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happened?’

      ‘They were burnt.’

      ‘When you were cooking?’

      Smiling at his assumption, she knew that she could not give Asher even one more lie. But there was something that she could give him. Something precious.

      Herself.

      Lifting her hands to the ties at her bodice, she unlaced the ribbon and simply stepped out of her shift, nipples puckering hard in the sudden cold.

      ‘Lord.’ Asher breathed in, and the sensual haze in his eyes took the breath from her body in one heavy hit.

      ‘You once suggested a dalliance and I turned you down. I have come to think that was a mistake.’

      She cursed the shiver that ran through her words and desperately wondered what was supposed to happen next. The growing thickness of his manhood was plainly seen, though she could not quite bring herself to lean down and open his laces. No, whilst she always swam in the nude and slept in the nude and was rarely hampered by society’s penchant for undergarments, the pleasuring of a man was something she had only seen at a distance in the brothels of many a dockside port.

      Wetting her lips with her tongue, she tried to remember the less bold moves of the doxies who haunted the drinking houses between Savannah la Mar and Kingston and with precision ran her hand across her stomach and lower, gently swaying her hips in the way Molly’s girls did in the Golden Hind, a favourite drinking hole of her father’s.

      And now what?

      A sudden fright consumed her. Would he be gentle? Worse, would he refuse her?

      Asher saw the panic in her eyes before she closed them, turquoise bright and shaded by some emotion he could not quite fathom. What game did she play at? Would someone discover them and insist that he do the right thing by her and offer marriage? Marriage? To a woman who posed as a lady, acted the harlot and had the body of an angel. His eyes skimmed across her breasts. Her waist was tiny and the long length of her legs gave her a grace that was…breathtaking. Lord, even at the salons of the select courtesans in London she would be exceptional, the tattoo on her breast and the scar on her thigh adding layers of mystery.

      Lady Emma Seaton? Nothing about her quite added up but the sum total of all that she was drove him to the edge of reason.

      He felt like locking her up at Falder where no other man would ever touch her again—she was his woman, damn it.

      His woman?

      The sheer possessiveness of the thought egged him on and he felt his rising lust as a power.

      ‘Come.’ He did not move at all, but waited as she walked forward into his arms, his erection hard against her stomach, pressing, eager, ready. When he shrugged out of his shirt, she touched the bandage gently, the pale gilt of her curls whisper soft against his cheek.

      ‘Is it sore?’

      Shaking his head, he removed his trousers and reached out to the curve of her waist and then lower.

      Emerald felt the first push of his fingers in a place no man had touched before. Careful. Warm. Certain.

      So this was it.

      This was what she had heard of for ever.

      ‘Asher?’ She breathed his name as a quicksilver pain pierced her inside.

      She would not stop him.

      Payment.

      Repayment.

      Her repayment.

      The guilt torn from her very soul made her still.

      ‘Open for me, sweetheart.’ The command was whispered and underlined by a quick movement. And when she did, the shards of gold in his eyes glowed against a darker brown. Triumph, conquest and elation mixed with desire.

      The thick-cut pile of an Aubusson carpet beneath her back was warm as he laid her down and opened her thighs, his sex seeking an entrance, finding the pathway.

      ‘I have not—’

      He covered her mouth with his own and took away the words, his tongue mimicking the quiet thrust of his hips and her whole world exploded into pain. And then he was still. Desperately still.

      ‘Lord. You’re a virgin!’ Rising above her, sweat beaded his brow and upper lip, the lines of his face softer now as tenderness stretched across desire. She tried to still him by holding her hands across his back, the firmness of muscle cut by ridged scars.

      ‘Ahh, sweetheart. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

      The message was plain as his hooded glance sharpened, refocused, and she made to move out from underneath him.

      ‘No, Emma. Give it a moment and the pain will pass.’ He moved just slightly.

      ‘It hurts.’

      ‘I know. I know.’

      He moved again. Forward this time. Deeper as he brought one arm beneath her back and tilted her hips. She felt the very hardness of him against her womb.

      Kissing her gently, he nuzzled at her neck and ear. The cold trail of tongue across her nipple and fire consumed her. Without meaning to, she rocked forward. It was all he was waiting for, the pain less now as another feeling climbed. Higher. Closer.

      ‘Come with me,’ he murmured and, pulling her arms above her head with one hand, he turned her, the rhythm different, less known. A pause here. A deeper thrust there. His free hand held her bottom tight and he buried himself in her to the very hilt.

      Up and up and up and over, the clenching waves of ecstasy made her jolt. Once, twice, more and more and more.

      Spent, she lay lifeless and did not protest as Asher gathered her in his arms and laid her head upon his chest. Lying there in his shelter and listening to his heart while the wind gathered outside and chased clouds across the moon, she wished that time might just stop. Here. Now. For ever.

      But the world ran on in the heavy chime of a clock and when his hand dropped she felt again the quick punch of sensuality.

      ‘I still want you.’ His words were quiet and the look in his eyes was sensuous, the scent of their lovemaking musky in the air. ‘Do you want me? Again?’

      When she nodded, he carefully rolled over and bent his elbows to her side to shelter her from his weight. The touch of his thumb against her breast was questioning; as her nipples hardened she pressed into his hand, her breath shallowed and waiting.

      She was cold and he warmed her. She was hot and he cooled her. He was of her and she was of him and there seemed no place that they were separate or solitary in the heady secrets of the flesh.

      And when he had finished he brought her up into his arms and walked across to his bed, gently laying her down and bringing up the sheets before joining her.

      Smoothing back the damp curliness of her hair, he grinned. The golden lights in his eyes were easily seen and he looked younger and happier. ‘We will be married as soon as the banns have been read. I swear it.’

      Marriage!

      God.

      As who?

      As Emerald Sandford?

      She was pleased that he did not notice her confusion or her withdrawal as she lay there, listening to his breathing deepen into sleep.

      How long would it be before Asher started to put the pieces together properly? Closing her eyes, she gritted her teeth. She could not tell him. He was an honourable man, a man who took his responsibilities seriously. And here she was, another responsibility, a woman whom he would feel bound to marry just because they had slept together.

      Marriage.

      In the circles she had mixed in, even the notion would seem ludicrous. But her father’s crowd had never had the sort of moral fibre Asher Wellingham

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