Fatigue was winning, though Tavia continued to fight. Trying for a repressed ladylike yawn with her lips pressed firmly together, she failed entirely. Though at least she’d lifted a hand to cover her gaping mouth.

“You should go upstairs and get some rest,” Killian said from his spot in a wingback chair in the estate’s entry hall. High backed and covered in worn leather, the chair hid most of his body from her view, except for the long stretch of his legs and the butt of a rifle balanced across his thighs.

Together, he and Mr. Teague had assembled a small arsenal of knives, pistols, gardening implements, and a nasty-looking cudgel that Mrs. Teague proudly produced from the kitchen. Tavia didn’t dare ask what she used the rough-hewn weapon for.

After Mrs. Teague had plied them all with fresh baked bread and a rich stew, Mr. Teague had taken his turn in the chair, watching the front door of Finsbury Hall. Killian had shooed the old man off to bed hours ago, just after the fall of midnight.

“Perhaps they’ve changed their minds,” Tavia offered from the slippery settee she’d been sitting on for hours. The furniture piece was one of the prettiest she’d ever seen, covered in peach-hued damask with ornately carved scrollwork around the frame. However, her experience as an investigator had taught her that looks could be deceptive, and that was definitely true of the lovely but unyielding cushions of the Finsbury settee. The padding was unbearably stiff, as if she was the first to ever perch on top. Still, the parlor was situated just off the main hall and gave her a good view of Killian.

For obvious reasons—and some she was not prepared to ponder—she wasn’t willing to let the man out of her sight.

“I’ll go up to bed if you do.” She gulped the moment the words were out. Though she was willing to use almost any means to gain his trust and convince him to return to the city, she’d never played the role of seductress in her life.

She wasn’t at all certain she could pull it off now.

Leaning forward in his chair, he cast her a wicked grin. “That is, without a doubt, the finest offer I’ve ever had.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Tavia waved her hand at him and stood. She went to the window, as much to move her aching muscles as to avoid his heated gaze. Tucking a finger between the heavy drapes, she peered out into the field that led toward town. Vast emptiness stared back. Night was just beginning to ease into dawn, though a mist hung over the fields, obscuring the thin glow of light on the horizon. With no lanterns outside the hall and few rooms lit within, the field ahead stretched out in a boundless fog-shrouded blanket. Those men could be waiting. Watching. Planning heaven knew what.

If only he’d agree to accompany her, they could leave for London immediately. Now. This very night.

Killian moved behind her. She heard his footsteps cross the parlor threshold. Turning, she found him watching her, his forearms hooked over each end of the rifle he’d balanced across his shoulders. He was as comfortable with guns as her father had been. Only years of his patient tutelage in their use had allowed her to shed her fear of the deadly weaponry he collected.

“You never told me,” she said, still staring out into the darkness.

“Told you what?” He was just at her back. She could sense the heat of his much larger body. Dangerous, Lord Cecil had called him, and yet she felt strangely comforted when he was near.

“How you knew my father.” Turning to face him, she caught a bleakness in his gaze before he shuttered himself and shot her a blank expression.

“We…worked together for a time.”

“Impossible.” Her father, it seemed, was the real puzzle to be solved. “My father was a dealer in art and antiquities. A collector.” And a man who served the queen in some mysterious fashion.

“Yes.” A flash of white ghosted across his mouth in the briefest of smiles. “He was a collector, all right.”

“So you, in addition to your career in the army, were a dealer in art? Antiques? Weaponry, perhaps?” Tavia stepped forward and lifted a hand to run her finger along the polished wood stock of his rifle. A bolt-action piece with two barrels. She imagined how it would feel in her hands, remembering the years of shooting practice with her father in the fields behind their home.

“Honestly, Octavia, go up and get some sleep. I’ll keep watch.” He was avoiding her question regarding her father, and avoiding her gaze too.

Since he wasn’t watching her, she took the opportunity to study him. His gold-brown hair had a natural curl, his shoulders were far broader than his waist, and his chest bulged as if he’d spent a good deal of time carrying heavy loads. With his brawny arms stretched out, his buttons were in jeopardy of losing hold of their thread. His shirt stretched tight across his chest, revealing every muscle. The hard planes and tantalizing shadows fascinated her, and where his shirt and buttons strained against each other, she got a glimpse of light bronze hair sprinkled underneath.

