The room within shone with candlelight and Megs blinked and looked at Godric.

He watched her with eyes from which he’d dropped the shutters. The intent that blazed from within was daunting. She nearly took a step back.

He still held her hand.

“I made a promise to you,” he said. “And I will keep it—but not as we did before.”

She suddenly knew he was talking of their lovemaking the previous night.

“I … I’m sorry,” she stuttered. “I didn’t mean to give you the impression that I was pretending you were Roger. I wasn’t. It’s just that what we did seemed like a betrayal of him. I didn’t want to lose him any more.”

Her lips parted, but nothing more emerged because it had finally dawned on her whom she’d actually been betraying.

“Don’t you think I might’ve felt the same way about Clara?” he asked low. “Don’t you think I had to sacrifice something to give you what you wanted?”

She bowed her head, for she felt ashamed. “I’m sorry, Godric.”

He cupped her face in his hands and lifted it so she could see his clear gray eyes. “It no longer matters. What matters is how I—we—intend to go forth. Starting with this.”

He lowered his mouth toward her, slowly, so that she could see what he would do. Her eyes widened before she let them fall, surrendering.

It was the least she could do to make amends.

His kiss wasn’t like the gentle embraces of before. This was a seal, a promise of purpose, a pact of understanding. His thumb pressed against her chin, opening her for him, letting him lick inside, claiming her. Her doubts rushed to the surface, making her stiffen, but he wouldn’t let her pull away. He held her and bit down on her lower lip, waiting until she stilled again.

She opened her eyes and saw that he watched her, assessing her even as he let go of her lip, laving it slowly with his hot tongue. She snapped her eyes shut again. This was too close, too personal.

He’d paused at the corner of her mouth, licking it almost pensively, until she yielded with a shudder, parting her lips wider, inviting him in. He made a low, pleased rumble at the back of his throat, and then he was inside her again and she caught his tongue, suckling in atonement. His hands drifted to splay over her neck, arching her head back so that she was entirely open, entirely vulnerable to him, her mouth a sacrifice.

His hands slid from her neck, down her bodice to her waist, and then he was lifting her, walking with her across the room, his mouth on hers, his tongue between her lips. He set her down by the bed and only then lifted his head. While her chest felt tight—her lungs laboring to draw breath—only the dampness of his mouth, the heaviness of his eyelids gave any indication of what they did.

“Take off your clothes,” he ordered.

Megs’s eyes widened.

He tilted his head down, looking her in the eye. “Now.”

Her lips parted, swollen and oversensitive, and she touched them gently with her tongue, exploring. “Will you help me?”

“I’ll undo any hooks or laces you can’t reach.”

She bowed her head then, fumbling with her bodice. It was no small thing for a lady to undress. Usually she had the help of Daniels and two maids. It would take time. It would not be graceful.

And in the end she would be exposed.

But he stood before her, only inches away, and demanded it, so she complied.

First came the bodice, unhooked and pulled apart. When she’d gotten it off, she moved to put it on a chair or table, but he took it from her before she could and tossed it on the floor nearby.

She bit her lip and didn’t say anything, merely working on the ties at her waist. Her skirts fell in a pool at her feet and she stepped from them, kicking them gently aside. She toed off her slippers and then bent to lift her chemise and roll down her stockings. He didn’t move and her head was nearly touching his thigh. The position made her gasp.

At least she thought it was the position.

She straightened, barefoot, and began on the horrible laces to her stays. They always tangled when she tried to undo them herself. Her fingers shook and she made a frustrated sound as the knot tightened. Godric seemed uninterested, breathing slow and deep in front of her. But then her eyes glanced down and she saw—

Well. He wasn’t entirely uninterested.

The laces finally loosened and she began to draw them through the eyelets, her chest expanding, her breasts falling free. She glanced up at him and held those crystalline eyes as she drew the stays over her head.

He didn’t react other than to glance down her body. She still wore the chemise.

His gaze rose to meet hers again. “Everything.”

She knew it would come down to this, knew he was determined to impress upon her that tonight was different from their previous nights. She would do it, no matter that her neck and face felt aflame, except the reason why she was doing it had become confused in all the heat and emotions. Because while she still wanted a baby—very, very much—there might be a more immediate want.

And he was standing right in front of her, waiting for her to finish stripping for him.

She reached for the hem of her chemise and threw it off before she could think, and then she just froze, standing there naked before him.

He took the final step that made their bodies meet—her nude nipples against the fine wool of his coat, for he was still entirely dressed. He flattened his palms over her shoulders before delicately running his fingers down to her breasts. He circled her fullness, trailing his fingers up to her nipples and running his blunt fingernails around the very edge where rose skin met pale.

She gasped, but before she could say anything, he bent in one swift move and picked her up as if she were as light as a feather, which she most definitely was not.

He placed her on the bed before she could fully understand the fact that he was carrying her. She lay there watching as he toed off his shoes and removed his coat and waistcoat. He doffed his wig and laid it on his dressing table, and then turned back to her. She expected him to continue disrobing, but instead he knelt on the bed, crawling until he was braced over her supine form, close but not actually touching her. He stared at her with severe gray eyes until she lifted a hand and touched the side of his face.

