"You are already wet for me." Gideon withdrew his finger carefully and then thrust it slowly into her again.

Harriet's entire body tightened in response to the startling intrusion. She squeezed her eyes shut and held herself still, trying to decide if she liked the feel of him inside her or not. It was all so strange. Deliciously strange.

Then Gideon moved his finger once more and Harriet made her decision. She loved the feeling of him inside her. She lifted her hips against his carefully probing hand and clutched his shoulders.

"You want me." Gideon caught her nipple between his teeth, tugging slightly. "Say it."

"I want you." Harriet could hardly speak. The words were a choked little gasp. "I want you, Gideon."

"Say it again. I need to hear the words, my sweet, reckless Harriet. I need to hear you say them." His hand moved on her, tracing a tiny pattern in the damp heat.

Harriet could not believe it when the fire within her seemed to escalate. She twisted beneath Gideon, seeking some goal she could not name. "Please. Please, Gideon."

"Yes," he muttered. "Bloody hell, yes."

Then he was moving her legs farther apart, settling himself between her thighs. Harriet felt him reach down and guide himself to that part of her he had been stroking. She felt him moisten himself in her wet heat. And then she felt him start to enter her.

Harriet tensed as she realized this particular portion of Gideon was constructed on the same massive scale as the rest of him. Her fingers clenched on his shoulders and her eyes flew open. She found herself gazing straight into the fiery furnace of his tawny gold gaze.

"I am hurting you," he said, teeth set in rigid self-control. "I did not want to hurt you. You are so tight. So small and beautiful and tight. And I am a great, hulking brute who has no business forcing myself on you like this."

"Do not say that. You are not forcing yourself on me." Harriet stared into his leonine eyes and saw the regret and the pain through the flames. "Do not ever say such a thing. It is not true."

"It is true. I have deliberately taught you to experience feelings you do not know how to handle. And I am taking advantage of your unschooled emotions."

"I am not a child. I shall make my own decisions," she said.

"Will you? I think not. You will have enough to regret in the morning as it is. I will not add this to the burden."

She knew instinctively that he was going to try to draw back and she also knew she could not allow him to do so. She sensed that he needed to know she wanted him as desperately as he seemed to want her.

"No." Harriet sank her nails into his powerful back and arched her lower body in invitation. "No, Gideon. Please do not pull away from me now. I want you. I want you."

He hesitated, still poised at the soft, moist entrance of her body. Sweat beaded his forehead. "God help me, I want you. More than I have ever wanted anything in my life." The words were torn from Gideon in a strangled groan as he surged slowly, heavily, deeply into her.

Harriet cried out in spite of her determination not to do so. Gideon covered her mouth quickly with his own, drinking in her incoherent exclamation.

A thrilling excitement that was laced with pain and pleasure flowed through Harriet. She felt stretched and filled beyond endurance and at the same time she dimly realized she was reaching for a glittering thrill of excitement that was just out of reach.

She knew she hovered on the brink of a grand discovery. With a little time, she could grasp the elusive pleasure. She was sure of it.

But there was no time. Gideon stroked slowly out of her and then plunged forward again, driving himself to her core. He gave a hoarse shout filled with raw, masculine satisfaction. His body arched above hers, every muscle corded as hard and taut as steel.

And then he collapsed along the length of her, breathing in great gulps of air as he crushed her between himself and the hard stone floor of the cave.

Chapter Seven

Gideon rose once during the night to light the second lamp. Harriet did not stir. He got back into their makeshift bed, gathered her close once more, and went to sleep.

When he awoke a second time he knew it was dawn. In the cavern there was no way to distinguish night from day, but his senses told him that the morning had arrived. Morning and the reckoning.

He had known what was to come the moment he had intercepted Crane fleeing from the cave entrance and realized Harriet was still inside. Even as Gideon had fought his way through the rising surf he had been aware that there would be no time to find Harriet and get her back out before the outer cavern was flooded.

And that had meant he would be spending the night with her. It had meant she would be thoroughly compromised by dawn. There was nothing he could do to stave off the inevitable.

Nevertheless, he'd had no intention of compounding the problem by making love to Harriet.

But Gideon realized now that once she had smiled at him, once she had reached for him and opened herself willingly to him, all his good intentions had gone up in smoke.

Making love to Harriet had become as inevitable as the dawn.

Gideon stretched cautiously, wincing as he worked muscles that had been stiffened overnight by the hard stone beneath him. He felt Harriet stir beside him, snuggling closer against his side, seeking his warmth. She did not open her eyes.

He smiled to himself as he looked at her. She lay snugly in the curve of his arm as if it were the most natural place in the world for her to be. Her face was half concealed by her wild, springy hair. Gideon touched the chestnut-brown stuff with curious fingers and found it amazingly soft. He closed his hand around a bunch of it, squeezed it, and then released it.

As if it had a life of its own, the fistful of hair sprang free the instant he loosened his fingers. Harriet's hair was just like the rest of her, Gideon decided: soft and sweet-smelling and full of an utterly feminine vitality.

Last night he had lost himself in this woman. Last night he had discovered the full extent of his own desire for her. Last night she had told him—no, showed him—that she wanted him. She had given herself to him with a wild, innocent abandon that was infinitely more valuable than the heap of treasure that lay on the floor of the cave.

She had given herself to the Beast of Blackthorne Hall, in spite of his scarred face and his equally scarred past.

Gideon's body began to harden as the hot memories returned. He moved his leg over Harriet's bare calf and slid his hand down over the lush curve of her buttocks. He wished more than anything else in the world that this magical time did not have to end.

He had never feared to face reality before in his life. Indeed, he had learned to confront it long ago. But this morning Gideon knew he would have given his soul for a sorcerer's wand. He would have waved it over this cave and made it into a world where he and Harriet could stay forever.

Harriet lifted her lashes, blinking away sleep. For a few seconds she gazed at him with dreamy lassitude and then awareness cleared her turquoise eyes.

"Good heavens," she said, sitting up abruptly. "What time is it?"

"Morning, I believe." Gideon watched her tug the cloak modestly around herself. He realized she was avoiding his gaze. He could see the rising heat in her cheeks. "Calm yourself, Harriet."

"My family will be terribly worried."

"No doubt."

"We must get out of here so that I can reassure them that I am safe."

"Are you?" Gideon sat up slowly, watching her.

Harriet's head snapped around to face him. Her eyes widened. "I do not understand, my lord."