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heat grew within her, spinning from some undefined center.
    She wanted to scream. She wanted to stop him! She wanted more!
    “Search! Search every street! Suffer not a witch to live!”
    The cry came to them faintly from the streets. Brianna, hearing the words, willed herself not to stiffen. She offered Treveryan her best attempt at a sultry and seductive smile and pressed her nakedness closely against him, slipping her arms around his shoulders, allowing her nails to graze and tease over his shoulders.
    “How I want you,” he murmured.
    “And I you …” she replied, again grateful that the fear in her voice created a huskiness that could pass for sensuality. And she was aflame—torn between the exotic new sensations of his caress and the terror that kept her blood pounding mercilessly through her system.
    He was gone suddenly—she opened her eyes cautiously to see that he was stripping away his shirt. He paused then, drinking in her beauty as she lay there, the rouge crests of her breasts provocative as they darkened and hardened in sweet reply to his care, the natural seduction of the curve of her hips, the shadows of her abdomen. One of her knees was slightly raised over the other, creating a haunting and intriguing mystery of velvet ebony where the shapely length of her legs converged.
    He lay beside her again, slipping his arms around her and crushing her breasts against his bared chest. Her head tilted backward, her eyes widened as her arms responded instinctively to his hold, slipping around his neck. Despite the fever that gripped him, straining his masculinity against his breeches, he was still too fascinated to hurry his torment to an end. He lowered his head slowly over hers, feeling as if he were drowning a bit in the fantasy of her blue eyes. His lashes closed only as he touched her lips with his, tasting her natural sweetness more potent than wine. With the lightest touch he caressed her mouth, vaguely aware that he had stumbled into quicksand and he would sink farther and farther into a magical abyss of no return.
    It didn’t matter. He traced her lips with his tongue, and then the fever overwhelmed him and he delved deeply into her mouth, tasting a nectar that drove him wild. He was compelled to consume, and his mouth hungrily ravaged hers, his tongue delving deeper and deeper, demanding all. A soft, strangled moan escaped her, but she was not fighting him. Her lips were forming to his, her fingers threading through his hair.
    “Brianna …” he said softly, the word on his lips a caress, “You are, my sweet, a witch …”
    Her body, so sweetly pliant beneath his, suddenly stiffened. Her eyes widened until they seemed to encompass her face.
    “What?” she gasped, a croak that sounded strangely of terror.
    “A temptress, my sweet,” he assured her, “enchantress, seductress. You have ensnared me in the spell of your beauty.”
    She took a deep breath and exhaled, and—as she did, the tension left her limbs.
    “Oh …” she murmured softly. When her eyes met his again he saw that they were veiled, her cheeks were flushed.
    Sloan stood to pull the string on his breeches and remove them. She returned his gaze at first, but when he stood naked before her, the flush in her cheeks became crimson. As if suddenly aware of her own nudity, she closed her eyes with a shudder and reached nervously for the linen bed coverings.
    “No!” he cried, startling himself with the sound of his voice. But her action had stunned him. It was almost as if his nudity had frightened her, where her own did not.
    Earlier, he could have let her go. Not now. She would not turn away from him. He had offered her every option, but she had insisted on her game, and now he was finding the touch-me-touch-me-not plays to be fraying upon his temper.
    He was beside her, wrenching linen from her grasping fingers, pulling her into his arms, beneath his weight, before she could even begin to muster the strength to fight against