The moment tilted from overly emotional to intensely erotic in the space of an instant as he gathered her close and crawled up onto the bed, pulling her beneath him.
He was a remarkably self-contained man, her husband…until he wasn’t.
His kisses began as soft as prayers and then built in power and demand as his grip on his own control became less tenuous. Hot glides of his tongue became deep, mating dances with her answering passions.
She melted beneath him, and he filled her spaces with the force of his ardor.
A voice inside urged her to let go of the brittle, desperate edge she’d been clinging to, realizing it was safe. She wouldn’t fall. No, she’d join him here, to dance among the clouds.
His kiss contained so many things they’d still left unsaid. So many parts of his fractured being. He was at once the Knight of Shadows. A man possessed of unmerciful darkness, devouring her with breath-stealing intensity. And so, too, was he the Chief Inspector, assessing and observant as he brushed his lips across hers, creating delicious friction with his mouth, evoking an ache in her sex that demanded satisfaction.
And maybe the thief was here with her, threatening to steal her heart, even the parts of it she was still afraid to give. There was the sense of marvelous reverence in his touch, a bit of disbelief that belonged to the youth he’d been, the one unused to any kindness or affection.
Though she felt a fervency in him, he lingered over her mouth, kissing her with slow, languorous efficiency and tantalizing promise.
For the first time, he kissed her as if he should be doing nothing else. As if his mind was empty of naught but this moment. And the next. As if they were immortals who might go on kissing for a hundred years and never tire of it.
And, indeed, she wished it were so.
If ever there was a moment in need of prolonging, it was this one.
And yet…a pressure built within her that urged her legs apart so he could settle his big body between them. The barrel of his erection ground against her between the impediments of their clothing, and she was suddenly anxious to be rid of them.
She wanted all of his skin next to hers. All of his heat and his need and his sex.
As if reading her mind, he broke the kiss, lifting away from her only to tackle the placket of tiny buttons that stretched from her chin to her waist.
He made it to her clavicles before ripping the garment open, and lowering back to swallow her faint protestations with more distracting kisses.
“I’ll buy you a dozen bodices,” he whispered against her mouth. “If you only let me tear them from you each night.”
Appeased, she let him unwrap her like a present, releasing this strap, undoing that ribbon, unclasping a hook. His mouth explored every inch he uncovered as if finding it for the first time.
Her chemise caught beneath her swollen, tender breasts as he dragged it up, and she felt them pop free with a little bounce before he swiped it over her head and tossed it somewhere on the floor.
“You are so beautiful,” he groaned.
“So are you,” she replied with breathless candor.
His smile was touched with chagrin as, instead of reaching for her breasts, he lifted his fingers to her hair, deftly searching the plait for pins, pulling them from a head she hadn’t known was aching until the pressure had ceased.
He returned to kissing her with new depth and untried angles as his fingers wended through the braid, unspooling it softly until her hair fell in soft waves down her bare back.
Questing fingers slid up her spine, thrilling her to the core and mingling a shivering chill with the answering heat of need.
No longer willing to stay dormant, Prudence slid her arms around him, sinking her fingers into the heavy, lambent locks of his neatly trimmed hair before lowering them to tug at his collar.
His fingers lifted to help, and their hands tangled in a newfound haste to divest each other of the trappings of their garments.
Once they’d wrestled themselves naked, he climbed up her body like a cat, laying her back beneath him as he pressed a muscled thigh dusted with golden hair between her legs.
They spoke in smiles and sighs as she tested the taut ridges of muscle at his ribs, and down over his corrugated abdomen to reach for the hard and tender flesh below. She still