She felt a tightening coil inside, a gathering urgency that drove her mad. Her own hand shook violently as she grasped his, and brought it to the damp tangle of curls between her thighs. He smiled against her breast, and moved to the other nipple, pulling it into the moist velvet of his mouth. Time seemed to stop as she felt his fingers searching delicately, parting the springy locks, then grazing over the wet, intricately couched peak of her sex. Ahhh …his caresses were gossamer-light as he stroked her with delicate insistence, first teasing, then assuaging, then teasing again, until she cried out in helpless release, her h*ps jerking hard against his hand.

Cuddling her protectively, Marcus caressed her quivering limbs. He whispered endearments against her half-open mouth, words of adoration and lust, while his hands moved over her body in reverent forays. Lillian wasn’t a ware of the exact moment when his touch became more arousing than soothing, but gradually she felt him layering sensation upon sensation. Her heartbeat launched into a new urgent pattern, and she shifted uneasily beneath him. He parted her legs and pushed her knees up a little, and entered her slowly. She flinched at the intimate soreness of the invasion. He was so hard, above her, inside her, that her flesh tightened instinctively, but nothing could stop the thick, heavy slide. He kept his thrusts easy and deep, nudging into the tight clasp of her sex with utter tenderness. Every movement seemed to draw a thrill of pleasure from the depths of her body, and soon she relaxed until the pain had tapered to a barely discernible twinge. She felt hot all over, feverish and desperate as she sensed the approach of another cl**ax. Suddenly he astonished her by withdrawing.

“Marcus,” she whimpered, “oh God, don’t stop, please—”

Hushing her with his mouth, he lifted and turned her carefully until she was lying on her stomach. Dazed and shaking, she felt him push a pillow beneath her hips, and then another, until she was propped up high and open as he knelt between her thighs. His fingers stroked and spread the folds of her sex, and then he was pushing inside her again, and her moans became uncontrollable. Helplessly she turned her head to the side, her cheek pressed against the mattress, while her twisting h*ps were steadied in the firm grasp of his hands. He thrust even deeper than before, probing and stroking and pleasuring her with a measured rhythm …deliberately pushing her over the edge of sanity. She begged, sobbed, groaned, even cursed, and she heard him laugh softly as he drove her into a shattering burst of rapture. Her body clenched around his sex in throbbing contractions, milking a cl**ax from him until a deep growl was torn from his throat.

Panting, Marcus lowered his body over hers, his mouth at the nape of her neck, his sex still buried inside her.

Resting passively beneath him, licking her swollen lips, Lillian mumbled, “And you called me a savage.” She caught her breath as he chuckled, the hair on his chest rubbing like rough-napped velvet against her back.

Although Lillian was pleasantly tired from their love-making, the last thing she wanted to do was sleep. She was filled with wonder at the discoveries she was making about the man she had once disdained as stodgy and boring, who had turned out to be neither. She was beginning to recognize that Marcus possessed a softer side that few people were ever allowed to see. And she sensed that he cared about her, though she was afraid to speculate on that, as the feelings that seemed to be pouring from her own heart had become alarmingly intense.

After Marcus had wiped her perspiring body with a cool, damp cloth, he dressed her in his discarded shirt, which held the scent of his skin. He brought her a plate containing a poached pear, and a glass of sweet wine, and even allowed her to feed him a few bites of the silky-soft fruit. When her appetite was sated, Lillian set aside the empty plate and spoon, and turned to snuggle against him. He rose on one elbow and looked down at her, his fingers playing idly in her hair.

“Are you sorry that I wouldn’t let St. Vincent have you?”

She gave him a puzzled smile. “Why would you ask such a thing? Surely you’re not having pangs of conscience.”

Marcus shook his head. “I am merely wondering if you had any regrets.”

Surprised and touched by his need for reassurance, Lillian toyed with the dark curls on his chest. “No,” she said frankly. “He is attractive, and I do like him …but I didn’t want him.”

“You did consider marrying him, however.”

“Well,” she admitted, “it did cross my mind that I would like to be a duchess—but only to spite you.”

A smile flashed across his face. He retaliated with a punishing nip at her breast, causing her to yelp. “I couldn’t have borne it,” he admitted, “seeing you married to anyone but me.”

“I don’t think Lord St. Vincent will have any difficulty finding another heiress to suit his purposes.”

“Perhaps. But there aren’t many women with fortunes comparable to yours…and none with your beauty.”

Smiling at the compliment, Lillian crawled halfway over him and hitched one leg over his. “Tell me more. I want to hear you wax lyrical about my charms.”

Levering himself to a sitting position, Marcus lifted her with an ease that made her gasp, and settled her until she straddled his hips. He stroked a fingertip along the pale skin that was exposed at the open vee of the shirt. “I never wax lyrical,” he said. “Marsdens are not a poetic sort. However…” He paused to admire the sight of the long-limbed young woman who sat astride him while her hair trailed to her waist in tangled streamers. “I could at least tell you that you look like a pagan princess, with your tangled black hair and your bright, dark eyes.”