“Why don’t we both retire?” Tavia suggested.

He looked as exhausted as she felt. Sleep seemed a reasonable suggestion. If the men had been watching and waiting for a quiet way to gain entry to the house, would they really wish to mount an assault when they might be seen in the early light of dawn?

Killian seemed to take her suggestion to mean something more than sleep. He was smiling like a cat that had just been presented with a fresh bowl of cream.

“I’m sure there’s more than one bed in this house,” she said a little too loudly. “Just point me toward one, and I’ll sleep there.”

“Might be other beds.” He tipped his gaze toward the ceiling overhead. “I’ve never actually explored every room. I only use the one bedchamber. Mr. and Mrs. Teague have the run of the downstairs.” Flicking his wrist to indicate the room where she’d done her sentry duty, he added, “I didn’t even know this parlor existed until yesterday.”

“And how long have you lived here?” Tavia recalled notes from the dossier, but the mundane reports and vague letters seemed far less intriguing than the living, breathing man a few footsteps away.

“Months.” He shrugged when her eyes rounded. “When you wish to disappear, there’s little reason to make anyplace a home. A man only needs one bed.”

“It’s a very large bed.” Tavia couldn’t help wondering if he’d ever shared the soft, lumpy mattress with a woman. Or several women. Ladies he’d exchanged kisses with, as heated as the one they’d shared.

“You’re the only lady in England who would know,” he quipped, as if reading her thoughts.

“So you’ve spent an unspecified number of months languishing in that sooty room upstairs? Alone?” She took a step closer, and he licked his lips. Another step and she heard the hitch of his breath. A little buzz of anticipation rippled through her, the spark of desire she felt whenever they were close to each other. The strange sense of comfort his nearness evoked. She shouldn’t feel so at ease with a man she’d known for two days, and yet she did. As if somehow, with all his mysteries, he wasn’t a stranger at all.

“Seven months. Good God, I’ve been at Finsbury Hall for nearly a year. I lose track of time.” He dipped his head so that they were eye to eye, and several wavy strands of gold-brown hair slipped over his brow. Tavia reached up to sweep them back behind his ear.

“Aren’t you ever lonely?” As she put the question to him, she heard a response in her own heart.

Yes, so lonely. She’d cloistered herself too, remaining in her office until all hours of the night. Throwing herself into investigations and work to avoid grief. Trying to forget that she was alone in the world. What was he trying to forget? She sensed pain in him, an echo of her loneliness. In the longing in his gaze, and the need and hunger she’d tasted in his kiss.

Her hand lay against his cheek. Touching him felt too good, too right.

He nuzzled his bearded jaw against her palm before placing a searing kiss in the center of her hand. “Octavia,” he murmured against her skin. “You’re the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.”

No man had ever spoken such words to her. Words that stoked a response in her body, a heat that melted her from the inside. He liked the taste of her because he’d kissed her, savored her, as no man ever had.

And to think she’d considered using kisses to persuade him. To tempt him into accompanying her back to London. She was the one who was tempted. To know him better. To be close to him. To feel his mouth on hers just one more time.

Killian lowered his rifle and caught her hand in his. “Come upstairs with me.”

---

Octavia froze, lips parted, eyes wide with shock.

Killian wasn’t sure she was still breathing.

Devil and blast. He’d take back his words if he could get her to look at him again the way she had a moment ago. As if she’d trust him, just a little. He wanted that. Trust was a gift he’d rarely been given in the past few years. A gift he did not deserve. But he craved it. Especially from this flame-haired woman who’d burst unexpectedly into his life.

Hell, he wanted a good deal from Octavia Fowler. Starting with her mouth on his and their bodies joined as one.

Such pleasures were only part of what he forfeited when he’d left society behind. And he’d been bloody thrilled to do so. Even then, he’d known no woman deserved to be saddled with his sins.

Certainly not a woman like Octavia.

Yet he couldn’t deny what she ignited in him. The attraction had been instant, a flash of need and heat that struck him before he’d had time to take cover.

