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desperately.
    “I don’t sleep until dawn, my dear. You will want to be up in the day with your daughter. I’d love to fuck you until you’re screaming for mercy, but we’re not going to do anything tonight.”
    Fuck you until you scream for mercy
. She bristled at the coarse words. Hated the way her body grew hot at the sound of them, the way they rumbled in his deep and arrogant voice.
    “Go to bed, Miss Dare. Brave, daring, Miss Dare.” Then, again moving like a ripple of wind through air, he scooped her into his big, hard arms.
    She wasn’t brave. Desperate, perhaps, which made a woman do crazy things. Her hands closed on his waistcoat lapels. She’d intended to struggle, but he moved as though she weighednothing. And strangely, she didn’t want to fight. She wanted to press closer to him.
    She
must
coax him into her bed. She rubbed her cheek against his elegant waistcoat. And purred. “Please, please bed me.”
    Men loved this. A woman humbled by need. Need for
them
. “Ah, I can only do it once, love. I’d much rather do it when you’re awake enough to ride me hard and fierce and rip your nails into my skin when you come.”
    And with that echoing in her head, she saw her door fly open, pushed by his boot; saw her bed loom toward her.
    He lay her down with infinite gentleness. “I need to undress.”
    “That I can do, Miss Dare,” he murmured. Small buttons on her gown popped free, and he drew it down from her. She saw his jaw tense as he revealed her corset, her thin shift, the way her pink, round nipples strained against the fine muslin. “You are a temptation in every way, aren’t you?” he asked, his smile rueful.
    “They are yours to play with however you wish. I’ve had a child, after all. If you like, you can be rough with my nipples. And I will enjoy it.”
    His throat moved as he swallowed hard. “Another night. When we know enough about each other to actually like each other. How’s that?”
    Then he unlaced her corset with speed, drew it over her hips. He tucked her feet beneath her sheets, pulled her counterpane right up to her chin. Suddenly the sleepiness fell away from her. “Sarah—” She hadn’t meant to speak aloud. Was Sarah safe around a madman?
    “You are afraid for her. You don’t trust me.”
    “I want you to stay in my bed.” She pushed down the sheets he had so conscientiously tucked in, exposing her nakedbreasts. Most men could be distracted from anything by the sight of breasts bouncing, swaying, jiggling, or simply lying there, nipples waiting for a mouth.
    “Ah, I see. That way you will know where I am. And your daughter will be safe.” He pulled off his boots—boots sewn to fit like a glove to his muscular calves—in the blink of an eye. Normally it took a boot boy and a lot of struggling. Then his brow cocked up and he eyed her with an astuteness that cut like a blade. “All right. How naked do you want me to be?”
    “Completely,” she instructed boldly.
    Without countering, he took off his tailcoat. Beautifully tailored, but he dropped it to the floor like he would a rag. With a flash of moonlight on silk, his waistcoat followed. Then his shirt. White linen fluttered through the air like a disoriented ghost.
    Moonlight splashed on his body, glancing off his straight shoulders, pouring over the pronounced curves of his pectoral muscles. His nipples puckered at once. Soft hair, also auburn, sprinkled the muscles and shot down toward a rock-hard belly.
    His trousers came down next, of course, and he had to bend to yank them off. So for one breathless moment she couldn’t see—
    Then she could. He wasn’t aroused. No, his member was soft and lay to the right, but even in its sleeping state, it fell quite far along his thigh. Good heavens.
    “It grew,” he remarked casually. “When I became undead, interestingly, that was the one part of me that changed. A remarkable and often inconvenient four inches.” Then he winked.
    He must be crazy to think