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If Ragnor are of it, he gave no sign He urged her into the hotel They stopped for their keys She gave her rooave his

"So you really do have a room here," she murmured

"Of course What did you think?"

"I don’t know," she told hiht"

"I’ll walk you to your roo

When she opened her door, he entered first She watched hi the bathroo area, and then beneath the bed

"Are you expecting an evil chaainst the door Her head continued to spin She wondered wryly if she’d heard whispering, or the sloshing of alcohol in her own veins

"Are you all right?" he asked, responding with a question rather than an answer

"Perfectly," she said, but stuhed, co her to the foot of the bed "Toobeside her "Your fairy crown is on the side of your head" As he spoke, he reached for the headdress, re it fro the shutteredby the bed Perfect aiers threaded into her hair, srazed her cheek Then he kissed her

The heat that instantly pervaded her was electric Like a shock, it traveled from her mouth to her torso and li her ar steady

He kissed like a practiced lover, parting her lips with a controlled, hot, wet passion She tasted his lips, his tongue; the movement of it within her mouth seemed to be an invasion so intihout her body When his lips parted from hers, a bare breath away, she felt thelava that re thunder of her heart; the pulse of blood, the fever of it She inhaled with a deep shudder

Should I have?

Had he spoken the words, or like shadows and whispers in the night, had she iined them?

"No," she whispered His eyes were still on hers Shefirst Dear God, don’t let it be the alcohol!

But it wasn’t, and she knew it though the words she spoke next were surely helped along by the fla to see your chest"

"Really?" he ainst her forehead "I’ll show you mineif you’ll show me yours"

"That’s a very old line"

"Not so old as you think"

She reached up, touched the planes of his face, and found his led, as he struggled from the Edwardian coat and cravat and shirt She broke froainst his chest Muscle rippled there, al else He wore a ious n It appeared to be a finely crafted cross She felt a strange relief flood through her Surely this had to mean

That he liked jewelry?

She realized that she was just standing there, staring

"Well? Did you just want to seewith it?" She nuzzled against the supple plane of it, fingering theIt had to be okay

The intoxication of touching hiot the reat hands, too"

"Ah, well, you knoouldn’t want to see, but lots of people have seen my hands But not so many knohat they can do"

"Is it that spectacular?"

"You can judge for yourself"

He scooped her to hi her down to the expanse of the bed, hisdown to her collarbone, to the cleft in the fantasy costume She wasn’t sure hohen, and she old costume was off, and she was quickly aware of just how talented he ith his handsand his mouth, and even the contours of his body

She’d wanted the shirt gone, in the stirrings of her one, and in hosts to disturb her, no conscious thought at all He was a wall of er, a fierce passion that was tempered only by tenderness She wanted to craithin him, inside his very skin, come closer with each neave of raw desire that assailed her She would have been the one to forgo seduction and foreplay, so eager and desperate had she becoht, in a far distant corner of her uiled