“I have to taste you.” With one swift movement, he put his hands to her chemise and wrenched. The silk parted as sweetly as a sliced peach falls in two.

“Gabriel!” she cried, but she could tell he didn’t even hear her. He was looking intently at her breasts, his eyes blazing.

In his hands, her breasts didn’t look too small. They didn’t look as if they needed bosom friends to plump them up. They looked lush and round, exactly the right shape.

Then he bent his dark head and she felt the touch of his lips on her breast. She’d seen it in Aretino’s pictures—men suckling women as if they were babes in arms. She had wrinkled her nose and turned the page, convinced that the Italian was depicting some sort of ludicrous perversion.

But at the touch of Gabriel’s mouth she felt a surge of pleasure that was unlike anything she’d felt in her life. She couldn’t breathe, and a cry came from her throat. Gabriel sucked harder and a thumb rubbed across her other nipple; Kate’s mind went completely blank and her body arched up, a moan breaking from her lips.

“I knew it,” he whispered roughly. He raised his head just long enough for her to see the mad exultation in his eyes. “I—” But his words were lost as he lavished attention on her neglected breast. And for her part, Kate had no ability to shape words, no power to do anything other than writhe under him, gasping.

When he raised his head again her body was throbbing, the blood singing through her legs. “Gabriel,” she whispered.

He returned to her mouth, kissing her punishingly, making her arch against him, lost in a firestorm of sensation and desire.

When she broke away, she knew perfectly well that her will was sapped, the whole practical side of her dismissed, as if it didn’t exist. “Please let me move,” she begged huskily, her eyes wandering over his chest . . . the chest she hadn’t been able to touch because her arms were still trapped by her gown.

He moved back without a word, but she saw the way he was struggling to draw in air.

With a swift movement Kate swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. She shrugged her arms from the sleeves of her dress, but held it to her waist, letting his hot eyes appreciate her.

“What’s fit for the goose is fit for the gander,” she told him, a smile stealing over her lips.

His eyes widened and she slowly, slowly let the gown drop to the floor. Gabriel had ripped her chemise to the waist, so she pulled it off her shoulders, but didn’t let it fall, holding it to her breasts, pulling it slowly past her nipples, shuddering at the feeling of silk rubbing parts made tender by his mouth.

Gabriel made a movement, as if he were about to fling himself off the bed, but she stopped him with one glance.

“You undressed yourself,” she said, letting one hand slide from her collarbone, down over the curve of her right breast, down to the frail silk of her chemise as it clung to her hips.

“Please,” he said hoarsely.

Kicking her gown away from her feet, she turned her back on him and saucily walked over to the table. “You look a little hot, Your Highness. Perhaps the fan will help.”

Picking up the fan he had handed her a few hours ago, she sauntered back toward the bed. “I always use it when I’m overheated,” she crooned, flipping it open and fanning her face. Then a bit lower, her breasts. A bit lower . . . Her chemise rippled in the breeze.

“I don’t know why it is,” she said, “but I seem to be uncommonly overheated at the moment.”

“Kate,” Gabriel said, his voice a groan. “You’re no virgin. Tell me you’re not a virgin.”

Her smile slipped, and the fan fell to the floor.

Gabriel lunged off the bed as if he were possessed, jerking her into his arms. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

Kate tried to say something but the feeling of his body against hers had stolen her logic again, sent her into a storm of sensation and desire. His body was hard and demanding against her, delivering an unmistakable male demand that made her knees buckle.

“You’re a virgin; I know you’re a virgin and I respect that,” Gabriel was saying into her hair. “I would never imply otherwise, darling. It was just the cry of a man who was wishing that fate was different.”

She curled against his chest, feeling his heart thumping wildly. “You’re wishing that I was the hussy I feel like,” she whispered. Excitement curled tighter in her stomach. She raised her head to meet his eyes. “Tonight you’re just a man, remember?”

“I don’t know if I’ll survive this night,” he said raggedly.

A smile curved her lips and she broke free of his arms. “I hadn’t finished undressing. Are you planning to expire before that happens?”

“No,” he choked.

Somehow her poor chemise had clung to her hips. With a little wiggle, Kate sent it sliding down her legs, over the butter-colored hair that covered her most private area.

Then she raised her arms and pulled the last pins from her hair. It fell below her shoulders, ringlets and curls, thick and silky. She ran her fingers through it, shaking her locks free, enjoying the way her breasts rose in the air.

“You are so beautiful,” Gabriel growled, his voice little more than a thread of sound.

“I believe it’s time for a bath,” she said, turning her back on him. Then she paused and looked over her shoulder. “You did say that there was a bath prepared for me?”

He didn’t seem to be able to speak, but he leaped ahead of her and pulled away the velvet curtain that concealed his bathing area.

“How lovely!” Kate cried, seeing the huge iron tub full of gently steaming water, candles throwing golden specks of light over the velvet of the curtains, over the water, over her body.

She stepped forward and put in a toe, then, with a sigh of pure pleasure, relaxed into the curve of the tub, sweeping her hair behind her so that it hung over the edge.

The only sound in the room was the gentle plash of water and the harsh sound of Gabriel’s breathing. She couldn’t stop smiling. If she, Katherine Daltry, decided to be a wanton, she would be the best wanton this castle had ever seen.

“Soap,” she said, holding out her hand.

Gabriel put the ball in her hand without a word.

“Mmmm,” she said, sniffing it. “Apple blossom?”

“Orange blossom,” he said. His voice was dark and sinful.

She sat up just enough so that she could soap her left arm. “Shouldn’t you be getting dressed so that you can go back downstairs?” she asked. “I’m afraid everyone will be wondering where you are.”

His eyes were fixed on her hands as she soaped her right arm.

“Gabriel?” she inquired innocently, her hands straying to her breasts. “I’m sure you said that you would come and go. That was your plan, wasn’t it?”

His gaze was so hungry, so hot, that she was surprised the water didn’t evaporate. He cleared his throat. “Why don’t you finish washing, and then I’ll go. Unless you would like some assistance?”

She raised a leg from the bath and slowly, slowly washed her toes, letting her fingers stray up her leg.

“I suppose,” she said, stealing a glance at him under her lashes, “someone might help me with this other leg.”