Under the midnight moon of Ceylon, on the night of her debutante ball at the Governor's palace, Alexa Howard met her cousin, Nicholas Dameron. And in the sardonic curl of his hard, sensuous lips, in the commanding arrogance of his eyes, Alexa beheld the fierce, implacable passion that would render her helpless to the trembling slavery of desire...

Every kind of love a woman can be made to feel...

Within the golden softness of Alexa's alluring gentility flowed the insatiable fires of an innocent woman's awakening to love -- and the fury of a betrayed woman's lust for revenge. Through the nightworlds of Naples, Rome, Paris and London, she was pursued by the man who heartlessly wanted her beauty. But her soul was possessed by the man whose touch was unbearable ecstasy, whose cruelty was ravishing torment, whose tenderness was passion's fulfillment. Nicholas Dameron had taken her virtue and mocked her pride. But his love was the offering of every pleasure a woman has ever dared to dream of...