He frowned. “I will not hurt you.”

“You won’t,” she whispered.

The pinch this time went straight to her feminine valley. He cupped both hands over her breasts, fondling and pinching until her breath became heavy.

Then he stepped back.

“What are you doing?” she asked, a bit sharply, for simply standing there receiving his ministrations had been oddly arousing.

“Lie down,” he said. “I want to see all of you.”

She swallowed but carefully straightened her silk chemise on the hearthrug and lay down upon it. She watched as he stripped his smalls off and then knelt beside her, entirely nude.

The firelight made his skin glow, sent shadows and light dancing over the hard muscles of his arms and chest. His hair was tied back still, but as he paused to stare at her body, she reached up to pull away the simple black cord.

He looked at her, startled.

She smiled, threading her fingers through his straight brown hair. It was shoulder-length, and when it was about his face, he looked less civilized. “Fair is fair.”

Was that a blush darkening his lean cheeks?

“I want to touch you,” he said low. “Feel and… taste.”

She nodded, the breath suddenly gone from her lungs.

He bent over her, bracing one arm by her face, like a wildcat claiming its prey. She watched as he lowered his head toward her breast and then had to close her eyes as his tongue touched her nipple. He was gentle, exploring. Was this how Adam had first touched Eve? With wonder, even reverence?

He closed his teeth suddenly on her nipple and she gasped.

He released her at once, looking at her through his hair. “I hurt you?”

“No.” She bit her lip. “It’s… it’s fine.”

He stared at her a moment longer as if analyzing her reaction, then bent toward her again. This time he lapped at her nipple with long, firm strokes before suddenly sucking the tip into his mouth.

She had to ball her fists so as not to make a sound. He might stop if she did and she’d really rather he didn’t.

Abruptly he abandoned her breast, sitting back to stare at her once more. “I want to discover all of you.”

“Then do so,” she said, her voice a low purr.

He traced with gentle fingertips the curve of her breast, following it up to her armpit and over to her collarbone. Then he took her hand and pulled her arm over her head to stroke the underside of her upper arm.

She squirmed.

He darted a look at her. “It hurts?”

“No, of course not,” she gasped. “You’re tickling me!”

The corner of his mouth kicked up and his hand suddenly dove for the vulnerable skin just under her armpit.

“Oh!” She convulsed, giggling, and he flung himself on top of her to keep her from wriggling away.

“Lie still,” he said sternly, his mouth only inches from hers.

“Then stop tickling me,” she murmured. She watched his eyes, deep and mysterious, and felt the firm nudge of his erection on her belly.

His face grew grave again. He nodded and levered himself off her slowly, as if waiting to see if she’d flee.

She spread her arms wide on the hearthrug and smiled, though her lips trembled.

He watched her a moment and then backed, lowering his head to her belly.

She sucked in a breath.

“Tickles?” he murmured against her skin.

“No,” she whispered.

“Mmm.” His hum vibrated against her belly, making her toes flex.

He skimmed, openmouthed, around her belly button and then slowed as he explored her lower tummy with his tongue. When he got to her maiden hair, he paused.

“Your skin is so soft,” he rumbled. “Teach me. I don’t know what to do.”

His breath warmed her maiden hair and his knuckles skimmed her cleft, making quite explicit what he wanted her to teach him.

She widened her legs and took a steadying breath. “There is a little nubbin, hidden at the top of my slit.”

His fingers were there, parting, discovering. “Here?” He brushed gently against her.

She closed her eyes in reaction. “Yes. Just… touch me there.”

He stilled and she could almost hear him thinking. Had his fingers been anywhere else, she might’ve smiled, but at the moment… well, it was simply beyond her. She waited, breathing in, breathing out and listening to the gentle crackle of the fire. Strange. Men had touched her there before, but they’d never asked how. If they’d been skilled, she’d rejoiced; if they hadn’t, she’d directed them elsewhere. Male pride was such a delicate thing. Never had she thought to tell them how to touch her.

Tell them what she liked best.

Finally he moved, a tentative poke.

She bit her lip. “Could you… stroke?”

“Like this?”

She inhaled. “Softer.”

“This?”

She laughed, but the sound was frustrated. He was too high, hadn’t quite found the right place. Perhaps she should—

“Isabel,” he suddenly breathed by her ear. “I have all night. Surely by dawn I can learn this. Please show me.”

Well, that was quite frank. And oddly, he didn’t sound as if his male pride was hurt. He merely sounded… curious.

If he could speak of this frankly, then so could she. After all, she was supposed to be the more sophisticated, the more worldly. Surely that meant she was more open to sexual exploration than he.

Didn’t it?

Or perhaps there was an entire side to simple schoolmasters that she’d never seen.

She’d hesitated too long.

“Isabel.”

“Just…” She reached down and encountered his hand, large and capable. For a moment her fingers entangled with his. “It’s not very big, merely the size of a large pea, yet it’s quite sensitive and must be stroked on the right spot.”

