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Over and over again.

Saviero kissed her as if every kiss was its own infinity. There was no start, no finish, just an endless exploration.

But there was not one part of that exploration that was sweet.

The more he kissed her, and the more she did as he told her and simply surrendered to that kiss, the more she began to feel as if he was tying her up without having to bother with ropes.

Cesca felt as if these kisses claimed her, over and over.

She had felt a whisper of it in the Royal Cathedral earlier, but now it was as if every limb of her body was his. She could feel the heat of his chest as he leaned over her, and the massive, muscled thigh he slid between hers. Most of his weight appeared to be on the hip that touched the mattress, and the arm that he was leaning on beside her.

With his free hand, he guided her mouth where he wanted it. And she couldn’t decide if it was the most glorious thing she’d ever experienced, or absolutely terrifying, or both—just how unbelievably easy it was to let him spin her out into the constellations he built between them with every slide of his mouth on hers.

They were both still fully clothed. By the time he decided to lift his head and gaze down at her once more, Cesca had come to the stunning—and honestly, somewhat humiliating—realization that this kiss was more sensual, more overtly sexual, and infinitely hotter and all-consuming than whole relationships she’d had in the past.

She couldn’t believe she was thinking such a thing, but it was true.

It wasn’t even close.

If she didn’t know better, she would think that this man had kissed her and made her a virgin all over again.

Maybe he had, because she could feel herself trembling. And she blushed as he regarded her. Cesca opened her mouth to say something funny, something cutting, something to change the mood and get her legs underneath her again—

But she remembered what she’d agreed to, just in time.

And he knew it. He was watching her, waiting to see what she would do.

When she shut her mouth again, she saw approval in his gaze. And he nodded, just slightly, acknowledging her.

This made Cesca—known in some circles as wholly unshockable and impossible to embarrass or provoke—blush and tremble all over again. Because somehow, over the course of not even twenty-four hours, she had gone from considering this man her nemesis to becoming deeply concerned with his good opinion of her.

But she couldn’t allow herself to think about that too closely now.

Because he moved, and once again, she found the way he moved seemed to rub all over her like a different kind of friction. Saviero was far too graceful for such a big man. It was disconcerting.

It made her skin prickle, and that turned into a shiver that seemed to wind its way deep inside her until it glowed like a warm heat, low in her belly.

He hadn’t told her to move, so she didn’t. She lay there, breathing harder than she should have been. She watched him as he rolled to the side of the bed, and then she found herself holding her breath as he tugged her closer to him, seating her on the edge of the mattress.

And then, seeming almost to pay her no attention at all, he busied himself stripping off her clothes.

Somehow, it seemed connected to the way that he’d put her in that coat in the lower levels of the palace. And wrapped that scarf around her neck. Even how he had tugged a hat down over her head.

She should have felt as if he was treating her like a child, but she hadn’t thought so then and she thought so even less now.

It was simply a different sort of heat.

Because what Saviero was doing was stripping her naked, and he was doing it with a certain brisk efficiency that was somehow so erotic that it made everything on her body tighten in response.

He smiled when he saw her nipples standing at attention. But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask her to help him. And it turned out that he didn’t need her help. He simply moved her body this way and that, hardly seeming to notice that she was a whole, grown adult. He handled her with ease, as if she was some kind of doll.

An image she definitely didn’t need in her head. Because that, too, she regretted to discover she found almost unbearably sexy.

Soon enough, Cesca found herself completely naked. She expected Saviero to strip, too, but he remained fully dressed.

He stood over her, and she was aware of all the details of this, too. Like the fact that he folded all of her clothes so neatly and placed them on the bench at the foot of his bed when she’d imagined that he would do something wild. Toss her about, or fast-forward into something immediately sexual, but he didn’t do any of that.

First, he studied her.