Ivy could not breathe. Could not rationalize, could not reason, nor fight. She could not form a clear thought in the muddle her brain had become. Finding the slit in her silky undergarments, his fingers speared through her tight curls, and how his hand came to be there, she did not know. Overwhelmed by pleasure, her legs fell open, wanting more. More...please...more.

Then a sudden panic gripped her. She shoved him but Sebastian dragged her closer, sensing the chaotic turmoil inside her.

“Be still,” he whispered again into the curvature of her neck, his fingers motionless, just resting on her there. His touch stole all the air from her lungs until all focus centered on his hand. It felt so warm, so invasive between her thighs. The unfamiliarity carried a strange sensation of weightlessness, as though she were drowning in a hazy sea of pleasant breathlessness. His muscled forearm pressed against a sliver of exposed skin on her belly and the sharp pang of longing deep in her core carried all the heat of a lightning bolt.

For a long moment, Sebastian did nothing but allow her to become accustomed to the heavy heat of his palm, the bluntness of his fingers and the rough pads at the tips pressing against her. He was so still that Ivy’s tense muscles began to ease. Why he wanted to place his hand there bewildered her, but he was not hurting her. It merely felt...odd.

In the faintest hint of a caress, his lips brushed her temple. “Easy...shhhh...have you any idea how much I want to touch you? Don’t move, sweet, I won't hurt you…”

He did the most amazing thing.

His finger dipped into the moisture high between her legs, driving just deep enough to enter her. Collecting the dampness on his fingertips, he swirled it over and around sensitive skin she only now realized existed.

Ivy’s knees buckled. Her head spun with maddening pleasure. She might collapse to the very floor if Sebastian did not hold her so tight, keeping her steady. His finger delved deeper, to the first knuckle, her flesh accepting it. Oh god, she should stop him. Put an end to this insanity. But she did not. Sebastian Cain was showing her heaven in the palm of his hand, and she could only tremble and moan.

“Sebastian…” Did she utter his name to stop him? Or to encourage him?

The silver depths of his eyes glittered. Answering her dilemma, his finger slid higher inside her.

“Sweet fires of hell, you’re so goddamn tight…let me, Ivy, let me in…yes, yes, that’s it…”

Gripping the muscles of his forearm through the cloth of his coat, Ivy swallowed hard. When Sebastian shifted so he was flush against the center of her body, she allowed it. When his finger sank to the hilt, his palm cupping the mound of soft curls, she willingly bent to him.

Beneath the solid pressure of his chest, her light corset and chemise rubbed in torturous slides against the sensitive peaks of her nipples. Inside her, his finger felt so thick and foreign, explosions of sweet intensity throwing Ivy into a new universe. She wanted him, regardless of the danger. Wanted to wrap around him, pull his mouth down to hers. Wanted his hands on her, around her, in her, anywhere he cared to place them. She wanted everything that was him.

If you let him in, he will destroy you. The whispered warning came from somewhere deep inside, an internal primal fortress desperately screaming to save herself. She ignored it, urging Sebastian’s head down until his lips closed over hers.

It was a slow, wicked tandem of drawing, thrusting, his mouth and fingers working in harmony. Filling and emptying, withdrawing and circling, he stroked and played her until Ivy quivered. Inside her, something beautiful fluttered with the delicate shyness of an exotic butterfly. It was terrifyingly splendid. Every part of her soul was being torn apart, lost during some manner of necessary transformation.

Nipping her ear, his whispered words were a fiery command she could not disobey.

“Place your arms around my neck.”

Ivy marveled at the heat of his skin. He was fire come to life, clad in an expensive suit. If he were naked, he would likely burn her flesh and she would welcome it.

Sebastian’s breathing turned harsher as if desperate to retain his self-control. “Surrender to me, Countess…and …do…not… make…a sound….” With each syllable, his finger plunged, pacing word to action, punctuating one with the other as he deliberately unraveled her.

His mouth fastened on a sensitive area where her neck met the curve of her shoulder. Even without the muttered order, Ivy was incapable of speech. His teeth held her in place, and she could only shudder. His thumb nestled into her folds, pushing against a hidden point of flesh so sensitive it seemed to be aflame and Ivy saw stars. Waves bore her upward, tilting madly before cresting unexpectedly. Dragged under, she felt herself plummeting, drowning and just as suddenly soaring, flying high above the earth and the heavens.

Despite the warning to remain silent, a choked sob of stunned pleasure escaped the walls of her lungs. In great defiance, it skittered about the foyer, the cry of fairy princess released from a dungeon, bouncing noisily off the gleaming stone floors and tall marble columns.

Sebastian swallowed the musical sound, crushing her mouth while the inner channel of her body pulsated and clenched his fingertip. With hard hands, he held her aloft when she sagged, his kiss one of restrained brutality. As seconds passed, as sensations throbbed over and through her in glorious waves, he abruptly shoved her against the wall. There was the vague realization of his free hand going to the buttons of his breeches. Ivy waited complacently, making no attempt to move away. She welcomed his ravaging kiss, meeting his tongue in innocent mimicry.

There was more Sebastian could do. He could join his body with hers; push into her until he filled her. If the silken steel rod confined by the Irish wool barrier of his trousers were to somehow come inside her, all sensations currently flooding her would be magnified a hundredfold. How she knew this, Ivy did not know, but she was acutely conscious of things as never before, her eyes suddenly opened. Whatever Sebastian wanted to do to her, she welcomed it. Whatever he wanted from her, she would give it. She ached for him…for it, whatever it was.

At the opposite end of the oval foyer, an elaborately gilded clock began to chime the hour. The melodious peals fired a volley of two cannonballs into the dark stillness. A death knell to a magical interlude.

Sebastian tore his mouth away. With the same hand used to intimately invade her flesh, her skirts were jerked back into place. A desolate moan at the sudden abandonment escaped before Ivy could swallow it back.

Knees wobbling with newfound awareness, her fog of lethargy disappeared as the cool air of the foyer invaded the warmth created by the closeness of their bodies. The earl…oh God, he had come dangerously close to making love to her. In her own front hall. And she would not have stopped him.

His lips brushed over hers. It was a gentle kiss redolent of regret and frustration, with nothing remaining of the heated passion moments ago.

Ivy hated herself for it, but she wanted the other, the wild, burning kiss that made her forget who she was. Clinging to Sebastian, she tried to find it while he disentangled himself, dragging her arms from around his neck.

“Good evening, Countess.”

Before she could jerk the scattered pieces of herself back together, before the delicious spasms within the deepest part of her had even subsided, Ravenswood departed in a swirl of black, the front door clicking with subtle finality.

Ivy slumped against the wall, fingers drifted up to her bruised lips. A sob escaped as she traced their tenderness.

Dear God. She would deny him nothing.