he announced this intention, she closed her eyes and held her breath.

“Or maybe,” Nick mused, “I’ll simply taste you and indulge one of my most fervent wishes.” He let several beats of silence go by, looking at her, no doubt, and then Leah felt a little warm flick against her nipple. The sensation returned, soft, wet, warm, and then cool.

Her hands threaded through his hair, and without her intending it, Leah’s back arched, and she offered herself to his mouth again.

“You like that,” Nick concluded, pleasure in his voice. “I like it too, lovey.” He got down to business, settling his mouth over her nipple and introducing her to the use of a skilled tongue on a very sensitive part of a lady’s body. When he finally drew on her, Leah heard a small, helpless moan escape her throat and knew the urge to clutch at him—his hair, his head, his shoulders, any part of him, just to convey her desperation.

He shifted again on the bed, crouching over her, and Leah found that helped her growing sense of restless unease. When he used his mouth on her breasts, it stirred feelings beneath the pit of her stomach.

And they weren’t comfortable feelings, either. This was arousal; she didn’t have a lot of experience with it, but recognized it, and both marveled and cringed at its intensity.

But twining through the arousal was something darker, an empty ache, a forlorn, homesick quality that was anxious, needy, and unwelcome. Having Nick once again over her, surrounding her with his weight and scent and muscle, helped with that hollow ache.

She arched up again, wanting to be closer to him. The hard length of his arousal, clearly evident through his breeches, brushed against her stomach before Nick could crouch back out of range.

“Don’t do that,” she muttered, her fingers going to his falls. “Let yourself touch me.”

“I want to lose these breeches, but you mustn’t look,” Nick admonished, humor warring with sternness in his voice. “Promise me, Leah.”

“You are worrying for nothing, Nicholas,” Leah said, her fingers stroking over his hair. “I am not a virgin, and you have assured me we will not copulate, in any case. But if it’s important to you,” Leah whispered in his ear, “then I will not press you on this, particularly when my interest in lengthy discussions is not now at its greatest.” She kissed his cheek, and Nick let out a sigh.

“You are hairy,” she went on, her lips pressed to his throat. “Like a golden lion. I like that you are different from me.”

And she wasn’t done with him. He wanted intimacy, and by heavens, she’d oblige him.

“But your chest is smooth, with only a little hair on your stomach. I wonder”—Leah’s tone became teasing—“if your body is as sensitive as mine.” She recalled her previous interest in his nipples, only this time, she angled her body so she could get her mouth over one of his.

“I am your willing servant.” No lazy seduction warmed his words. They sounded tight, bitten off.

“Take your breeches off, Nicholas. Please.” Leah planted one hand on the small of his back and eased it under his waistband, a suggestion of the pleasure he’d feel were her hands anchored on his muscular fundament.

“No peeking,” he admonished.

She peeked as he rolled to his back, unfastened about half the buttons on his falls, and jerked the last of his clothes from his body. They joined Leah’s nightclothes at the foot of the bed, and then Nick was positioned back over her, giving her no opportunity to inspect what he was so intent on keeping from her view, the dratted man.

She would not suffer him to frustrate her curiosity entirely. “Closer, Nicholas, let me feel you.”

Tentatively, he gave her contact with his chest then wrapped his arms around her and held her to him, a sort of static body caress that let his tremendous heat seep into Leah’s joints and bones.

It helped, to be this close to him, and it tormented to know he would not join with her. The greater torment was Leah’s sense that Nick hadn’t been honest with her regarding his reasons for his self-enforced limits.

“So is this what you wanted?” Leah asked when Nick eased his hold and shifted off to her side. “Is this what we’ll share besides a passing nod on the dance floor?”

“Not quite,” Nick murmured, shifting to his side. “There’s a bit more.”

Leah yawned, slid a hand down over his buttocks. She didn’t come right out and tell him to be about it, though she gently squeezed a handful of taut male muscle.

“You trust me?” Nick asked, brushing the hair back from her forehead.

To break her heart and keep her safe while he did it. She squeezed him again. “In bed, I trust you.”

“Spread your legs a little,” Nick suggested, his hand stroking the center of her chest. “You’ll be more comfortable, and please recall”—he pressed a kiss to each of her closed eyes in turn—“you are to relax and not peek and trust me.”

He covered her mouth with his, and while his tongue teased at hers and slipped over the heat of her mouth, that hand shifted to gently caress each breast. He palmed the weight of each one, glided his fingers teasingly over her nipples, and gave her just the weight of his hand resting over her. Leah arched up, trying to inspire him to greater activity, but he growled a warning and let his hand drift down over her ribs, then her stomach.