More, she reminded him of what he’d lost. What he lacked. Casting away responsibility and avoiding more failures had cost him the sweetest aspects of life—companionship, laughter, flirtation, the love of an extraordinary woman.

Not that he’d ever craved love from any woman. Not that any had ever given him their heart. Not that he’d met many who would be willing to strike out on their own and trek across England to hunt a failed soldier for their queen.

Finally, she blinked. Still breathing, thank goodness, but she continued to struggle. He could see the battle raging behind her eyes. Propriety versus yearning. Duty versus desire. He’d battled once too. Back when he cared about what others expected of him.

He loathed seeing her in distress. A little ripple of shock ricocheted through him at the realization that he wanted her happiness as much as he wanted to bed her.

He desired the woman so much, he was considering being an honorable man.

“You need sleep.” The ache in his groin mattered far less than how the lady’s eyelids were drooping over her pretty honeyed green eyes. “I’ll tuck you in and resume my watch until the sun rises.” He was used to being hunted. Danger had always lurked around the edges of his life. But he was determined to keep her safe.

His words allowed her to relent. She squeezed his hand and nodded, sending a wave of auburn hair dancing at her shoulder. Apparently, that hair of hers didn’t wish to be proper and restrained any more than he did.

As they took the stairs side by side, everything else faded. His senses registered only Octavia. The soft slide of her skin, the rapid catch of her breath, the furtive glances she cast his way.

His room lay at the end of the hall, and he stroked her fingers as they approached. If only he could retrace his steps and find the man he’d once been—young, idealistic, honorable. That man might have deserved her.

A bitter chuckle escaped under his breath.

He could never go back. He knew that better than anyone. But it wouldn’t stop him from aching for her, imagining how they would be together, yearning to run his fingers over every inch of her soft freckled body. Wanting to taste and pleasure her until she cried out his name.

“Thank you for escorting me,” she said the moment they reached his door. Her voice quivered, despite her attempt to assume a matter-of-fact tone. “Good night, Major Graves.”

“You called me Killian in the village. Grant me that, at least.” Raising her hand, he pressed his lips against her knuckles before turning to go. Walking away from Octavia Fowler had never been easy. He’d learned that ten minutes after meeting her. Now, parting was even harder.

March, Graves. He heard his old army colonel’s voice in his head, barking commands in his ear.

“Killian, you did offer to…tuck me in. Didn’t you?” She stumbled over the words, her voice breaking into a higher pitch. It sounded like a Siren call to his ears.

“Indeed I did,” he replied, trying to stem his eagerness.

Without another word, she stepped inside his bedchamber, and he required no further prompting to follow.

At the bedside, she bent over and worked free the laces of her boots. Watching her slip her feet free was a shockingly intimate moment.

“Your ankle.” His voice was as hoarse as it had been after a day of shouting orders over the din of a battlefield. “Is it better?”

“Much better. Thank you.” She peeled back the coverlet and cast a demure gaze over her shoulder before bending her knee to climb into his bed.

“Are you wearing your clothes to bed?”

“I’m afraid I failed to pack any nightclothes.” After turning to him, she pursed her lips and watched him warily as she reached for one of the buttons on her bodice. “I suppose I could undress and sleep in my chemise.”

His brain was stuck on “undress,” and his head was bobbing in agreement. “Yes,” he heard himself say. Heavens, yes.

All at once, he was standing on the head of a pin, his body taut and strained. He didn’t wish to dissuade or unsettle her, but he didn’t want to leave her side either. He wanted her trust. He swallowed hard as she started on the buttons marching down the front of her blouse.

Bloody hell. He wanted her. Full stop.

“Would you stoke the fire?”

At that moment, he would have agreed to anything she asked, but he realized what she truly wished was to distract him. She waited, her fingers perched on a button, until he started toward the fireplace.

Busying himself with poking at the embers before adding a few bricks of coal didn’t allow him to forget for a moment that a beautiful, desirable woman stood behind him shedding her clothing. He cast her one quick glance and found she was watching him. Focusing again on the fire, he heard the swish of fabric tumbling to the ground and closed his eyes. Give me strength. Honorable. Gentlemanly. He’d been that man once. He could feign those qualities for one night.

