She returned to the task of granting his buttons freedom, her tempo increasing as more was revealed. She became anxious to see all of him. Perhaps he was anxious as well, to have her touch all of him. Because she’d just moved past his sternum, when he reached back, tugged his shirt over his head, and tossed it aside.
She didn’t know where it landed. She didn’t care. Because there he was, taut, defined lines, a gorgeous masculine chest that caused her very core to melt. A light sprinkling of hair arrowed down to his trousers, and she wondered if she’d have a chance to follow its path before they were done. Since he’d gotten them this room for the remainder of the night, she could only assume that hours would be needed for all he intended to do to her—with her. She wouldn’t be passive. Her father had taught her the importance of partnerships, of giving and receiving equally so all benefited.
“My turn,” he said, and hastily unfastened her corset, grabbed it before it could fall to the floor, and flung it aside. It landed somewhere with a resounding and satisfyingthunk.
Her breasts filled his palms. Gently, he kneaded as though aware that she required a moment to adjust to no longer having them confined. It was always heavenly when the torture device was removed, and she often did her own massaging, but he was so much better at it, seeming to know the perfect amount of pressure to apply. Then he was raining kisses over the soft mounds. She threaded her fingers through his hair, dropped her head back, and moaned, low andthroatily, a sound she hardly recognized coming from herself.
When he took her nipple in his mouth and suckled, she released a short keen that echoed her surprise at the pleasure wrought. Oh, yes, not having this experience through linen was definitely more enjoyable. His mouth was so hot, she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it had come from the fires of Hades, and yet it didn’t burn. It felt only remarkably good.
He began skillfully loosening more ribbons, ties, and buttons. Not quite as slowly as before. An eagerness marked his actions. She’d always been modest, and yet this seemed the most natural thing in the world, for him to be removing her clothes, piece by piece, kneeling down to drag them along her legs, providing his strong shoulders for her to place a hand on to balance herself as she stepped out of the items. With an impatient arm, he brushed things out of the way. He began removing her shoes.
“No pebble?” There was a teasing in his tone.
That night seemed so long ago. A lifetime. Suddenly she realized what mattered wasn’t the length of time that people were together. It was how they filled those minutes or hours, what they shared, how they made it all special. She’d have this. And if it was the only time they were together, she could make it be enough. Because she now had her answer. Once was better than not at all.
“No pebble,” she finally responded.
He removed her stockings and lastly her drawers.
She held her breath, studying the part in his hair slowly going beyond her sight as he leaned his head back in order to view all the lines and contours of herbody. Finally, his gaze met hers, and the appreciation and marvel reflected in his weakened her knees, caused them to tremble slightly.
“Do you have any idea how lovely you are?”
“You’re just saying that because it’s expected at moments like this.”
A small pleat appeared in his brow. “I never say anything I don’t mean. If some man has made you feel you have little to offer in the way of beauty, I’d be obliged to break his jaw so he can’t mutter such nonsense again.”
He sounded so deadly serious that she almost laughed with the joy of a gentleman defending her like that. “You’re the only one to see me thus.”
Except for her mother, she supposed, but she’d been a child then. Her maid when she helped her from the bath, but it was always quick and impersonal, and she doubted the woman paid any heed to how she looked.
“’Tis an honor I do not take lightly.”
Slowly, so very slowly, as though they had all the time in the world, as if clocks no longer marked the passing of minutes and Big Ben would never again ring, he kissed his way up her body, until he was standing.
Banding his arms around her, he captured her mouth, kissing her deeply and with an urgency signaling he couldn’t get enough of her. She loved the sensation of her breasts flattened against the hard planes of his chest. Skin to skin. Because they were nearly the same height—he did have a couple of inches on her—so much of her was able to be against so much of him. It was heavenly.
One of his arms glided down her back and hooked ather knees. He lifted her, cradling her against that magnificent chest as her arms wound around his shoulders. She broke away from the kiss and studied him.
His brown eyes were twinkling with a touch of merriment, but mostly what she saw was barely leashed desire. “You’re going to want to be lying down for what comes next.”
Bloody hell. Never in his life had he been so tempted to break a vow. To shed his trousers, climb on top of her, and have his way with her. Completely. Absolutely.
She wouldn’t object. He was rather certain of that because of the heat burning in her eyes, the raw hunger, the intrepid curiosity. But he’d promised her passion without penalty. No deflowering.
He wasn’t in the habit of taking what wasn’t offered. She trusted him to hold true to his word—that faith was of more value than all the coins in his coffers.
With great care, he set her on the chaise longue, dropped to one knee, and once again took her mouth.
For a novice, she was remarkably adept at exploring his chest, his shoulders, his arms, taking her long, slender fingers on a journey over the skin he’d thus far bared to her. When he’d lowered her skirts and petticoats, he’d almost expected astop!Quickly followed by the command to remove his trousers, but he supposed she wasn’t yet comfortable with viewing the whole of a man, of him. Which was all to the good, because it would make it more difficult not to press his currently throbbing cock against her silken flesh. It would also be more of a challenge to hide exactly how desperately he wanted her.
At least with his trousers in place, he could secrete the burgeoning bulge away as long as he kept himself perched on the floor rather than on the longue. But how he yearned to stretch out beside her. Far too many of the women with whom he’d been intimate had been short of stature, leaving much of him untouched when they lay together without curling about each other. But she was tall enough that their lengths, while not a perfect match, would still result in a satisfactory one, when paired. It would be an experience he couldn’t recall having before. He enjoyed trying new things.
Hence his lingering attraction to her, surely. She intrigued him, so much of her still a secret to him. But the things he did know...
How her breasts filled his palms, seeming to strain for closer contact when he covered them. The dark pink of her areolas. The plump nipples and the way she shuddered when he closed his mouth over one. The tautness of the skin over her ribs, the flatness of her stomach, the lush curve of her arse.
And that auburn-covered mound that beckoned, the sweet valley it hid that he had yet to touch. But he wanted to worship and adore, to listen to her raspy breaths, to take his time. Kneading her breasts. Running his tongue along her collarbones, dipping it in the hollow between, before trailing his mouth up her throat to her ear, outlining the delicate shell, and nibbling on her lobe.
