Evelyn stood frozen, her fingers digging into the cedar rails, her throat parched, her entire body trembling with a sensation so hot, so visceral, that it terrified her to the soles of her boots.

Her mother had told her that male bodies were coarse, ungainly things to be avoided in the light.

Her mother was a fool.

Adrian Blackwood was magnificent. He was power, grace, and raw, beautiful life carved out of the mountain stone.

Suddenly, Adrian turned his head.

His gray eyes locked onto hers across the thirty feet of dusty corral. He saw her parted lips. He saw the rapid rise and fall of her chest beneath her white cotton blouse. He saw the dark, dilated hunger in her hazel eyes—a hunger she was far too stunned to conceal.

Adrian did not look away. He did not reach for his shirt.

Slowly, deliberately, the corners of his mouth curved into that devastating, knowing smile. He lifted his hand from the horse’s neck, wiped a bead of sweat from his temple with his forearm, and held her gaze until Evelyn felt as though her skin would burst into flames.

She gasped, spun on her heel, and fled up the path toward the cabin, her skirts swishing wildly around her ankles.

Behind her, drifting over the sound of the river, carried the deep, rich rumble of his laughter.

Part IV: The Spark and the Skirmish
That night, the cabin was suffocatingly quiet.

Adrian sat in the armchair beside the hearth, a whetstone scraping with rhythmic, hypnotic precision along the steel edge of his hunting knife. He wore a clean, dark blue flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal corded forearms dusted with black hair.

Evelyn sat on the opposite side of the small table, attempting to read her leather-bound volume of Ivanhoe. She had read the same paragraph four times. The words were meaningless black marks on paper; her mind was occupied entirely by the memory of bronze skin, corded muscle, and the amused arrogance of his smile across the corral rail.

The silence stretched, thick as molasses, until Evelyn snapped the book shut with a sharp, echoing crack.

Adrian’s hand paused on the whetstone. He looked up, his silver eyes glinting in the firelight.

“A dull chapter, Mrs. Blackwood?” he inquired softly.

“A ridiculous one,” Evelyn retorted, her voice higher than usual. “The hero spends fifty pages pining after a woman who speaks only in riddles, while neither of them has the courage to say what they truly mean.”

Adrian set the knife and stone on the table. He leaned back in his chair, folding his large hands across his flat stomach, studying her with an intensity that made the room shrink to the width of the hearth rug.

“Perhaps,” he said, his voice dropping into that dark, velvety register, “the hero understands that taking what has not been freely offered is the fastest way to turn gold into lead.”

Evelyn swallowed. Her heart began to hammer against her ribs like an iron knocker on an oak door. “And what if the lady has grown weary of waiting for him to ask?”

Adrian went utterly still.

For three heartbeats, the only sound was the crackle of pine sap in the fireplace. Then, moving with that slow, panther-like grace that always stole her breath, Adrian rose from the armchair.

He did not stop across the room. He walked around the table until he stood directly before her chair. He leaned down, placing one massive hand on the armrest beside her hip, his face descending until his lips were inches from hers.

The heat radiating from him was intoxicating. Evelyn looked into his gray eyes and saw the banked fire she had sensed for weeks—a blaze of pure, unadulterated passion held behind the bars of his legendary self-control.

“May I?” he whispered.

Evelyn could not speak. Her throat was closed with a wild, singing joy. She managed a single, breathless nod.

Adrian’s mouth touched hers.

It was not the savage asNextlt her mother had warned her of, nor was it the polite, sterile peck of a respectable gentleman in a parlor. It was warm. It was deep. It was infinitely gentle, his lips moving against hers with a patient, intoxicating reverence that coaxed her mouth to part.

When he felt her breath mingle with his, a low, guttural groan vibrated deep in his chest. His hand moved from the armrest to cup the back of her neck, his long fingers tangling in the soft curls of her hair, tilting her face upward as the kiss deepened, tasting her with a hunger that made Evelyn’s head spin.

When Adrian began to pull back, his breathing ragged, Evelyn discovered that her own hands had moved without her permission. Her fingers were knotted into the dark blue flannel of his shirt, gripping him with desperate, white-knuckled strength.

Adrian froze, his forehead resting against hers, his gray eyes dark as midnight storm clouds.

“More?” he whispered, the single word trembling with raw restraint.

“Yes,” Evelyn breathed against his mouth. “More.”

The second kiss shattered the last remnants of her Victorian propriety. It was fierce, possessive, and demanding. Adrian pulled her up from the chair and into his arms, lifting her against his chest as though she had no weight at all. Evelyn clung to him, her hands sliding over his broad shoulders, tracing the hard muscles of his back, opening her mouth to his with an eager, shameless hunger that shocked her soul.

Then, with a sudden, violent wrench of his will, Adrian tore his mouth from hers.

He set her feet back upon the floorboards, stepping back three full paces, his hands falling to his sides, his chest heaving as if he had just run ten miles across mountain scree.

Evelyn stood swaying, her hair tumbled, her lips swollen and red, staring at him in utter disbelief. “Why did you stop?” she cried, her voice cracking with frustration and longing. “Why do you always walk away?”

Adrian looked at her, his jaw clenching until the bone turned white beneath his skin.

“Because curiosity is not certainty, Evelyn,” he said, his voice rough as gravel. “You have never known a man. You have spent your life being told that passion is a sin. You are discovering the fire in your blood, and it is intoxicating. But I will not take you in the heat of a novel sensation, only to have you wake tomorrow morning and look at me with regret.”

He stepped toward the door, his thumb reaching out to brush the trembling curve of her lower lip with agonizing tenderness.

“I want you certain, Evelyn,” he whispered. “When you come to my bed, there will be no retreat. There will be no doubts. And until you are sure of that, I will keep the line.”

He took his coat, opened the heavy pine door, and stepped out into the midnight cool, leaving Evelyn standing alone in the firelight, trembling with a furious, glorious certainty that she had never felt in her entire life.

Part V: The Breaking of the Iron Vow
For the next two weeks, Adrian Blackwood’s legendary self-restraint became an instrument of absolute torture.