Standing, Killian dusted off his hands, sucked in a deep breath, and turned to face Octavia. He expected to find her in bed with the covers pulled up to her chin.

Instead, she stood gloriously bare but for the thinnest gauze of her chemise. The fabric hid nothing from his view, from the freckles decorating the skin of her chest and legs to her perfectly round breasts tipped by berry-plump nipples to the vee of auburn curls at the apex of her thighs.

“You’re exquisite.” Never in his life had he beheld a more enticing woman.

“I’m ready.” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth as her pale skin flushed in a rosy blush.

So am I. He started toward her and didn’t stop until he was so close she tipped her head back to gaze into his eyes. There was fire behind the green and gold of her gaze, a brewing passion. Desire that mirrored his own. And more. Emotions no one had offered him in years. Tenderness and trust.

Her feelings were so transparent that, for a moment, a warning bell sounded in his head. He was hard and aching and couldn’t hide the way she affected him, but was Octavia feigning this show of affection and desire? She, the delicious and clever daughter of one of the Crown’s agents, had been chosen by the monarch to lure him back to London. After dozens of men had failed at the same task. Why her? Because they knew her boldness and beauty would turn him into a salivating fool?

“Killian? What’s wrong?” Her brow pleated when he reached for the cover behind her.

“Get in, Octavia.”

Her lips parted a moment before she snapped her jaw shut, turned, and climbed into bed.

With a few tugs, he drew the blanket over her, a shaky breath escaping when the back of his hand brushed her breast. God, it was hell pretending to be an honorable man. Yet it had been hell to be an outcast too, a recluse without any beauty or passion in his world. With Octavia, he struggled to recall why he was hiding. She made him wish to be whole. Even if her feelings for him were half ruse, he was a damned fool not to savor every last scrap of affection she offered.

“Sleep well,” he whispered as he bent over her.

She was still frowning up at him, though her eyes had gone from limpid and heated to unmistakably irritated. “What are you doing?”

“Tucking you in, as promised.” As he backed away, his chest pinched with every step.

She pushed against the mattress to sit up, slid her body toward the far wall, and cast the coverlet aside. “There’s room for you here.”

A moment ago, his throat had been parched; now he was back in the desert. His body burning with no water in sight. Sluggish thoughts flitted through his mind. None of them sensible. None of them cautious. None of them honorable.

“But you’ll want to take your boots off,” Octavia said as she dropped her gaze to his feet, then up his body. Slowly. “And perhaps your shirt and vest.”

As he toed off his boots, he started on the buttons of his shirt, shucking the garment along with his vest.

Octavia’s mouth curved. “Goodness.”

Killian was stunned by the pleasure in her expression. His body was a bit like a battleground after a skirmish, torn and rutted by the violence it had endured. Scars had faded over time, but they would never disappear. He would always be a man who’d battled half his life away.

Crossing the room, he lifted a knee onto the bed, and her body tipped forward. She planted a warm palm against him to steady herself. Her hand lay low on his belly, far too close to the part of him that was not feigning an ounce of his hunger for her.

“I am trying to be an honorable man,” he managed on a strangled whisper.

“I can tell.” She drew a little circle across his stomach with her fingertip. “It’s admirable.”

“You’re not making the effort any easier.”

“Then let’s go to sleep.” She withdrew her hand and patted the empty stretch of mattress beside her. “Get in.”

That empty spot beside her would be his undoing. He knew it with all the certainty he’d lacked while marching into that valley in Kandahar.

Octavia was a dangerous woman. Not because she lashed a knife to her hip and worked in service to the Crown, but because she’d already broken through his walls. If he touched her, pleasured her, tasted her as he wished to do, it wouldn’t be enough. He’d want her again and again. He might even come to need her. She wouldn’t just be able to lure him back to London. She’d be able to tempt him to hope. To fancy he deserved a future of nights just like this, coming eagerly to bed, desperate for her touch.

“I should go downstairs and keep watch.” Like a soldier would. Sentry duty was something he understood. Far more than his feelings for the red-haired beauty within tantalizing reach.

