She'd put her hands on his shoulders, clinging to him, and he suddenly pulled away as he felt her weaken. "Breathe, Charlotte. You're supposed to breathe.”

She let out a whoosh of suppressed air, bringing more into her lungs. "How?"

He couldn't resist a small laugh. "A combination of ways. You sneak in a breath whenever your mouths change angles. You breathe through your nose. And you take a deep breath if you know you're about to be kissed. Like now."

He settled his mouth against hers, a second after she drew in her breath, a slow, deep kiss, then lifted his mouth. "Breathe," he whispered before he slanted his mouth against her, changing the angle, reveling in the delight of her untrained mouth. He lifted his mouth to bite her lip. "Again," he whispered. And used his tongue.

This time she was ready for him, kissing him back with real enthusiasm that was all the more arousing for the fact that she had absolutely no idea what she was doing. Clearly no one had kissed her before, and it made her capitulation curiously endearing.

Even touching nowhere but her shoulders he could feel her slowly building arousal. He moved his lips to the side of her mouth, then brushed them against her eyelids, her cheekbones, the soft curve of her ear.

"You aren't supposed to touch me below the neck," she said in a hushed voice.

He lifted his head to look down at her, and he smiled. "Your hands are on me as well, precious."

She'd been clinging to his shoulders. She released him immediately, but he simply caught her hands and placed them back on him. "Nothing without your consent," he promised, kissing her again, silencing her midprotest.

He already knew how to loosen the monk's robes—it wasn’t the first time he’d brought a woman dressed in the plain costume back to these dark rooms. It fastened at the shoulder, held together by the rope belt. He slid one arm around her waist, pulling her closer against him, and managed to get his hand on the robe.

She'd double knotted it, of course, and pulled it tight so that it couldn't accidentally become loose. He had a knife nearby—he would have happily cut it, but he needed to sneak up on her. She wouldn't know she'd been compromised until she was climaxing.

In the meantime, he kept her mouth and her mind busy with his kisses while his fingers fiddled with the knot. It took a while, particularly since he didn't want her to feel what he was doing, but he was nothing if not patient, and once the first knot gave, the rest was simple, the belt opening and falling onto the mattress between them.

And then he couldn't resist. His hand was too close, and he slid it up the front of her until he reached her breasts, closing over one.

She jerked, surprised, and if she hadn't been too busy kissing him she probably would have said no. His fingers toyed with her nipple, feeling it harden instantly in his hand, and he wanted to shove the robe away from her and put his mouth on her, sucking in deep.

Slowly, slowly, he reminded himself, trying to control his rampaging body. Maybe he should leave her here, go find someone else to take the edge off so that he could come back to her and take his time. His need for her was advancing at outrageous speed—it usually took him a great deal longer to get so close to exploding. For some reason, Charlotte Spenser's shy reluctant responses were setting him on fire.

But he wasn't going to leave her. If it hurt, so be it. He would take as long as he needed to get her cooperation. He couldn't risk scaring her—all he needed was her adamant refusal and he'd be fucked. Or not.

He laughed deep inside as he slid his mouth down her throat. "What's funny?" Charlotte murmured, dazed.

“I am. Going to all this trouble."

Wrong thing to say. She tried to skitter away from him, to the far side of the bed, but the effort made her robe pull open to expose the thin black silk beneath it. She let out a shriek, trying to pull it back around her, but he caught her hands, stopping her by moving closer, so close that she couldn't reach between them to restore her modesty. He put one arm around her waist, clamping her against him, and with his other hand he cupped her chin, holding her still for his soft, seductive kisses, lulling her into a mistaken sense of safety.

He rolled her underneath him, pushing her into the soft mattress as he covered her, his erection up against the juncture of her thighs, his mouth leasing hers, her breasts against his chest, nibbing, nibbing, the nipples irresistibly hard. Her hands were on his shoulders again, clinging to him, not pushing him away. It wasn't complete surrender, but it was moving that way, and his arousal intensified, until he knew he had to slow things down or he'd embarrass himself as he hadn't since he was thirteen years old.

What was it about her that made him so impossibly eager? Was it the adolescent dream of fucking his governess finally coming to fruition? His own hadn't been exciting, but he remembered his cousin's very proper Miss Finster....

He slid his hands up her arms, and he rose, pulling his mouth away reluctantly, staring down at her through the milky candlelight. Her lips were swollen from his kisses, and her usually sharp eyes were dazed. The scowl was gone. Who would have thought starchy Miss Charlotte Spenser could look quite so deliciously aroused?