She guided him. “There’s a little hood—like your foreskin, I suppose. Touching it produces the strongest sensation, but I don’t like to have it drawn back. If you’ll merely…” She moved his middle finger in a gentle circle—the touch she liked the best. The touch a man had never done for her.

“This?” he asked quietly. She felt his breath on her thigh.

“Yes, yes, that’s quite…” She gulped, for it really was a wonderful sensation, lying here, letting him pet her. But if he continued…“Perhaps we should move on now.”

“Fair is fair,” he said, and there was dark laughter in his voice. “I like watching you. I like smelling you.”

Dear Lord!

She felt him spread her thighs wider, felt his chest settle between them, felt his arms wrap around her legs. His face must be directly over her femininity, watching as she…

His mouth settled on her parted labia and she gasped, unable to draw breath. His finger still worked her and—

“Am I hurting you?”

“No!” She grasped his hair and pulled him down, uncaring of modesty, sophistication, worldliness.

And he was a quick learner. He licked her, his tongue swirling against his finger, parting her folds, kissing her deeply, until she was blown over by the storm, hard and fast, panting, gasping, losing all sense of herself and time. She arched under him, vaguely aware that he’d grasped her hips to keep from being dislodged, racing with the wind.

When at last she opened her eyes, he was lounging beside her, waiting patiently, his hand placed possessively on her belly.

She stretched out a hand, tracing the lines around his mouth wonderingly. “Come to me.”

She spread her legs invitingly and he mounted her. She took his hard penis in her hand and guided him to her wet entrance, watching from under drooping eyelids the tense expression on his face.

“Now,” she whispered, “now.”

He rose, moving on her, moving in her, but obviously holding back.

She arched her hips. “Let go.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said through gritted teeth.

“You won’t,” she whispered, smiling. “I want to feel you. Every inch of you.” And she pinched his nipple between thumb and forefinger.

Something seemed to give way inside him. He reared and thrust into her, hard and fast. His eyes were locked with hers, determined, even as the orgasm took him, convulsing his features, tightening the tendons on his neck. He shoved into her one last time and held himself there, tight against her, as if to claim her forever.

Her smile wobbled. Forever wasn’t for them.

FOR A BRIEF moment in time, Winter’s mind stopped. All of his concerns and worries, all of his thoughts, simply ceased to be. He lay on the hearthrug, his chest rising and falling rapidly, and only felt the relaxation of all his muscles. The wonderful warmth of the woman lying next to him.

Total peace.

Isabel ran her fingers across his chest, tickling a bit. “Winter?”

“Hmm?”

“How did you come to be the Ghost of St. Giles?”

He opened his eyes, thoughts and memories flooding back so quickly to fill his empty mind that it was nearly painful. “A man named Sir Stanley Gilpin taught me.”

She propped herself up on one elbow, leaning over him. Her breasts swung gently at the movement, for a moment capturing his attention. “What do you mean?”

Her hair was still confined in an elaborate coiffure and he wished she would let it down. He’d never seen her hair down. “Sir Stanley was an old friend of my father’s and the home’s benefactor before he died two years ago. He was a widower. When I was young, he’d come to our house to debate religion and philosophy with Father. They were friends from childhood, but very different.”

“In what way?”

He absently pulled a pin from her hair as he thought. “My father was quite serious.”

She smiled. “Like you.”

He nodded, finding and removing another pin. “Yes, like me. He worked hard all day and at night read the Bible and heard my brothers’ and my lessons. What spare money he had he saved and eventually spent to found the orphanage. He believed one should devote one’s life to helping others.”

She folded her hands on his chest and laid her chin on them. “And Sir Stanley?”

“My father loved him as a friend but considered him frivolous. Sir Stanley liked reading novels and poetry, enjoyed the theater and opera, and even wrote some plays, although I have to say they weren’t very good.”

“He sounds a delight.” Isabel grinned.

Winter blinked, his hands stilling in her hair. He’d never thought about it before. “I suppose he was. In any case, he was quite the opposite to Father, and I rather admired him as a boy.”

He felt a familiar guilt. Father had been everything a good man should be—pious, hardworking, generous. In contrast, Sir Stanley had been flamboyant, full of extravagant ideas, not very practical—and oddly compelling to a young lad.

“It would be hard not to be attracted to such a man,” Isabel said gently.

He glanced at her face. Did she know the guilt he’d felt? He shook his head, returning to the story. “Sir Stanley was a canny businessman in his youth. He made his fortune in stock in the East India Company. Later I believe he owned a theater. In any case, by the time I was seventeen, I was helping Father at the home—”

She suddenly pushed up on her arms. “You started so young?”

He’d succeeded in freeing one long lock of hair. He wound it about his finger as he watched her. “Yes. Why? Many have a trade by that age.”

Her fine brows knit. “Of course, but”—she shook her head, thinking—“did you have any say-so in deciding to be the home’s manager?”

“You mean did I ever think to desert the home and all the children therein—”