He stilled further talk by kissing her. His mouth tasted of whiskey, his whiskers burned, and he pushed her thighs apart with a firm hand. Bertie held her breath as Sinclair lifted his head, his gaze drawing hers, and began to slide himself into her.

Bertie’s eyes went wide, the tightness of her telling Sinclair more than words that he was her first. He didn’t like the triumph that swelled through him, but he couldn’t stop it. She was his.

Soft woman met his body, hers moving with its first taste of passion. Sinclair knew he could hurt her without meaning to, so he slid in slowly, letting Bertie get used to him before he went on.

It wasn’t easy. The small cry that escaped her lips beat heat through his blood, his need escalating with every heartbeat.

He held off as long as he could, but Bertie slid her hands down his back to cup his hips. “Please,” she whispered.

Sinclair dipped his head to the mattress, breathing the warm scent of her hair. “Bertie, what are you doing to me?”

She didn’t answer, but her intake of breath was enough for him. Sinclair kissed the curve of her neck, then bit it as he slid himself all the way inside.

Something woke in him, a wild spark that had been dead for a long time. Sinclair felt it race through his body, and his attention focused to one point.

Bertie. Roberta.

Sinclair moved his h*ps forward in one hard thrust, crazed magic entwining him fast.

He remembered how, when facing death on the battlefield, his mind had emptied of all other thought. Fear had fled, and rage, and all he’d experienced was a kind of floating freedom. Hard to come out of that when he was back at camp doing ordinary things; hence his mad pranks and the quantities of drinking he’d done.

His marriage and children had floated him free again, to be dashed to pieces five years later when Daisy had gone. Sinclair had lain in those pieces since, believing himself finished. He went through the motions of daily life, and honed his skills to deadly sharpness, but without much interest. His work filled the hours, made the pain more distant.

At this moment, with this woman under him, all the pieces of himself charged together again. It hurt, more than had Jeffrey kicking him in the stomach in the East End gutter. Pain radiated through Sinclair’s entire being, sharp like flesh being pulled from a wound.

A shout came from Sinclair’s throat. Bertie’s eyes widened—her blue eyes he could drown in. She’d come to him out of the fog, her eyes crystal brightness in a world of gray.

Now she was shining a light so bright it seared him. Sinclair wanted to hide his face and not look. But a Cockney pickpocket was dragging him out of the land of grayness, forcing him back into the fire. And he wanted to run into the flames.

He thrust into her, hearing his shouts, unable to stop himself. The hot ferocity of the coupling boiled around him, ecstasy wound with pain.

Bertie cried out softly, her fingers hard points in his back. Sinclair knew she was unused to a man inside her, and he tried to slow, tried to gentle himself, but he couldn’t stop.

He needed to go on, on . . .

He heard words come out of his mouth, curses at himself, tears hot in his eyes. He wound tighter as his body pressed down into one need—to be in her, one with her.

Bertie’s head went back, her eyes filling with wonder as her first cl**ax hit her. Her thrusts met his, her body knowing what to do, her cries beautiful.

Sinclair was coming now, thrusting into her. He had no idea where he was or when, only that Bertie was hot and welcoming, and he needed her.

Bertie fell back to the mattress, breathless, her skin filmed with sweat. She was laughing.

Sinclair, spent, collapsed on top of her, the wretched tears trickling from his eyes. Bertie smiled at him as she reached up and wiped a tear away.

Women in Bertie’s life had told her that men, after lying with a woman, started lying to a woman. Men also fell fast asleep right after, paying no more attention to the lady once his bodily needs were satisfied.

Sinclair showed no sign at all of falling asleep. He stretched out, facedown, next to Bertie, watching her with warm gray eyes as he lifted a lock of her hair and let it trickle through his fingers.

Bertie wanted to freeze this moment in time—lamplight touching Sinclair’s back and hips, brown against the tangle of sheets, his slow smile, his gray eyes holding sin.

“I couldn’t steal anything from you now,” Bertie said, her voice shaky. “Nothing on you to take.”

Sinclair’s smile deepened, crinkling the lines around his eyes, which the bruises in no way marred. “You’ve stolen something from me, don’t worry.”

Bertie gave him a mock skeptical look. “You don’t mean your watch, do you?”

He made a rumbling noise. “You’ve stolen all sense of my place in life. I thought I knew the road I was on, but now I have no idea.”

Bertie didn’t know what he was talking about, but she couldn’t help smiling back. “You ain’t making any sense.”

“I haven’t made sense, lass, since you tripped into me outside the Old Bailey.” He touched the tip of her nose. “My world turned upside down that evening.”

“Well, it hasn’t been all that right side up for me either.”

Sinclair stroked another lock of her hair. He had a scar on the inside of his wrist, a perfect circle, like the end of a cigar. Bertie touched it. “What happened here?”

Sinclair glanced at the scar, almost as though he’d forgotten about it. “Youthful larks.” He shrugged. “Nothing important.”