"My beautiful lynx, I want to see you naked." He drew her backward into the room, turning her to face him, taking her chin between thumb and forefinger. Judith read the brilliant sensual sheen in his eyes, as vibrant with longing as his words, and she felt herself slipping into some half world where the only reality was contained within the powerful surges of her responses. Her need and her hunger were his. She whispered that she wanted his nakedness as he wanted hers, and she ran her flat palm over his cheek, lightly tracing his mouth with her little finger. His hand came up to grasp her wrist, holding her hand steady, and he sucked her probing finger into his mouth, delicately nibbling the tip.

It was an exquisite sensation. The nerve endings in the tip of her finger seemed to be connected to other parts of her body. Her tongue ran over her own lips and her eyes glowed up at him, the sensual currents as frank and clear as his own.

"Sweet heaven, but I want you, Judith." His loins were on fire with wanting. "I have to look at you." He lifted her, feeling again her light, tensile muscularity. A true golden-eyed lynx.

He carried her to the bed and sat her on the edge, dropping to his knees to pull off her boots. He rose and drew her to her feet again. "I'll find it easier to undress you standing up," he said with a smile, kissing the corner of her mouth.

"I could do it more quickly," Judith offered.

Marcus shook his head, taking a handful of her hair in each fist, holding her face steady as he kissed her mouth. Her breasts pressed against his chest and she moaned softly beneath his lips. With a sharply in-drawn breath, he released her head. His fingers, swift and deft, moved to her jacket. The buttons flew undone and he pushed the garment off her shoulders with rough haste, before turning his attention to the buttons of her lawn shirt.

The soft mounds of her breasts, the nipples hard and erect widi desire, disappeared into his warm palms. Judith closed her eyes on a deep shudder of pleasure as his fingertips teased the taut crowns. He ran his hands down the narrow rib cage, feeling the shape of her, the smoothness of her skin, the delineation of her ribs, until he spanned her waist. He took a step backward and looked at her, bared to the waist for his hungry gaze, her hair lustrous against the whiteness of her skin, her breasts moving gently with her swift breath.

She smiled, a deep, self-absorbed smile, her eyes hooded as she ran her own hands over her bared breasts in offering. "Take your skirt off," he rasped.

She unfastened the hooks at the back of her skirt, sliding her hands into the loosened waistband, easing the garment over her hips, until it slithered to her ankles. She stood in front of him, clad only in her thin cambric petticoat. Putting his hands on her hips, he turned her. Judith shivered at his touch, at the warm imprint of his hands through the thin material. He ran a flat finger down her spine, feeling her skin ripple. Holding her shoulders, he bent his head and his tongue followed the path of his finger, a hot, moist stroke that brought a low moan to Judith's lips. She tried to keep still, but her feet shifted restlessly on the wooden floor.

The button at the waist of her petticoat came undone and the garment slipped to her ankles. Marcus ran his hands in a lingering caress over the curve of her hips, the firm rise of her buttocks, the supple slenderness of her thighs. Then, with his hands on her hips, he turned her around to face him.

Again stepping backward, he took in her body, from the tip of the burnished head to the toes of her still-stockinged feet. Lacy garters banded her thighs, just above the knee, and he decided he would leave them there. There was something rather wonderfully wicked about them, something that went with the essential Judith he thought he was beginning to know.

"So beautiful," he said. "As beautiful as in my wildest imaginings."

Judith stepped toward him, reaching her arms around his neck, pressing her nakedness against the slight roughness of his coat, feeling the smooth leather of his britches against her thighs. Her head fell back, offering him the porcelain column of her throat, her hair cascading in a burnished river over her shoulders, her loins pressed hard against him in a gesture as eloquent as any words of arousal.

"Dear God, Judith," he whispered, cupping her buttocks and lifting her against him. "Dear God, lynx. What are you doing to me?" He took a step to the bed and let her fall onto the coverlet. He stood looking down at her for a second, then began to throw off his own clothes.

Judith watched. She gazed with a predator's lustful greed as the powerful, athletic body was revealed. When he shrugged out of his shirt, she dwelled on the broad chest, lightly dusted with dark curls, the narrow waist, and then stared with uninhibited curiosity as he unfastened his belt and pushed off his britches; a concave belly, slim hips, long muscular legs, the hard, erect evidence of his arousal… He turned to throw his britches on the chair, revealing taut-muscled buttocks, and she drew in a sharp breath, her body stirring on the coverlet.

He came down to the bed, stretching himself beside her, kissing the soft pulse at the base of her throat as he caressed her belly, tickled a fingertip in her navel, inhaling the scents of her body. He touched the line of her body, from below her ear to her hip, feeling the tender curves, the deep indentations, and she moaned beneath his hand, whispering his name. His mouth moved to her breasts, his teeth lightly grazing her nipples, and Judith was awash in sensation, the liquid fullness in her loins a near unendurable urgency. Shifting her body, she felt his hardness against her thigh and reached down to take the turgid, ridged flesh in her hand, feeling the blood pulsing strongly against her palm. It was a curious and wonderful sensation as she curled her fingers around him, enclosing him in a warm grip.

Marcus groaned softly under the knowing caress, and his tongue trailed a moist and fiery path over her belly. She opened her thighs in sudden demand, still caressing his flesh, her fingers now conveying an acute urgency in their tips.

"Such impatience," he whispered, slipping a hand beneath her, his fingers closing like pincers over the firm, sweet flesh of her buttocks. "Slow down, sweetheart." He pinched just hard enough to pierce the self-enclosed trance of her need and her eyes opened, focusing fully on the face hanging over her. "You'll have me over the edge in a minute," he said, smiling. "And that would be a great pity for both of us."

She nodded in fierce understanding, clenching the cheek of her captured backside against his fingers.

Marcus moved his hand, flipping her onto her stomach. And now his lips were cool, his breath warm, erasing the marks of his fingers on the imprisoned flesh. His hand slid between her thighs, delicately probing, opening the soft swollen petals, feeling her warm readiness. She opened to his touch, moving her body backward against his hand, her little whimpers of pleasure filling the room.

"Turn over now," he said softly, moving his hand, kissing the nape of her neck. "I want to look into your eyes when I'm a part of you."

She rolled onto her back and gazed up at him through half-closed eyes. "I cannot describe how I feel." It seemed to both of them the first time she'd spoken in an eternity, and her voice sounded to Judith rusty and thick from disuse.

Marcus kissed her again, his pleasure in her pleasure glowing in his eyes as he eased himself between her legs with a low sibilant murmur of fulfillment. She felt the press of his manhood against the cleft of her body and instinctively tightened against him. Surprise skimmed his eyes, and then he touched her again with his hand, and her body surged against him, her legs lifting to receive him as he pressed within her, her heels gripping his buttocks with a wild urgency. Too late he became aware of her tightness, of the thin membrane momentarily barring his entrance. And then he was deep within her, his body a part of hers, and the tears glittered in her eyes, but her lips were parted on an exultant little cry and she was moving with his rhythm and the full force of Napoleon's Imperial Guard couldn't have stopped either of them then.