My breath caught and held as my mind squirreled around and around with the question. I reminded myself that I'd done things with Christian that I'd never enjoyed before, and that remaining in control did not mean one had to be a coward and take the easy path. "I think I'd like you to undress me. If you'd like to, that is. I don't want to force you."

He swooped down on me with a noise deep in his chest that made something in my belly respond. His hands were everywhere, touching me, teasing me, plucking and pulling and unzipping and sliding my clothing off with such heated touches and whispered words of pleasure and little love nibbles that before I could catch my breath, I stood naked before him.

All of me.

Including my bad leg.

"Eeek," I said, hunching over and trying to cover up the length of scarred flesh.

"I did not eek when you stared at me—stared for at least an eternity—thus you are not allowed to hide yourself from me."

"You're telling me what to do," I told my kneecap, my arms around my leg.

"I'm simply pointing out that what was fair for you is fair for me, Allegra."

I looked up as the teasing tone faded from his voice. He held his hand out for me. "Let me see you."

"My leg is ugly."

"Only if you believe it to be. Let me see you."

Oh, how I wanted to believe he wouldn't look at all the ugly white, twisted tissue and not flinch. If anyone can do it, Christian can, an optimistic part of my mind said.

"Okay. I'm going to straighten up. But if you stare at anything below my waist for more than two seconds, I'm leaving. Deal?"

"As you like."

I put my hand in his and let him haul me upright. His eyes burned into mine as he pulled me up against his body, never once looking down at the rest of me. There is no part of you that I will not worship as is your due. You are beauty and grace and everything a man can desire.

I shifted as my nipples hardened against the soft brush of his chest hair. I caught an echo in my mind, a thought that I suspected he did not intend for me to hear.

And you are mine.

I decided to let it go. He had kept his word, was making me feel desirable and excited and wanting more from him than I'd ever wanted from a man, and all without feeling as if I were directed, controlled, just a bystander in the event. I made a seductive little purring sound I didn't know I could make, and rubbed up against him. "You're poking me."

His hands stroked up my behind to wrap around my waist, pulling me tighter against his arousal. His breath was hot on my ear as he kissed a hot path up my neck. "I wish to make love to you; I wish to join our bodies and minds in the manner of Moravians. If you tell me to stop, I will, but understand that I will likely die in the process."

I slid my fingers through his hair and licked his lips. I had no need to hesitate over the decision. I knew then that I could trust Christian to hold to his word no matter how intense things became. "Yes, please."

He kissed me, his mouth taking possession in a way I had no objection to, scooping me up and carrying me to the mammoth bed, laying me down on cool satin sheets that rubbed erotically against my skin. He moaned as he followed me down on the bed, his hands and mouth stroking my breasts and belly until I was squirming with need.

"I'm sure foreplay is a very good thing, and I will be sure to appreciate it another time, but you know, I think right this moment I want something a little more substantial," I said, all without breathing. Christian was nibbling my belly, his hair trailing down my skin, leaving rivulets of fire behind. I squirmed against him as he looked down at the really personal part of me, then up to my face.

"Command me."

I blinked and squirmed a bit more. "What?"

"Tell me what you want me to do."

I made an exasperated noise. "This is your revenge, right? You want me to command you to make love to me? You want to hear the actual words?"

"I would know exactly what you want me to do, yes. I am yours. Tell me what you want of me."

I sighed. "Okay, fine, whatever. I command you to make love to me. There, are you happy now?"

"Make love to you how?"

I stopped stroking his arm and poked him in the shoulder. "Do I have to draw you a picture?"

He shook his head, causing his hair to feather out over my belly. I shivered and tried to will him up my body. "Just tell me what you want."

I rubbed my legs up alongside his legs, uncaring for the moment that the scars were plainly visible. "I want to feel you, all of you."

"Yes? Where?" he asked as he slid forward along my body until his mouth was level with my breasts. He paused to pay tribute to them. I arched my back and parted my legs wider, sliding them up his thighs.

"I want to feel you pressed against me."

He moved up until his mouth was on my collarbone. "And?"

I want to feel you inside of me.

His hands cupped my hips as he moved up higher, the hard length of him parting those delicate parts of me that I'd previously considered purely functional.

There was a delicious sort of stretching as my body accommodated his, and then he opened his mind to me, flooding me with the feelings of heat and tightness and overwhelming pleasure that he felt. I wrapped my legs around his hips as he started to move within me, kissing his neck and clutching at his back as every tiny little atom of my body joined with his in absolute ecstasy. I drowned in his pleasure and fed him my own, pushing us both higher as our bodies danced in a rhythm that left us both straining, moving to please ourselves, moving to please each other, pushing our bodies together harder and faster until I felt us bursting into a white blaze of rapture. I heard Christian sing my name just before his teeth pierced the flesh beneath my ear. I arched against him, still locked in our shared orgasm, driven past that point by the exultation he felt as he feasted on my blood. What should have been a forbidden, repulsive act was instead erotic, wild, carnal, and built within me a need I hardly dared put a name to.

His tongue was hot on my neck, pulling me back from the euphoria our joining had brought.

I lay trembling with wonderful little aftershocks, holding tightly to him, reveling in his ragged breath and heaving chest, warm and safe and for the first time in my life, truly at peace.

What have you done? I asked, a languid hand lazily stroking the hard curves of his behind. What have you done to me?

He lifted his head and looked down at me, his lips brushing a gentle salute on mine, his eyes burning red and gold and brown, more variations of color than I'd thought existed. Slowly, ever so slowly, his lips curled up in an extremely smug, thoroughly male smile. The expression is, I believe, "rocked your world."

I bit his shoulder as he rolled us over. "You bit me."

"You bit me, as well."

"But I didn't guzzle down your blood."

"I did not guzzle, I never guzzle. I sipped. Carefully. Worshipfully. Gratefully."

I looked up from where my cheek was pressed against Christian's heart. The bed might be the very height of comfort, but he was much more comfortable. "Worshipfully, eh? What did I taste like?"

He smiled one of his patented lazy smiles. "Like a woman who doesn't know the depth of her own passion."

"Beast," I said, settling back down on his chest.

His hands were warm on my behind. "And have I captured Beauty?"

I shifted upward until I had my chin resting on my hands, stacked together on his breastbone. "I might be inclined to answer that if you answer a few more of my questions first."

His hands trailed up my back, making random little swirly patterns that were sending shivers of heat out from my belly to every point on my body. "Would I be correct in guessing that the first question was what I was doing in the basement of the inn, naked and covered in ninety-four cuts?"