“Stay with me until I fall asleep.” Her voice wobbled, but the pitch had gone low and husky.

He couldn’t resist her.

Sliding into bed beside her, his first thought was that the fabric between them—his trousers and her chemise—was far too thick and entirely unnecessary.

Octavia settled back, her thigh pressed to his thigh, her arm plastered against his, their hands lying side by side. For an endless moment, they remained that way, and Killian willed his urges into submission. Then she turned her head on the pillow, and he turned his head to face her.

“Why didn’t you close your eyes?” she asked quietly.

“Because I don’t sleep.”

“At all?”

“Very little.”

She seemed to consider his answer a moment and then stared up at the ceiling. “Why? Do you have nightmares?”

“Every night.” He laid back and studied the plaster above too. “They haunt me.”

“Who?”

“My sins. My regrets.” Though with Octavia at his side, wafting that delicious spice-and-sugar scent that was uniquely hers, they seemed far off. Not gone, but held at bay.

“Do you think perhaps you should kiss me good night?” she said in an offhand tone, as if pondering tomorrow’s weather.

“I think I should.” The woman was going to test every last bit of self-control he possessed. Perhaps she hadn’t been sent to retrieve him but to torment him.

Staring up at the ceiling, she laced her fingers over her belly and waited. Killian moved slowly as he turned, bracing an arm on the pillow beside her. He stared at her lips, let his gaze wander down to her nipples, straining toward him through the fabric of her chemise, and bent to press his mouth to her forehead.

He meant to stop there. To place a chaste kiss against the freckled patch of skin above her brows, roll over, and feign sleep while she slumbered beside him. That would be enough. To spend a night by her side.

But he couldn’t stop once he’d started. He skimmed his lips down the arch of her nose and placed a kiss on the tip. He dipped his head to kiss her cheek, and then he had to kiss the other. Symmetry mattered at a moment like this.

She parted her lips, her breath gusting against his face in quick, heated wisps. “Don’t stop.”

He couldn’t have. Not even if a single fiber of him had wanted to.

---

Tavia wasn’t sure why she was seducing a duke.

She wasn’t even certain the impulse that caused her to call him back every time he attempted to retreat was anything as artful as seduction. She only knew that she craved Killian—his strength, his touch, his nearness.

As he peppered kisses across her face, her body flushed with warmth, a rush of sensual pleasure like she’d never known.

For this one night, she wanted to know him.

Not because she needed to fill gaps in the dossier she’d been provided, but because something in Killian called to her. Perhaps his loneliness or his insistence on living life on his own terms, whatever the cost.

She’d chosen a profession considered unsuitable for a woman. If she succeeded in her mission for the queen, she would return to her office and devote her energies to detection for the rest of her days. He would return to claim a dukedom.

But here, now, they were just a woman and a man lying beside each other, burning for each other. Needing each other.

This moment with Killian might be the only chance at passion she would ever have. And if she could soothe the pain in his gaze and convince him to come back to London, all the better.

When he finally pressed his mouth to hers, she opened to him instantly. His lips were deliciously warm and soft and lush. Taking control, she slid her hand around his neck, pulling him closer, delving her tongue inside his mouth to taste him deeply.

She refused to squander this time with him by giving into shyness.

When they were both breathless, gasping for air, Killian shifted to move over her and lowered his head to kiss her neck. He laved a spot behind her ear, and she bucked below him. Their bodies fit together like a lock and key, and he rocked his hips against where her body pulsed with insistent need.

Lifting his head, holding her gaze, he began working his way down her body. He tugged her chemise aside and trailed kisses across her breast. He circled her nipple with his tongue before taking the taut, ripe flesh into his mouth.

“Killian.” She whispered his name and reached out to grip his shoulders, tangle her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer, urging him on.

Sliding the hem of her chemise up, he stroked her belly, her thighs, and then skated his fingers toward her curls.

“Wait.” She lifted her head.

He stilled and did as she commanded.

“I’ve never done this. Any of this.” The insistence in her tone seemed to cool his ardor. She trusted he would not wish to frighten her or cause her any harm.

