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“Your breast is mine,” he told her, his fingers tweaking her nipple until she gasped. “This one, too.” His lips settled onto the junction between her neck and shoulder and sucked at the sensitive skin there. “And let us not forget this…”

She felt her skirts being dragged up over her ankles, past her stockinged calves… to her bare thighs. His hands teased the curls at the junction of her thighs as his other hand continued to knead her breast.

Oh, he could be such abeast, holding her in suspense just so, when he knew what she wanted. What her body craved.

“Hudson…” she whimpered. “Hudson, please…”

“Please?” He chuckled. “Now, that is a word I would like to hear from you more often, little cat. That andharder. Faster.More.”

Right now, she would settle foranything.

She sighed in delight as his finger slipped through the curls and between her slick folds, finding the pearl of her desire unerringly. He circled it with aching slowness, and Scarlettfeared that she was going to leave holes in the column from how hard her fingers were digging into the marble.

“More…” she moaned. “Please…more…”

But she should have known better than to relinquish all control of her pleasure. He would never make things easier for her—not after she went against him tonight.

“You are so wet, little cat,” he groaned in her ear. “How can you be this wet and still manage to stand?”

Scarlett did not know how she managed it herself. If the column before her disappeared, she would never be able to hold herself up.

“Damn, I love how you respond so easily,” he told her. “Such passion…” He laughed harshly. “A gift.”

Was it, really? Or was it a curse to want him so much that sheachedfrom just looking at him in the ballroom?

If anyone knew of the things that ran through her head when she had seen him dressed in all his finery and imagined what lay beneath his luxurious garb… oh, they would have apoplexy!

“Tell me,” he crooned. “Is this part of that list of yours? A tryst in the garden, my hand between your legs in the open air?”

She cried out as his finger slid down her wet center, setting her nerve endings on fire.

“Yes!” she gasped. “Oh yes!”

“My, my, my… such filthy thoughts for a young lady.” His words were of admonishment, but he seemed greatly pleased by her confession. “Very well then… let us tick off one more item on that list of yours.”

Scarlett barely heard him. What little shedidhear barely filtered through the fog in her brain, for his finger had slid deep inside her.

“Hudson!” she moaned. “Oh my…oh!”

His thumb pressed against her clitoris as that sly digit began to slide in and out of her tight channel.

Whatever scrap of coherent thought fled from her mind. Logic demanded that she flee. Her body demanded that she stay.

She heard a masculine groan from behind her and felt something hard and hot pressing against her tailbone. Her eyes widened briefly when she realized just what it was. Howmassiveit felt pressed against her.

How tightly he must have controlled himself despite his raging desire.

If only he would let go of that infernal restraint of his for just a while…

But then his finger curled inside her, and something within hersnapped.

Oh, she was glorious. The most magnificent creature he had ever beheld in all his pathetic existence.

And when she came so spectacularly, her moans echoing in the gazebo as her walls clenched his finger tightly… it took all of his self-control not to plunge deep inside her. At that moment, there was nothing he would want to do more.

It went beyond mere temptation—it almost felt vital to his soul.

If he had one, that is.