“Here,” she said, because to leave him now would feel like stepping into deep water with stones tied about her waist.
“Here,” he murmured. “With me.”
“Yes.” Her reply was little more than a breath. She did not know which of them moved that last fraction. Only that the space between them vanished and the air changed shape, desire humming through her, heady and dangerous.
For once, the house made no sound at all.
Chapter Seventeen
Rhys caught her up, not with careful distance, no gentleman’s inch between them, his mouth claiming hers like a man who had been starved for air and took breath from her lips. His kiss was not polite; it was salvation. Tangled tongues, breath stolen and given back.
Isabella clutched at his shoulders, fingers digging as if bracing against a current. He made a sound, raw, grateful, and kissed her harder. All the wanting she had hoarded and hidden and starved, every denial and silence of her life, broke loose and surged up, and she kissed him back, rising on her toes to mold her body to his.
They stumbled as one. His hip struck the edge of a chair and sent it skittering, the lamp flame jumping in its glass. She didn’t care. She wanted the proof of him, the heat and weight and the litany of his name in the cradle of her mouth. He framed her face as if he feared she would vanish and then gathered her in with an arm about her waist, hauling her flush to him.
Cloth rasped, buttons pressed, the ridged line of his arousal unmistakable against her belly.
The frightened, careful part of her went quiet. This was not pretending. This was not silence. This was life.
“Isabella,” he breathed into her mouth, not her name so much as a vow.
With a gasp, she chased his kiss. The urgency of it shook her, her need a fierce roar—now, now—her hands fumbling at his neckcloth as if all her fingers had turned to thumbs. The knot refused her.
She made a frustrated sound that would have shamed her in daylight, and he laughed, the huff of it warm against her lips, then tugged the silk loose himself, tossing it blind behind him. She pushed his coat from his shoulders, the weight of the broadcloth sliding down his arms, and smoothed her palm over his chest, claiming him by touch.
“I dreamed of you,” she whispered, need tilting wildly inside her.
“No dream,” he answered hoarsely. “I am here.”
His mouth left hers to take her jaw, her throat. Heat flared where he licked; heat flared where he breathed. He found the spot beneath her ear and she broke, a small, shocked sound that had him swearing softly and pressing her back against the nearest wall, plaster cool on her shoulder blades through her dress. His chest to her breasts. His breathing ragged.
Hooks and eyes fought her. She cursed them in her head and then out loud, reckless and unladylike. His answering laugh was hot against her throat. His hands took over, fast now, not with the careful patience he had shown her in other moments. Eyes, hooks, ribbon. Her bodice slackened and her lungs seized sweet air.
He kissed her while he worked her clothing, and she kissed back while she unraveled, the two of them a tangle of haste and reverence. Each time a fastening gave, it felt like something in her loosened with it, something long-bound untying under his hands.
“Tell me if—” he began.
“I will,” she said. “I am untried, not uninformed. Books have been my tutors.” She bit his lower lip, gently, then harder. “Hurry.”
He did. The back-lacing gave by swift degrees beneath his fingers. She felt the tug. The gown dropped from her shoulders and air kissed skin that pulsed with heat. She shivered and he groaned, the sound low and awed. Petticoat tapes yielded. Cloth whispered down and pooled, a soft betrayal at her ankles. Her chemise slid after, linen skimming like water, leaving her bare to the lamplight and his gaze.
She should have covered herself. She did not. She stood, reckless and red-cheeked, her heart a drum in her throat. He looked at her as a starving man looked at a banquet.
“My God,” he said, reverent and rough. “Look at you.”
She did not look away. She let him see her and discovered that it undid her as surely as his mouth had done. His gaze learned the curve of her shoulder, the hollow at the base of her throat, the weight of her breasts, the slope of her waist, which he traced with a palm that shook and steadied. He bent and set his mouth to her collarbone and then lower, and her knees simply… forgot how to stand.
He caught her, of course he did, arm clamped around her waist, chest caging her, his hand splayed over the base of her spine as if to say, mine, and also, I have you.
His heart thudded against her cheek, a furious rhythm. That was what she had wanted, she realized, foolishly and exactly: to know his heart beat as hard as hers.
“Undress,” she managed, and pushed at his buttons with fingers that had no dignity, only need.
“Fond of giving orders, are you?” he murmured, kissing the word into her hair, but he obeyed.
Waistcoat buttons slipped, fell. She shoved the garment away, ruthless. His shirt came next, slower, because her hands shook but at last the fine lawn parted and she put her palms on the hard planes of his naked chest. Heat. Strength. A faint dusting of hair that prickled her skin. She bent and put her mouth where his throat met his shoulder, ran her tongue along his skin, then sucked on him. He swore low and soft and pulled her closer, closer still.
Gently, she bit his chest.