“Then we should sleep.” Gripping the edge of her chemise, he resettled the fabric over her thighs and lifted his body off hers.

“Wait,” she said again. “I didn’t mean for you to stop. I just needed you to know that I’ve no experience at this.” She had no disguise or cover now. No false bravado. She wanted to be honest with him, to let him see her for who she was—inexperienced and awkward—and still want her.

“It’s all right.” He bent to kiss her, and Tavia wrapped her arms around his shoulders, urging him closer.

“Show me,” she whispered against his lips. Reaching between them, she tugged up her chemise. She was willing to risk everything, bare every part of herself, just to have this one night with him.

Killian leaned back to watch, awestruck, as if she was a treasure slowly being uncovered.

Gray eyes molten, his mouth tipped in a grin, he slid down to the foot of the bed and placed his hands gently on each of her ankles. Slowly, with long delicious strokes, he slid his fingers up her thighs, then bent his head to kiss her belly before dipping a finger into her curls.

Tavia gasped and clenched the bedclothes, arching against his touch to draw him deeper. He stroked her slowly, until she was slick with need, and then nudged her thighs apart.

“What now?” she asked, gazing down at him. There had to be more. She needed more of him. To feel him closer, to know if his heart was thrashing in his chest as hers was. To taste his kisses again.

He smiled and settled between her thighs. Tavia shivered at the first slide of his hot tongue. The thick hair of his beard tickled against her thighs, and she let out a little squeal.

Killian lifted his head. “Anytime you wish me to stop, I will.”

Reaching down, she skidded her fingers against the soft hairs at the edge of his jaw and shook her head. “I don’t want you to stop.”

He dipped his head again, and she threaded her fingers in his hair, dragging against his scalp as she bucked toward him. She tried calling his name, but throaty gasps were all she could manage as he pleasured her. Then she began to quiver, her thighs tensing as her body arced below him. Tremors rippled through her. Killian lapped at her more hungrily, and the exquisite dance of his tongue was too much. As if she couldn’t hold the pleasure in and she would break apart. And then she did, shuddering against his mouth as she let out a long lusty moan.

Killian settled next to her, and she fit herself against him as he pulled the covers up. She savored the warmth and weight of his arms as he embraced her, pressing her mouth to his heated chest to flick her tongue out and taste his skin. She traced her fingertip along the scar she’d first seen in the cottage, and then one nearby.

“I had no idea,” she marveled. “I know the mechanics, of course. I’ve read books.” Books that had lied, or at least diminished the extraordinary bliss of release.

“There are additional mechanics we didn’t explore.” He bent his head to meet her gaze, one brow arched high.

“I know,” she whispered, pushing her palm playfully against his chest. So much more. The books had been quite clear on the mechanics of coitus. And the variety of methods. “I just didn’t expect—” She didn’t finish, just nuzzled against him.

Which seemed perfectly all right with Killian. Apparently, he was a man who preferred actions to words.

He tightened his hold on her waist and brushed his lips against her forehead. “Sleep, sweetheart,” he bid her between kisses.

Tavia nodded, nuzzling closer. She didn’t have the words to tell him what was in her heart. Not only had their lovemaking overwhelmed her, but so too did her feelings. She wanted to stay this way with him. Capture this moment and hold on to it forever, especially since she could never keep Killian in her life.

They were destined to part, but why did it feel so right when they were together?

Within minutes, her body melted against his, each muscle softening as her breathing slowed and deepened. Images flitted through her mind. Days spent with Killian, nights wrapped in his arms. Fantasies with as much substance as candy fluff.

Just for tonight, she’d let herself dream of that future.

Tension seemed to seep from Killian’s body too. His eyes fluttered closed. But just for a moment. He opened them again and gazed across the room, as if to ensure the fire was waning.

“They might still be out there,” he whispered. “I should go back down.”

“Just a few more minutes,” Tavia urged.

A yawn stretched his jaw wide, and he remained beside her. He stroked a hand along her back, smiling when she let out a satisfied purr in reply.

He needed to go. She knew that. Not downstairs but back to the life he’d rejected. And he would. She would see to it. But now she knew one fact above all others.

Succeeding at her mission was going to hurt like hell.