“That’s a fine accusation coming from you, you hypocrite!”

“I’m not a hypocrite. I’ve been honest with everyone, including Natalie. I’m not pretending to be in love. I don’t pretend to want her the way I want you.”

Hannah froze, staring at him in astonished silence. That he should admit it …

She realized she was breathing much too fast, and so was he. Her fingers curled over his sleeves, against his hard-muscled forearms. She wasn’t certain if her grip was exerted to keep him close or hold him away.

“Tell me you’re in love with him,” Bowman said.

Hannah couldn’t speak.

More soft insistence. “Then say you desire him. You should feel that much for him, at least.”

A tremor ran all through her, spreading to the tips of her fingers and toes. She took the deepest breath possible, and managed a thin reply. “I don’t know.”

His expression changed, an odd half-smile coming to his lips, his eyes hot and predatory. “You don’t know how to tell if you desire a man, sweetheart? I can help you with that.”

“That kind of help,” Hannah said with asperity, “I do not need.” She stiffened as he brought her closer, his big hands sliding from her elbows to hook beneath her arms. Her pulse had gone wild, heat thrumming in every part of her.

He bent to kiss her. She made a halfhearted attempt to wriggle away, causing his mouth to catch at her cheek instead of her lips. Bowman didn’t appear to mind. He seemed amenable to kissing any part of her he could reach, her cheeks, chin, jaw, the lobe of her ear. Hannah went still, panting as the kisses slid and skimmed over her hot face. She closed her eyes as she felt his lips catch at hers. Another soft, glancing brush, and another, and finally he closed his mouth over hers, deep and secure.

He tasted her with his tongue, searching slowly, and the voluptuous sensation blotted out every thought or flicker of reason. One arm went around her, and his head turned, and he kissed her more urgently. His free hand came up to her jaw, cradling and angling her face. He withdrew just enough to play with her, the fever-glazed caresses of his mouth coaxing her into openness, licking into the vulnerable heat.

The trembling grew worse, insidious pleasure melting through her like boiling sugar. As he tried to soothe her, the tender parts of her body began to throb beneath her clothes, all the laces and seams and stays cinching and clinging with maddening tightness. She struggled a little, chafing against the artificial restrictions. He seemed to understand. His lips left hers, his warm breath fanning the curve of her ear as his fingers went to her bodice. She heard her own moan of relief as she felt him unfastening her collar, and his reassuring whispers that he would take care of her, he would never hurt her, she must relax and trust him, relax…all this while his hand moved stealthily along her front, tugging and unfastening.

He kissed her again, a burning velvet caress that caused her knees to give out entirely. But the slow collapse didn’t seem to matter, he was holding her securely and lowering her to the carpeted floor. She found herself sprawled half across him while he knelt amid the abundant rumples of her dress. Her garments had fallen in perplexing disarray, buttons undone and skirts riding up. She made a dazed attempt to restore something, cover something, but the way he kissed her made it impossible to think. He gently arranged her beneath him, his arm a hard support beneath her neck. She relaxed helplessly as his wicked mouth took hers over and over, feasting on the taste of her.

“The sweetest skin …” he whispered, kissing her throat, easing her bodice open. “Let me see you, Hannah love …” He pulled at the top of her chemise, exposing a pale breast that had been pushed full and high by her underbust corset. It was then that Hannah comprehended that she was on the floor with him, and he was uncovering parts of her that no man had ever seen.

“WaitI shouldn’tyou shouldn’t” But her protest was silenced as he bent over the plush curve, his lips closing over a cold stiffening nipple. Her throat hummed with a low whimper as his tongue swept over her in raw-velvet strokes.

“Rafe,” she moaned, the first time she had ever said his name, and he let out a shaking breath and cupped both her br**sts.

His voice was deep and rough. “I wanted this the first time I met you. I watched you sitting there with that little teacup in your hand, and I couldn’t stop wondering what you tasted like here…and here …” He suckled each breast in turn, his hands coasting over her writhing body.

“Rafe,” she gasped. “Please, I can’t”

“No one’s here,” he whispered against her prickling flesh. “No one will know. Hannah, sweet love…let me touch you. Let me show you how it feels to want someone as much as I want you …”

And he waited for her answer, breathing against her quivering skin, a warm hand covering her breast. She couldn’t seem to keep entirely still, her knees flexing, her hips rising in answer to a deep, demanding pulse. She was saturated with sweetness and shame and need. She would never have him, she knew that. His life was set on a far different path from hers. He was forbidden. Perhaps that was the reason for this reckless attraction.

Before she quite knew it, she had reached up and guided his head to hers. He responded immediately, taking her mouth in a ravishing, hard-plundering kiss. His hands slipped beneath her clothes, finding tender pale skin, caressing in ways that made her shiver. A muffled cry escaped her as she felt him pulling at the tapes of her drawers. He touched her taut stomach, a fingertip circling her navel. His hand slid over soft curls, cupped her sex, and gently parted her thighs. She felt herself being stroked, petted, lightly spread, his touch careful and clever as if he were drawing a pattern on a frosted window. Except that the surface beneath his fingertips was not icy glass but soft living skin, flushed and burning with desperate sensation.