Excerpt of Recklessly Yours by Allison Chase

Wrong. A mistake. Go back.

You have sworn . . .

His conscience railing at him, Colin cleared the top step with Holly secure in his arms. He had no permanent bedchamber in this house, but he strode to the guestroom he'd used in the past. The bed, curtained in heavy brocade and covered in supple satin, beckoned like a night-darkened glen dripping in foliage and draped in vines.

He moved past it and went instead to the window.

Letting Holly's feet slide to the floor, he kept one arm solidly around her waist while he flung the curtains wide. Cloud-dappled moonlight spilled into the room, gilding her milky skin and transforming her eyes to emerald-tinged stars. Those eyes . . .

Shimmered with emotion, and communicated the very gift he longed to see.

Downstairs, he had almost confessed all, almost told her he loved her and had from the very first. Now, seeing her glowing like a moon goddess with her lips parted and her heart in her eyes, he almost spoke those words.

Instead he expelled a long sigh that stirred the fallen tendrils beside her face. He swept his fingers through her hair again, filling his hands with an immeasurable treasure of rare crimson gold. "By God, you're beautiful."

A shadow dimmed her eyes, and he remembered that in their society, redheads were not accustomed to being considered beautiful. That she could think of herself as anything less than a goddess cast a pall over his own pleasure in having her in his arms. He couldn't bear it; he wouldn't have it.

Their time together would be too short for such misgivings.

"You are beautiful and I'll prove it to you," he said, as if she had demurred out loud.

He kissed her and swept his tongue into her mouth when her lips opened to him. Spurred by the unleashing of a passion too long held in check, he moved his hands over her, everywhere, seeking out her most feminine places, learning every curve and line of her through her clothing, while she panted into him and yielded her body against his. He filled his hands with the weight of her breasts, then claimed her hips and belly and buttocks. Trembling, all awareness of time and place lost to the rushing, aching heat that drove him, he bunched her trailing skirts in his fist and raised them.

She gave a desperate whimper, and he stilled his hands while his heart shook his rib cage. The sound spilled through her lips again, but with it came a yes. She tightened her arms around him.

He swept her up again. This time he went to the bed and tossed her lengthwise into the pool of moonlight slanting across the coverlet. Crawling up over her, he braced his hands on either side of her face and dipped his lips to her smooth neck. Between kisses, he spoke her name.

"Holly?" It was a question, an appeal for permission, and it contained more vulnerability than he had dared express in many years.

"Yes," she repeated that single syllable, assuring him she knew as well as he why they were there, and what would follow.

Yes. Oh God, yes. His body responded with a surge of lust that strained his cock against his breeches. Whisking open the buttons of her riding jacket, he shoved its edges aside and dropped his face to her bodice, burying his nose and lips in sultry flesh. Tantalizing, spicy, her essence spiraled through him and made him tipsy with pleasure. He sat up and tore his coat from his arms. He ripped his neckcloth free. Without untying the laces, tugged his shirt over his head and tossed it away.

Raising her up to a sitting position, he went to work on the buttons down the back of her dress. Soon her bodice had joined the growing pile on the floor. She herself reached for the ties that held her skirts in place.

His conscience nudged, and he closed his hand over hers. "You should tell me to go to the devil."

The sudden swat to the side of his head not only startled him, but smarted, too. She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him to her, nose to nose. "If you wish to go to the devil," she said fiercely, angrily, "then go. Don't put it on me."

"I only meant . . ."

She shook her head. "No. You must do as you wish. Be here with me, now, because you wish to be. It is the only reason I am here." A fiery tendril slid into her face. She blew it back, and suddenly her vehemence faded and the vulnerability of a girl, a virtuous, untouched girl, peeped through. "I am here," she whispered, "doing as I have never done before because . . ."

"Why, dear heart? Why now?"

"Because of you," she said simply, the quiver in her voice resonating like the pluck of a harp. "And I will not take it back."

"Nor will I." No, were he granted one wish, it would be to change his life, his family, his father . . . his legacy. But to wish himself elsewhere but in that room and on that bed, gazing into the eyes of this one woman—that he would not have changed for all the priceless colts in the world.

For tonight, he would cease to be the Earl of Drayton, heir to the Duke of Masterfield. He'd merely be a man, with the world's most desirable goddess sprawled lushly beneath him, her body warm and welcoming, her eyes misty with desire and consent. The tenderness on her face made him feel good enough, blameless enough, for the first time in his life. Whatever else they would share, she had already bestowed a rare gift, the greatest possible gift.

"Nothing else exists tonight." His lips to her ear, his teeth nipped at the tender lobe. "We won't think of this as my father's house. We aren't in a house at all, but on a cloud just beneath heaven."

"And no one can hurt us or judge us or hinder us."

"That's right, dearest heart." He slid her loosened skirts down her long, slim legs. Crawling back up to her side, he kissed a trail from her chin down her throat to the swell of her breasts at the neckline of her chemise. "We're free."

Her hands ran through his hair. She locked her fingers behind his head and pressed him more fully to her bosom. "Free to rule ourselves."

"And our desires."