He closed his eyes, almost as if she’d pained him with her touch. “Say my name.”

She swallowed before she could make her tongue work. “Godric.”

His eyes opened and they no longer seemed quite as cold. “Megs.”

He bent his head and touched his lips to hers, brushing, once, twice, until his mouth settled on hers, demanding entrance. She let him in, teasing his tongue with hers, learning the taste of his mouth, the feel of his lips. He broke their kiss and stared at her once more, his eyes demanding something of her.

“Godric,” she said obediently.

And it seemed to appease him. He tongued his way down her throat, making her arch, making her wonder how very different he was from Roger. They’d met in trysts, Roger and she, and thus, perhaps by the very nature of their meetings, their joinings had been hurried—the flare of passion fast, nearly out of control, and over again much too quickly.

Godric, in contrast, seemed to enjoy simply exploring her. Taking his time as if he wanted to wring something from her. Something more than mere passion.

The thought made her uneasy.

He lifted his head suddenly as if he were aware her attention had wandered, his eyebrows drawn together over stormy gray eyes. “Say my name.”

“Godric,” she whispered.

He lowered his mouth to her right breast, licking around the sensitive nipple before abruptly drawing her into his mouth.

She gasped, her hands flying instinctively to his shorn hair, grasping uselessly at the too-short locks. He suckled strongly, his tongue working against the underside of the nipple, his fingers petting her other breast. That one point of pleasure was so intense, making her mouth open soundlessly.

He moved to her other breast, laving it before sucking for many long minutes. Her legs moved restlessly, her thighs clenching.

He raised his head above her, his eyes on her breasts, red and wet now. “My name.”

“G-Godric.”

He thumbed her nipples—in reward or punishment, she wasn’t sure—as he began mouthing over her ribs and down her belly. He was heading in the same direction as he had the night before and she instinctively tensed.

He placed both hands flat against her hip bones and took the time to kiss her lower belly, just above where the springy hair began.

Then he looked at her face.

She licked her lips before parting them. “Godric.”

He watched her as his hands grasped her thighs and slowly parted them, pushing until her legs were spread wide.

Then he looked down.

Instinctively she tried to bring her legs together again, but his hands were hard and firm. Not even Roger had examined her so closely. So intimately. The rooms they had trysted in had been dim. Even when he’d kissed her there, it had been only a fleeting touch. She’d been so embarrassed …

Was so embarrassed.

She knew—knew—she was wet there, her curls moist, and she couldn’t possibly be pretty. Why would he want to do such a thing? Stare at her so long without moving? She looked wildly at all the candles lit around the room. Would he put them out if she asked?

“Say my name.” His voice, even lower, even more gravelly than usual, interrupted her frantic thoughts.

“G-Godric.”

It was as if his name on her lips put spur to him. He lowered his head so fast she hadn’t the time to react, to try to pull him back, and once he’d found his goal …

She didn’t want to.

She’d never felt such a wicked thing. He was licking her. Licking into her folds, lapping at that hard pebble at the apex of her slit, tonguing his way in deeper, circling and probing. She caught her breath and then couldn’t exhale, her body shivering, her soul quaking. How was she supposed to endure this? How was she supposed to survive it? There were sounds—moist, intimate sounds. The sound of him pleasuring her in an act that felt like a primitive branding. How did he know? Where had he learned such monstrous, awful, excruciatingly wonderful things?

He opened his mouth, placed it over her clitoris, and sucked, and then she completely lost her mind.

It went flying out the window as she arched under him and moaned, low and embarrassingly loud—well, it would’ve been embarrassing if she’d still had her mind, which she did not. Because he was doing something so deliciously sinful that she was actually pushing against him with her hips, whining under her breath, wanting more. And he just kept doing it. Sucking and licking and—oh!—thrusting a finger inside of her until she exploded. She felt the combustion, the tremors, the roaring in her ears, and then the wonderful, languorous warmth. It snuck through her limbs, turning her muscles to pudding, her bones to ginger biscuits, utterly weak and sweet and open.

Megs giggled. Perhaps she had lost her mind.

She opened her eyes to see Godric sitting up beside her, watching her, his lips curved gently and his gray eyes almost warm.

“Godric,” she whispered, and held out her hand to him.

He took her hand, spreading her fingers and kissing each one.

She caught her breath, her eyes blurring. He touched her as if he cherished her. As if what they were doing here was more than a simple physical act. He was standing beside the bed now, stripping off his breeches and stockings and pulling his shirt over his head. She watched him and saw that his pendant was a small key around his neck on a silver chain. Then she was distracted by the sight of his bare chest, and here in the light from all the candles she could see the scars: a twisted white line along his rib cage, a raised welt on one shoulder and an indent on his left forearm as if a chunk of his flesh had been ripped away sometime in the past. And yet, despite the scars—maybe even because of them—she found him beautiful. His chest was wide, the curves of his upper arms and shoulders well delineated. He had a diamond of body hair centered between his dark nipples, and his belly was taut and lean. His waist tapered gracefully into his hips, and—