He moved his fingers firmly, deftly against her, and she gasped. “Do you want me here, Empress?”

She closed her eyes in embarrassment, biting her lower lip.

“Are you aching for me here?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Poor, sweet love.” His words were liquid fire against her ear as he slipped one arm of her jacket off and pushed aside her croissard, gaining access to the buttons of her breeches. Sliding a warm hand inside the fabric, he coaxed another sigh from her as he met the soft down of her sex. Parting the slick folds there, one finger pushed inside the heat. “Here?”

She gasped, grasping his forearm with her hand.

He growled low in his throat as he watched her attempt to understand the feelings coursing through her. When he spoke, his voice was rough with his own response. “I think you want more than that.”

His fingers began to move against her as he set his mouth to the straining tip of one breast, and Callie lost the ability to think. He stroked against her pulsing flesh, nudging her legs wider, gaining access to her slick heat. One finger circled the very center of her, and she writhed against him, uncertain of the emotions roiling through her. The movement of his firm, knowing hands—in perfect tandem with the lush pull of his mouth—pushed her further and further toward a precipice she couldn’t identify. Pleasure spiked as he found the soft, wet place where the world seemed to end, and she cried out as he stroked there, pushing her higher and higher.

She tensed as waves of pleasure washed over her in concert with his movements, and he felt the change in her. He released her breast, plundering her mouth, stroking with tongue and teeth, drugging her with his kiss before pulling away and meeting her gaze, and noting the confusion and passion mingling there. He inserted a finger deep within her, and she gasped, the coiled tension deep within her, threatening to release.

He set his lips to her ear, whispering, “Let go, my lovely…”

She turned to him at the words, seeing ripe understanding in his eyes as the finger inside her was joined by a second, thrusting rhythmically, as he circled the core of her faster, more firmly, as though he knew just where she ached, just where she needed his touch. She cried out at the wave of feeling—like nothing she’d ever felt before.

“I will catch you when you fall.” The words, liquid with passion, were her undoing.

He held her gaze as she plunged over the edge, clinging to him.

She throbbed beneath his touch, writhing against him, begging for more even as he gave it to her. His fingers moved inside her, knowing just how to touch, where to stroke, when to flex. And when he had wrung the last, pulsing movement from her, had captured the last of her cries with his firm lips, he did catch her, his knowing hands guiding her safely back to his arms, back to earth.

He held her as she regained her senses, his lips brushing against her temple, his hands stroking her back and arms and legs gently. When her breathing returned to normal, Callie dropped her hands from around his neck, allowing her wounded arm to rest on him again. Ralston hissed as her hand settled on his lap, and he quickly grabbed her hand and lifted it away from him.

Recognizing only that he had moved her hand from where it had touched him, Callie became immediately insecure. Ralston instantly understood her uncertainty. Placing a warm kiss on her now-clenched hand, he met her wounded gaze, and said, “It’s rather difficult to watch such a thoroughly enthralling display of passion and not be moved, lovely.”

Her concern turned to confusion and he pressed her hand to the outside of his breeches, allowing her access to the hard ridge of him. Understanding dawned and, though she blushed, she did not pull her hand away from the heat of him. Instead, she tentatively pressed against him, reveling in his soft groan of response, and in the way he held her hand to his body. “Can—” She swallowed, then tried again, “Can I…do something?”

One side of his mouth kicked up in a pained smile before he pulled her to him and kissed her again, not stopping until she was clinging to him once more, breathless with excitement. “While I would like nothing more than for you to do something, Empress, I think we have done rather too much as it is, considering someone could enter at any time.”

The words shook her from her reverie like a splash of ice water. Her attention flew to the door—unlocked—just waiting for another fencer to make the same mistake she had and to stumble upon them.

“Oh!” She leapt up, wincing at the pain that shot through her arm at the movement. Stuffing her free arm into the sleeve of the ruined jacket, she turned away from him and hurried to the far corner of the room, working on the long row of buttons fastening the garment. What had she been thinking?

She hadn’t, of course, been thinking of anything but him.

“You seem to have forgotten a critical piece of your disguise.”

She whirled toward the lazy words to find him walking calmly toward her, running the length of linen that had flattened her br**sts between his fingers. As he closed in on her, he whispered, “No one will believe you’re a man with those gorgeous br**sts left to their own devices. Frankly, no one should believe it with your magnificent—”

“Thank you,” she said firmly, staying his words, ignoring the wash of heat on her cheeks and taking the linen from his hands.

“You’ll need my help, lovely.”

No. She couldn’t allow him such an intimate task. She would simply have to risk discovery—Benedick’s coat allowed a modicum of coverage. Unwittingly, she looked down at herself, as though measuring the obviousness of her cle**age.