to send tiny little spirals of sensation whorling outward from her loins to the farthest tips of her toes and fingers.
Worse, and worse again.
She should have heeded Biddy’s warning and stayed well clear of this creature of the forest. She never should have given way to her curiosity, never touched a hand to the hard, virile promise in his body, and never, never opened herself so greedily, so wantonly to the desires he roused in her. She should, by all rules of sanity and logic, be longing to see the last of him. Instead, she longed only to feel his hands roving hungrily over her body. She longed only to lie here in the steaming, mystic peace of the grotto, his hard body joined to hers, the texture of belly, hips, and thighs imprinted vividly on her flesh.
Moreover, she longed never to have to move from this place, never to have to discover any truths other than what she knew and felt to be irrefutable now and to her mind, forever.
But of course the dark head moved, as she knew it must, and the Wolf’s somber gaze sought hers through the glowing phosphorescence. He said nothing. In truth, he had said nothing—neither of them had—since she had taken her first tentative steps into the heated pool.
She suffered another mildly disconcerting shock as he bent his lips to hers and kissed her with tender thoroughness. When he released her, he did so on a sigh of feigned consternation.
“What am I to do with you now?” he asked quietly.
“Do?” she whispered, her eyes growing rounder and darker with alarm. “What more could you possibly do that you have not done already?”
The Wolf would have laughed if not for the suffocating pressure her words placed around his heart. He raised himself on his elbows and stared down at the bruised lushness of her mouth. Swollen and pink from his attentions, the sight was not kind on his composure. Nor was the damning residue of tears on her lashes, or the softly mottled flush that warmed the delectable plumpness of her breasts. And the mere thought of the fine golden hairs meshed with the coarser, blacker ones at his groin made it painfully clear there was little hope of regaining the cool indifference that had served him in their dealings thus far.
“Why is it I am left with the distinct impression you were a virgin in all but the strictest sense of the word?”
Servanne reddened, as much from the directness of the query as from the shivered response his voice triggered in her body.
“I … was not a virgin,” she insisted lamely.
“You were no longer in possession of your maidenhead,” he agreed, “But you were a virgin nonetheless.”
Servanne attempted to avert her head so she would not be forced to endure his mocking humour, but a resolute thumb tilted her chin back with ridiculous ease.
“Sir Hubert never bedded you?”
It was not so much a question as it was an expression of puzzled disbelief, and she could feel fresh tears welling along her lashes.
“He … never bedded me … like this,” she admitted haltingly.
Her words, and the ravaged emotions behind them, prompted the gray eyes to narrow and the Wolf to regard her in a new and disturbing light. Their bodies were so motionless, the surface of the water calmed to molten silver and the mist dared to venture close again, enveloping them in a creamy white veil.
“I did not miss the attention,” she explained in a rush, thinking his silence a request for such. “He was very kind and very good to me. A gentle, loving, and considerate husband in every other way. But … he was old, and … tired very easily. And … since I had no way of knowing … I mean, no way of judging … well, I did not know enough not to be content.”
“A woman’s logic,” he mused. “And you will have to forgive my ill-mannered curiosity for asking, but why did he not make other private arrangements for you?”
“Arrangements?” she asked, the warmth of only moments ago fading under an uncomfortable chill. “I was not aware my ignorance was such an offence.”
“No, little fool,” he said, smothering any hint of rebellion under the power of his lips. “I meant arrangements to insure you delivered him an heir.”
“A stud?” she gasped, shocked anew. “For breeding purposes!”
The Wolf shifted his weight forward to confine her outrage to a few halfhearted squirmings. “A man,” he said firmly. “For the purpose