It was true, she wasn't - he wasn't a prisoner - she was giving him a choice, just like last time, when she'd stopped to tell him the truth before they went any further. That was the easy bit to remember, right now, while her breath on his ear sent a message straight to his balls. She let him choose, she wasn't forcing him, and Much reached up to put a hand on her, his fingers splayed over her stomach.
To keep her back? Maybe that's how the gesture started, deep in his mind before it was tainted by the mesmerising smell of her.
He could feel her breathing, under his hand. God, how easy it would be to slide his palm up her body, and squeeze her breast through that dangerous red? Much's eyes moved over the curve of her, to the delicate skin beneath her almost-modest neckline, before he dragged his eyes back to her face.
Nothing about her face looked evil. She looked enchanting. And he'd been struggling so hard all day, overcome by this tension, this irrepressible, hyperactive energy born from guilt, but...
But he knew exactly what would make him feel better, and it involved his tongue running hot up that curve of her neck. "How dare you," he remembered to say that, at least, but his thumb, traitorously, was stroking her stomach. "How dare you look so good."