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Her face was rosy, but her eyes had that clear honesty he loved. “I used to hate it when you lay on me,” she said and stopped.

He propped himself on his elbows and dropped kisses on her high, arching eyebrows, on the edge of her eyes, on the delicate curve of her cheekbone. “Do you dislike it now?” he asked, carefully controlling his voice. His heart was pounding in his ribs, and it wasn’t all a matter of desire either.

She had her eyes closed again. “No,” she whispered, and to Rees’s ears the little sound echoed around the glade with as much force as a shout.

Deliberately he thrust forward into the soft embrace of her thighs. A surge of blood went through his body so fiercely that he almost groaned out loud but caught himself. He didn’t want to seem like an animal, grunting at his pleasure. “What about that, Helene?” he whispered, his lips slipping down to her slender neck. “How did that feel?”

Her hands were running feverishly through his hair and now one slipped to his shoulder. There was silence between them for a moment. Rees dimly heard the call of a bird in the distance.

She wasn’t protesting. Cautiously he put a hand on her chest. She’d always hated his even looking at her breasts: he remembered that clearly enough. But last night she’d allowed him to caress them.

They gave in his hand with a movement that sent fire roaring through his blood. She had no corset on. Perhaps no chemise. His hands began to shake.

“Rees,” Helene said, and there was an ache in her voice that startled them both. “Are you certain that you’ve seen no one in this forest?”

“Never, in five years of walking here,” he said, looking down at her. Her face was flushed and her eyes were alive, glowing. “You can’t be suggesting?”

Helene looked up at him and grinned. Esme had given her lots of instructions about little breathy moans, and cries of “Yes! Yes!” Esme had said nothing about smiles, or the laugh that seemed to be coming from deep in her stomach. “I don’t feel like myself here,” she admitted. “I feel—wicked.”

His eyes were so dark that they sparkled like coal. “I like what you’re doing,” she said, tracing his eyebrow with one finger. “That—”

“Thrusting?” he said.

Her cheeks turned even pinker. “What a word!”

“Mmmm.” Rees started unbuttoning the little porcelain buttons that ran up her jacket. He straightened, putting his weight on his knees. She lay under him like a slender nymph, the little twists of hair flying away from her forehead. “I like your hair,” he said, to distract himself from unbuttoning.

“I thought you would hate it,” she said, and there was an uncertainty in her voice that made him lean down and put a hard kiss on her lips.

“You look beautiful.” Reverently he pulled the jacket open. She was wearing one of the muslin blouses that were so popular now, made of celestial blue muslin so thin that he could see the curve of her breast. He closed his eyes for a second, and then brought his hand to her breast.

She was watching him. “Do I look acceptable?” she whispered, holding herself perfectly still.

“Acceptable?” he said, and the word tore from his throat with a gutternal groan. “God, Helene, when have I…”

He seemed to lose track of the sentence, so Helene allowed him to help her out of the sleeves of her jacket. He didn’t look at all as if he might laugh now. He was leaning over her almost as if—as if—and then his mouth closed over her nipple, covered by muslin as it was.

For a moment Helene was shocked into motionlessness. He was suckling her—actually suckling her, even though she was wearing a shirt. The shock of it sang through her veins like a trumpet.

“Rees!” she cried, and the sound floated away to the bird songs.

He jerked her shirt up, with such hunger that Helene swallowed another cry. Shutting her eyes against the sun, she felt as if liquid sunshine ran through her veins, as if her heart’s blood thundered from the exquisite feeling of his mouth on her breast. She clutched his shoulders as hard as she could so that he couldn’t move, couldn’t leave, couldn’t stop…But he left only to move his head to her left breast, and then his hand took up a tormenting rhythm, rubbing over her nipple hard and harder until she was twisting in his hands, her nails biting into his shoulders. Those hands could pick up any instrument, and coax an intoxicating melody from it, and it seemed she was no different.

So she didn’t protest, not at all, not when he unbuttoned her skirt and there she was, naked in a forest glade. Not when his hand burned a trail down her stomach to her legs, and she—wanton that she felt—let him slip those fingers between her legs. The very touch of him made her shudder.

“Helene,” he said. He’d taken his hand away, and the absence was almost painful.

She blinked at him. “Yes?” She had to clear her throat. “Yes?”

“I’d like to make love to you. Would that be all right?”

“Yes, yes of course,” Helene whispered hurriedly, wishing that he hadn’t asked her. “Did you speak to Darby?”

His eyes seemed oddly unfocused. “What? Why would I speak to Darby?”

Helene could feel waves of sobriety cooling her body. “You had a question about a lady’s—” she stopped.

His face cleared. “No need,” he told her, dropping a kiss on her lips. It felt so good that he lingered, hungrily, but his hands dropped between her legs. “See, Helene? See?” His fingers sank into her warmth.