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A wild craving surged through her at its clean lines, the strength signaled in every lineament, from his flexing back muscles to his Roman nose.

“May I ask whether you own a toy such as that celebrated by Nashe’s lover?” Silvester asked. His voice was rough and throaty, his eyes fixed on hers as he pulled down his smalls and threw them away. His staff bobbed against his stomach.

Stella nodded. She couldn’t make herself speak. It wasn’t that the illustrations in the book were inaccurate . . . No, they were inaccurate. Undersized.

She cleared her throat. “Nashe’s lover calls it her ‘little dildo.’ I presume mine is the same size. It might not be lifelike.”

He looked down, as did she. His thick, heavy length was straining toward her. Heat pooled in her body as their eyes met.

Silvester surged toward her and pinned her to the bed, all that delicious male weight holding her down. Stella wasn’t entirely sure where to place her hands.

On his shoulders? That was safe. Those long muscles that she’d glimpsed when he turned to throw his breeches on a chair: Could she caress those? His arse?

“I need to know the rules,” she gasped.

“There are no rules,” Silvester said instantly.

So she wrapped her arms and legs around him, pulling her chemise tightly between their bodies. He rocked against her, and a desperate whimper broke from her throat.

Silvester drew back, taking his weight away from her. He put his hands on the hem of her chemise, meeting her eyes with a silent question. When she nodded, he slowly pulled it upward, revealing first her legs, then her hips, her waist. She sat up and allowed him to pull it over her head.

He looked at her for long minutes until she could feel herself turning red.

His eyes gleamed hungry, even desperate. “I want you,” he murmured. “Exactly as you are, every curve, every freckle—everything.”

Stella had already realized that. Her embarrassment wasn’t about him; it was about her. Sensation was searing through her in an entirely unladylike fashion. Her limbs were trembling, and she could feel unladylike heat pooling in her body.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t experienced desire; she had. But desire in the presence of another person? Moreover, the very man whom she used to imagine making love to her, and now he was here in the flesh?

It was embarrassing. She could pretend to be unmoved so that he wouldn’t guess. But was that the right thing to do?

Stella was trying to stop herself from gracelessly panting with desire. Trying to stop herself from speaking so she didn’t start pleading with him to lie on top of her again.

Silvester’s hands hovered over her breasts. His gaze asked a question that Stella answered by arching toward him. As callused hands palmed her nipples, she sucked in a breath.

He lavished attention on her breasts, his tongue painting a streak of fire that left her breathless, lapping her nipple until she started shaking, sweat prickling her neck.

When a moan broke from her throat, he gave her a wicked grin and then slid farther down, tracing freckles on the curve of her belly before he rubbed his cheek against her private hair and licked. His warm, wet tongue made her feel slippery and soft, as if stars were streaking through her veins. Like drinking starry wine, intoxicating wine.

With a sigh, Stella gave in. She pushed away the idea that Yasmin would have been more ladylike, the fact that Yasmin’s stomach wouldn’t have formed rolls.

Silvester was hers now. She peered down at the gorgeous, muscled male body that lay sprawled between her legs. Naïve or no, she could read the rigid tension in his shoulders, going down to the curve of his back that rose into a muscled arse. He was here with her, and she’d be a fool to discount that.

He did something with his thumbs that made her squeak. Her head fell back as she let herself simply feel how swollen and sleek she was under the rasp of his tongue.

“No rules for this,” he murmured, raising his head a few moments later.

Stella’s hands were entwined in his hair, just in case he tried to move. “I have a rule: don’t stop.”

He laughed, reached up, and pinched one of her nipples.

She gasped, and sensual fire washed over her again and again, smashing through her idea of what desire was like. Even of what orgasms were like, because those she gave herself with her dildo were in a different category.

A different universe.

The heat subsided, and then Silvester did something with the thick fingers he’d thrust inside her, and she spilled into fire again, panting, gasping, crying out, her hands pulling his hair.

Finally she subsided with a muttered curse.