“Gabriel,” she keened, “I need—”

“I know,” he breathed against her ear, “I know what you need. Take it.”

“I can’t—”

“Yes, you can.”

And then he placed his thumb at the core of her once more, pressing and stroking while he thrust deep and fast, and the combination of sensations was too much. The tension that had been slowly mounting threatened to spiral out of control, to consume everything in its path, including her thought and sanity. She cried out his name and arched against him, afraid of what was about to happen—unwilling to shy away from it.

He captured her wild gaze with his own. “Look at me, Empress. I want to see you come undone. I want to watch you go over the edge with me.”

“I can’t—I—I don’t know—how.” She thrashed her head from one side to the other, panting out the words.

“We shall discover it together.”

And they did. The coiled tension within her was set free, and she convulsed around him, her muscles tightening around him in a perfect prison, milking him with sweet, unbearable rhythm. She cried out his name, scoring his shoulders with her fingernails as she grabbed hold of him, and he watched her come unraveled.

And then, only then, once she had found her pleasure, did he take his own, calling out as he followed her over the edge with a force he had never before experienced. He collapsed onto her, his chest heaving in unison with her own as he attempted to regain his strength.

He lay there for a long moment, until his breathing stabilized, and he had the wherewithal to lift himself on strong arms and look down at her. Taking in her flushed, pleasure-dampened skin, her sated smile, and heavy-lidded eyes, Ralston was struck by realization.

He’d never experienced anything like this…anything like her. He’d never been with a woman so open and free…never known someone so willing to give and receive and embrace passion with such a powerful will. He’d never known anyone like her. His eyes raked over body, naked and beautiful and bathed in the golden, flickering firelight. She was wrapped around him in every way imaginable, and all he could think of was taking her again. Immediately. Of course, she must be sore…

The thought washed over him like a cold wave.

My God, she’d been a virgin.

What had he been thinking? Virgins deserved better, for God’s sake. Not that he’d ever been in the situation before, but he was certain they deserved poetry and roses and at least a proper bed. Not a chaise longue in a men’s club.

My God. She’d been a virgin and he’d treated her like a common—

He shook his head at the thought, unwilling to allow himself even to finish the sentence in his mind. He was consumed by self-loathing as he considered what he’d done. She’d trusted him. And he’d taken advantage of her. At Brooks’s, for Christsakes. My God. What had he done?

He blanched at the thought.

She noticed. “Is something wrong?”

The words brought him back to the moment, and he found it difficult to meet her eyes. Instead, he placed a gentle kiss on one of her shoulders and sat up, ignoring the sense of loss that coursed through him as he disentangled himself from her warm, willing body.

He began to dress, noting when, after several long moments of watching him, Callie moved to do the same. He tried not to look at her, but found himself unable to resist when she turned to face away from him and pull on her breeches. His palms itched to touch her, to gather her against him and, once more, feel her softness cradling the hard angles of his body. Pulling himself from his reverie, he set to work on his cravat as she pulled on her shirt, forgoing her bindings.

She turned to search for her waistcoat and met his gaze briefly. He could not help but register the sadness in her eyes. She already regretted what they had done.

Leaning down, he lifted the length of linen that she had ignored, running it through his fingers. “Do you need this?”

“No,” she said softly. “Your greatcoat is large enough to hide me…” She paused before adding, “That, and I promised I wouldn’t bind them again.”

The words, along with the erotic power they had carried earlier that evening, echoed between them, reminding him of his unforgivable behavior. She turned away from him as he said, “So you did.”

He wrapped the linen into a small bundle and tucked it inside his waistcoat before leaning to retrieve his topcoat from the floor. As he did, he noted the square of paper that lay beneath it—the list that had set them on this wild course.

He straightened, opening his mouth to offer her the paper, but stopping just short of sound when he realized that she remained resolutely faced away from him, her back straight, shoulders squared as though she were about to do battle as she calmly inserted pins into her hair, restoring it to its original state.

For some reason, he did not want to mention her silly list. Instead, he tucked the wrinkled square into his pocket and waited for her to face him again.

Several minutes later, she did, and he was struck by the emotion in her eyes, liquid with unshed tears. In the face of her sadness, he felt like an utter ass. Swallowing, he searched for the right thing to say. He could see that she was waiting for him to speak, to say the words that would redeem him…the words that would stop the tears that threatened to spill over.

He wanted to say the right thing. He might not have been able to repair the damage he had done with his unthinking, callous behavior, but he certainly could behave the gentleman going forward. And so, he said the thing that he imagined gentlemen said in such a situation. The thing that he was certain women wanted to hear in such a situation. The thing that was sure to stop her tears.