“Wig, yes.” Ben gripped her hips and crowded her towards his bed.
“So he is real, then.”
He took her chin in his fingers and held her gaze. “I don’t want to talk about the cat, Rose.”
She smirked. “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t about to spend the rest of my day in bed with a man who has an imaginary cat.”
Ben laughed and Rose beamed as he pressed his lips to hers again, nipping at the soft skin and sending shimmers of pleasure along her spine. He fumbled with her corset, and she wished she had opted for a simpler undergarment.
“Wait.” Ben stepped back and perused her body with heated eyes, rubbing his hand over his mouth roughly. “I don’t know why seeing you in this makes you seem so much more like alady.”
She laughed, although the heat coursing through her made it emerge as more of a groan. “Women’s undergarments do tend to enhance my ladylike parts.”
“That isn’t what I meant.” His eyes were dark, blazing, and tension creased the corners of his mouth. “I meant alady, like Mrs. Astor and their kind. Like you’re to be put on display, a work of art.”
Her stomach seized. “I don’t want to be a piece of art.”
“You are, whether or not you wish to be.”
Rose stepped back and lifted a hand as the warmth drained from her body. “Just because people see me that way, like I’m this pretty, perfect thing capable of nothing else but being beautiful, doesn’t mean I’m—”
“Rose, no.” Ben crushed her in his arms, burying his head in her neck and kissing her racing pulse. “Fuck, I didn’t say that right.” He pulled back and crouched enough to level their gazes. “I meant I can’t believe you’re here, in my bedroom, kissing me. You are so far above me, I’m not fit to polish your boots.”
“Don’t say that,” she whispered. “You are a far better man than anyone I’ve met before. We’re equals in all things, at least in everything that matters.” She lifted her hands to the pink ribbon at the top of her corset. “Beneath this awful contraption I’m just a woman, like any other.”
Ben’s eyes heated, tracking the movements of her fingers as they unhooked the fastenings one by one. “You’re unlike anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Good.” She pushed the undergarment to her feet and stepped out of it. “Then you’ll never forget me.”
The thought of Ben forgetting her hurt more than it should have, so she shoved it away, letting herself fall into the renewed fever brought on by his touch. His hands slid over her body, explored each curve and dip reverently as he kissed her lips, cheeks, neck. Rose thought she would catch fire, hungry and needing andachinglike she’d never experienced.
“Take this off,” he growled, gripping the hem of her shift. She wore one she had borrowed from Abby, threadbare and plain, appropriate for a woman from the Heights. A woman that belonged.
She could only nod, as she was busy tasting the line of his jaw, delighting in the rough growth of evening beard, the texture lighting up her senses. Rose broke away for long enough for Ben to pull the shift over her head and toss it aside then undo the tapes of her drawers so they fell to her feet.
Rose gasped, and Ben froze. “Fuck, I should have asked before I did that.” He leaned to right her undergarments, but she stopped him.
“It’s not—it’s only—” She pressed her fingers to her lips as tears burned in her throat.
“Rose, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” His hands were so warm on her bare arms, his voice soothing. She couldn’t imagine ever being able to feel like this with someone, the intense need to give herself completely to another and know she would be held and cherished. Understood.
“This is significant to me, that’s all.” She smiled weakly, and Ben pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It never seemed imperative to share my body with someone else, not like I feel now, and so—”
She broke off, and Ben made to pull back. “We don’t have to—”
“Iwantto.” A laugh spilled from her chest. “I never thought I’d want to, but I do.”
His expression was awestruck, a smile pulling at his lips. “With me?”
“Of course, you.”
He hesitated, as though his mind and body battled, before kissing her again, slowly. “Tell me to stop and I will, immediately and without question.”
She bit her lower lip to hold back a grateful sob. “I trust you.” Another smile, another sigh. Another step into being completely in love with this impossible man.Shit.
Ben scooped his arms down below her bottom, and she shrieked as he lifted her clean off her feet, laying her on his bed, cradling her head as he lowered her. He spread his body over hers, teasing a slow line of kisses and caresses over her shoulders and chest. She cried out when his lips closed over her nipple, kissing and sucking one peak while his fingers teased the other. Her hips bucked against him and she spread her legs, welcoming him into the cradle of her thighs. His arousal pulsed against her core, the fabric of his trousers driving her wild as she lifted her pelvis, desperately seeking friction.
“Easy, Rosie,” Ben whispered, sliding down her body just when she thought she might crest over a wave of climax.