She blinked for a moment. Her gaze came back into focus as she looked at him, and he felt her initial stiffening.

"What am I doing?" she whispered, horrified. Now she was pushing at him, and he let her go, rolling onto his back to keep from shoving himself into her like a randy bull. It took him a moment to control his breathing, and in the meantime she tried to scramble over him in her need to escape.

He caught her, of course, as one of her legs straddled his in her attempt to get away. He felt the resistance in her body, and he knew she'd say no, so he simply stopped her mouth with his so she couldn't demand her freedom.

Not that he would have granted it at this point. To hell with the rules of the Heavenly Host. He didn't give a damn if she was initially unwilling. She wanted him, and he was going to take her, and to hell with the consequences.

He didn't move his mouth away from hers until he felt her entire body soften. Once more he considered leaving and finding a fast tup to get the edge off. He wasn't going to be able to take the time he wanted to, but at that point he didn't care.

"What are you doing?" he echoed her, faintly mocking. "You're lying on top of the most accomplished rake in London." The robe was open around her, and he used his free hand to push it off her shoulders. Lovely shoulders, and he could see the gold flecks now that she was closer to the light. Stardust scattered on her skin, he thought, and leaning forward, he licked the skin on her shoulder, just tasting.

She made a small, worried noise, and he captured it with his mouth. The garment she wore under the monk's robe was thin, black silk, with no corset, no petticoats, and he suspected, hoped and prayed, no drawers. Just the long silk chemise. It would have come from Evangelina Whitmore—it slid against Charlotte's skin like a caress.

He'd gotten her into the locked room by kissing her into submission. He should be able to get inside her by the same process. He slid his hand between them, catching the silk and slowly pulling it up her long legs. She let out a little shriek of protest against his mouth, and he simply rolled her underneath him again, with the chemise halfway up her thighs, trapped between their bodies.

He looked down at her. "This is going to happen, Charlotte," he said in a soft voice. "You and I both know it. No matter how long it takes, I'm going to end up inside you."

“No," she protested weakly.

No, she'd said. There were rules. The Heavenly Host had a rule of consensuality. A gentleman took no for an answer. No, she'd said.

"Yes," he said. And he kissed her again.

Charlotte lay cushioned in the soft bed, with Adrian Rohan on top of her, his weight holding her there, a captive, as he kissed her mouth.

It couldn't be his full weight. He was a tall man, and strong. She'd have a hard time breathing if he was putting all his weight on top of her.

And the damnable thing was, it felt wonderful. It had felt good through the thick weave of the monk's robe. It felt even better with only that shamefully thin chemise between them. His legs were long, longer than hers, and she could feel his breeches against her skin, feel the mysterious yet unmistakable shape of him against that place between her legs. She knew she was wet, which felt indecent, and she knew the last thing she wanted to do was have him climb off her, unlock the door and let her go.

She had to make the effort. This was the culmination of her most secret fantasies, but if she gave in to it she'd be ruined, completely. It was one thing for her cousin to romp in and out of every young man's bed. Lina was a widow, with a handsome settlement and no interest in the very upper echelons of society or in getting married again. Most people really didn't care what she did, what rules she flaunted, so long as she paid her gambling debts on time.

Why should it be different for Charlotte? It wasn't as if she'd ever contract a marriage, not at her advanced age. And if she did, her loss of innocence would be more understandable.

And she wasn't about to rival Lina in her conquests. She expected that she probably wouldn't do this more than once. But she wanted to. Just this once. She wanted to lie in a man's arms and let him kiss her, wanted to be naked with him and., .and let him do those wicked things that she wasn't supposed to know about.

And she wanted it with him. With the beautiful, elegant, unattainable Adrian Rohan. It was his mouth she wanted, his arms around her, his body pressed up against hers.

If she was ever going to be naked with anyone she wanted to be naked with Adrian, and the thought of going through her expected long life with no knowledge of this mysterious, magic thing was unacceptable. By some strange twist of fate Adrian Rohan desired her. How could she tell him no?

He'd made it clear he wasn't going to listen. Made it clear that he was going to have her, one way or another, though he'd promised it wouldn't be rape.

His mouth was on her neck, and it was delicious, delirious, and his hands held her shoulders in place for his kisses. The monk's robe had slipped partway down, entrapping her arms so that she couldn't move them, couldn't put them around him. He pulled back to look down at her, his eyes hooded, as she lay there on the bed, his bed, pinned by the enveloping robe.