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“What about you?” She sat up. “All those bacchanalian things you imagined.”

“The sound you made coming undone in my arms was enough to satisfy a hundred satyrs.”

“I want that too.” She scrambled to her knees, grabbed again at the fabric bunched at his waist. “I want to hear you.”

He wasn’t going to hide from her. Not tonight.

He let her tug his shirt free and slip her hand beneath. His breath hissed as she palmed his stomach, the hot smooth skin, the hard ripple of tensed muscle.

“There’s only us,” she whispered, palm charting his ribs, the smooth rise of his pectorals. “In this dream, there’s only what we feel.”

There was nothing and no one to come between them.

She leaned forward and kissed his mouth, kissed his bared throat. He didn’t resist as she pushed him down and straddled him, the fabric of his trousers rough against the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. He growled as she settled her weight, and she felt his hard, hot arousal pulse beneath her. She could hear his muscles humming with tension.

“You haven’t done this before,” he grated. “If we stop here, then . . .”

“I won’t have to lie to that truehearted village lad who wants to marry me for my virginity and spotless soul?” She gave a gusty laugh. “I’d refuse him anyway. He would never see me, see all of me. I wouldn’t risk my independence and my heart for that.”

Was she doing it for this? For him?

She shoved away all thought of risk. Rapture. Rapture only.

Slowly, deliberately, she put her fingers on his shirtfront and undid the top button. She stared down at his slitted eyes.

“Do you want this?”

“God, yes.” He tipped her off him, rising from the bed. She was almost frightened by the speed with which he stripped his garments, and by the body emerging, everywhere thick and muscled, hard and brutal. When he shucked his trousers and drawers, his cock reared, dauntingly large.

“But that doesn’t mean it’s too late to change your mind.” He saw the expression on her face and gave her that crooked smile. “We could play chess.”

The lamplight bronzed the width of his chest and limned the heavy muscles. His chiseled abdomen narrowed to lean hips. Only the scars that wrapped his hip looked pale and bloodless. The sparse hair on his chest and stomach thickened below his navel.

She swallowed. “Do you have a French letter?”

“I do.” He arched a brow. “In the match holder.” He gestured at the nightstand. “I also have a chess set.”

“I’m bollocks at chess.” She met his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Come here,” she said, the command thrumming her throat.

He did, eyes flaring. He put a knee on the bed, and then he launched himself upon her. They gasped together as skin contacted skin. He dwarfed her, pressing her down, his weight just shy of crushing. She wiggled, and his thighs wedged between hers, spreading them wide. The stretch alone made her moan. He plunged his hands into her hair, his tongue into her mouth. She flexed her hips, the shaft of his cock pressing against her. He groaned, breaking their kiss, reaching for the match holder. He was quick to roll on the French letter, quick to ease back between her thighs. He dragged his tongue over her breasts, then kissed her hard. The heat and pressure were overwhelming. His chest, hips, legs, covered her completely. As he devoured her mouth, his cock nudged her opening.

She raked her hands down his back, clasped his hips, arresting his motion. He lifted away from her, just a fraction, enough to show he understood. He’d wait. He’d stop at her slightest signal. She exhaled, sliding her hands, and beneath her palms, she felt them, his scars. Thin flesh dense and immobile, stripes of alien tissue in his supple, living skin. She stroked their length, the one that curved with his hip, the one that ran down his thigh.

He went still. She looked up into his face, and she kept stroking. Nothing of him would be strange to her. Every particle of their bodies belonged to them both. He closed his eyes, a sweep of black lashes. Her fear was gone.

“Alan,” she whispered, and his lids parted, his gaze fierce. He trapped her face in his hands, stared down at her.

“Yes?” he asked.

She canted her hips, ground them against his, eliciting his gasp.

“Don’t stop,” she said, and he entered her, the movement controlled, slow. She tensed anyway, clamping her thighs to his flanks, struggling to breathe. Above her, his eyes were bright, unwavering. He kissed her, reaching between them to tease her center, stroking until her thighs butterflied. He pushed then, deeper, and the burning was quenched by a rush of liquid, her body opening a floodgate. Her body, wet and ready. He thrust, pulled back, thrust again. She gripped the hard curve of his buttocks, following his motion. She could have laughed—something was effervescing inside her, giving off tiny, tickling bursts of pleasure—but instead she was crying out, goading, begging. More. Don’t stop. More.

He hooked her legs higher around his waist. She could feel his muscles tightening, feel every animal jerk as he drove into her, faster now. She was catching the rhythm, each hard, deep thrust making the gasps burst from her throat. He surged within her, no control now, their bodies wild, heartbeats one thunder. She latched her mouth to his neck. Dear God, the taste of him. It was everything. It was impossible. His thumb pressed her quim, and she flung her head against the pillow and convulsed.

He kept moving, his cock striking the very core of her sensation. She bit his neck as he jolted and gasped, arms rigid, a howl tearing from his throat. He subsided over her, still lodged deep inside. She licked the little indentations she’d left in his skin. She couldn’t decipher the taste, its components. He tasted right. That was the closest she could come to describing it.