“Why?” she demanded on a gasp as he tugged at the sensible fabric of her plain gown, which resisted. “Because I was a spinster?”
He raised his head just long enough to give her a cautious look.
“I feel like I’m not supposed to say yes, but… yes.” He looked braced for impact.
She dropped her head back against the seat.
“I find myself in an uncommonly agreeable mood,” she said, and it was hard to say what was more gratifying—the laugh he let out or the way he kissed against the pulse point on her neck immediately after.
“God, I can’t resist you,” he said between kisses.
“Then don’t resist,” she said.
He let out a helpless groan that she felt in her core, then continued his journey downward. When her dress resisted his hands a second time, he tugged harder, and the fabric gave way with a telling rip.
“You ripped my dress,” she protested.
This time, when he paused, Aaron did not look nearly as sorry as he had before.
“I hope you’re still feeling forgiving, sweetheart—” Her body clenched at the endearment. “—because I feel compelled to tell you that this is the ugliest dress I’ve ever seen. Destroying it is a mercy.”
And then he ripped it at the seam, tugging the sleeve away from the bodice so that he could access her undergarments more easily. Phoebe hiccupped out a gasp. Yes. It was worth sacrificing the dress. Who cared about the ugly dress? It was good for only one thing—letting her soldier husband show off his strength.
“Oh,” she whimpered.
Aaron looked extremely pleased with himself, and Phoebe found that it made him disarmingly handsome.
“Do you like that, then, sweetheart?” he asked, the words somewhat muffled by the kisses he was applying to the places where her breasts swelled above her corset. “Do you like seeing how frantic you’ve made me?”
“Yes,” she moaned. “Oh, yes.”
His teeth gleamed white in the dim light as he shot her a feral grin. He pulled at the laces on her stays, but no matter theimpressive strength that had allowed her to tear the seams of her dress, he was unable to rend the cords.
“Wait,” Phoebe gasped. “I have a knife.”
His hands paused. “You… have a knife.”
“In my reticule,” she confirmed.
“You have aknifein your reticule.” He sounded incredulous, but he reached for her reticule all the same. “Why, dare I ask, do you have a knife in your reticule?”
“For protection.”
“For protec—” He paused, but Phoebe could see the glint of the blade in his hand. “Christ, Phoebe, forget coming to me just for pleasure. You come to me for protection, too, do you hear me?”
Phoebe wasn’t sure she was ready to agree to any such thing, but she was spared from making the choice when Aaron used the knife to cut through her laces with astonishing precision.
Oh. That was…Goodness.
Aaron must have felt so, too, for he looked at where she was now bare before him.
“Fuck, Phoebe,” he breathed.
He went back to kissing his way down her body, paying special attention to her breasts. He varied his touches—a gentle graze of his nose here, a sucking kiss against flesh there—leaving Phoebe unable to do much more than pant helplessly, the changes leaving her perpetually sensitive to the promise of what might come next. She could feel, however, where Aaron braced his knee on the cushion beside her, and if she tilted her hand, her palm would meet?—
“Fuck, Phoebe,” he said again, this time with an extraordinarily gratifying gasp of his own. She felt the heat of him through his trousers, where he followed her wordless encouragement to grind against her, though it was very hard to pay attention to that when he reached beneath the skirt and pressedhishand against her.
If she was half mindless with desire, Aaron proved more than able to do more than one thing at a time. His mouth against her breasts kept up its parade of kisses even as his fingers sketched a tantalizing pattern against her center. The two sensations warred against one another, each trying to steal what remained of her senses.
