If he did not touch her soon, she was going to perish.

Isabel opened her eyes at the question. Utterly distracted by the path of his hands, caressing her thighs in the most maddening of ways. “Yes. Let’s.” He made quick work of the tapes on her pantaloons and slid one hand inside, widening her legs and brushing his fingers over the heated core of her.

“Good. I do not think that I can wait much longer to have you here.”

“No—” The word was exhaled on a breath as he slid one finger into her.

“I am so glad you feel the same way.” The words, so innocuous, coursed through her like liquid fire on the heels of a long, stroking caress that robbed her of intelligent thought. She let go of the statue and clung to him, and, without removing his hand, he lifted her in his arms and moved her to the bay window where he had shown her such pleasure the day before. This time, he did not sit, instead settling her into the seat and kneeling before her on the floor.

She was on fire. She craved his touch.

This was the emotion that marked the end of women. This was what ruined them.

She must resist it. Him.

She opened her eyes, meeting his molten gaze. “Wait.”

His fingers stroked slowly inside her. “Yes?”

She flexed against the remarkable movement, taking a deep breath and willing herself to remember what she had been about to say. “I just … you should know … I cannot love you.”

“No?” His thumb rubbed a wicked circle around the spot that she had only discovered yesterday.

She gasped. “I think I could grow very fond of you, though.”

He laughed then, low and dark, his free hand sliding her skirts up her legs. “I think I could do the same.”

“But really … I shan’t …” He spread her legs wide then, baring her flesh to the air and the room and his gaze. “Wait … what are you … you cannot!” She struggled to close her thighs, capturing his hand between them, and clasped her skirts, trying to push them down to hide herself from him. He could not possibly want to look at her there.

“Isabel.” He drawled her name in a lovely, rich caress.

She stopped. “Yes? ”

He leaned forward then, capturing her lips in a deep promise of a kiss. When she grew weak in his arms once more, he pulled back, placing a soft final kiss at the corner of her mouth before whispering, “Trust me, darling. You’re going to like me very much after this.”

He gently parted her thighs again, running his strong, knowing hands along the soft skin there. When he dipped his head and placed a soft, wet kiss at the inside of her knee, and traced a path up the smooth, pale skin of her inner thigh, Isabel covered her eyes in embarrassment that he would be so close to such a private, secret place. His fingers played at the auburn curls covering the center of her sex, sending wave after wave of temptation through her with the merest hint of a touch.

Finally, she uncovered her eyes, and met the sensual promise in his heated gaze. “That’s what I was waiting for. Never hide from me, beauty.”

He parted the slick folds of her sex then, stroking one finger down the center of her, her pulse racing from the feel of him against her.

He leaned closer, and when he spoke, the words were a wicked lash against her heated, wanting flesh. “You are so beautiful here. I want to know every inch of you. I want to feel every bit of your heat.” His finger circled the straining center of her, the perfect pressure of the caress wringing a cry from her.

“Do you know how much I want to taste you?”

Her eyes widened at the words. Surely he couldn’t mean … surely he wouldn’t…

And then he did.

His mouth was on her and her body was no longer her own, but entirely his. She gasped at the sensation, plunging her fingers into his soft sable hair, not moving, not wanting to push him away, not willing to pull him closer.

But he knew what she wanted. His mouth loved her in every possible way, his tongue stroking through the moist heat of her, licking at the very heart of her, teasing at her core in lush, brilliant circles that she was not sure she could bear. He pushed her higher and higher, opening wider, feasting upon her until she thought she might die from the pleasure of it. She lifted her hips toward him and he accepted the movement, bearing her weight as his tongue found the swollen, aching center of her pleasure in a series of firm strokes that stole her breath entirely.

She did pull him to her then, unwilling to give up this impossible, extraordinary sensation and the man who was sending it coursing through her body. The movements increased, the speed threatening her sanity as she cried his name.

He stopped then, for a long, unbearable moment, and she could not bear it. She squirmed, but his firm grip held her still, his mouth and tongue against her in excruciating stillness. He was killing her.

“Nick—” she whispered, “please … please don’t stop!”

He rewarded her begging with blessed movement, closing his lips around the tight, swollen nub of her and sucking, robbing her of thought and breath and leaving her only with sensation.

The feeling was too much to bear. “No … Nick … stop …”

But his wicked, knowing mouth spared her no quarter, instead licking faster, stroking deeper, and, finally, he thrust one, then two fingers deep into her, coaxing her closer and closer to the unknown precipice that she was hurtling toward—the one that she both feared and desired.

And then she was there, at the edge, and his mouth and hands and the satisfied growl deep in his throat were everywhere—and she tumbled over the edge on a wave of pleasure like nothing she had ever known. She cried his name as the room spun around them, clenching her fingers in his hair, clinging to the one stable thing in the maelstrom of sensation.