Her fingers slid down his throat, toyed with his stock, and slid under the edges of his frockcoat. “I like what your tailor does for you.”
He allowed her to slither off his cravat. “Improves my looks, does he?”
“No,” she said with an impish smirk.
“No?” He looked, as he ever did, for the startling new remark she’d make. Her ingenuity tickled him, but he had not planned to speak on his wedding night of his tailor.
She spread wide the neck of his shirt, then buried her nose against his chest to nuzzle him. Humming, she sent vibrations of longing through his heart, and he held himself back from carrying her off upstairs.
“The man understands what you are.” She kissed his breastbone. “Strong. Muscular.” She squeezed his biceps. “A man who needs a deft cut to his coats and his shirts. Else you would look”—she tilted her head in thought—“lumpy.”
He snorted. “Lumpy.”
“Mm-hmm.” She worked at the buttons on his waistcoat. “Not a good look.”
“Not for any man,” he observed. He felt her naked skin, her natural heat and her eagerness for him. His body hard withneed, he tried to focus on the point of her argument, but could not say what the hell it was.
“Many merit it.” She pushed at his waistcoat and caught it between two fingers, then dropped it ceremoniously to a nearby chair. She fired each nerve in his body. If she persisted with this, he would burst his trousers before she ever got near the button or the placket.
Tugging at his shirt, she pulled it out of his trousers and over his head.
His torso bare, his skin itched for her touch. “You are driving me mad.”
She giggled. The chit. “Merveilleux.”
Her hands dropped to his waist—and she licked one of his nipples.
He gasped.
She preened. Her eyes danced. “We should take off your boots.”
Damn.Boots.
“And socks.” She skimmed her lips on his and covered his very erect and very clothed penis with her warm hand. “Everything.”
He was going to eat every inch of her.
A knock came at the far door.
She froze. “The maid.”
He walked around her, shielding her from exposure should the girl open the door. “Yes, thank you,” he called to the girl. “What is it?”
“Sir? The footman Gaylord comes later to take away the dinner. He returns tomorrow morning at nine with breakfast.” Rafe’s servants up on the hill in the main house were to serve them, bringing down their meals and anything else they required.
Inès put her arms around his waist and pressed her naked breasts to his back.
He sucked in air through his teeth and found some voice to tell the maid, “Good to know. Thank you.”
“If you need me…?” the girl suggested.
Inès scored her teeth over the round of his shoulder, then bit him.
“Minx!” He growled at her, but to the maid he said, “If I need you, I will come up to the main house.”
“Very good, sir. Have a good night, sir.”
Hoping he might have a spectacular one, he clamped his hands on his wife’s and stilled while he listened to the girl’s footsteps clickety-clacking on the tile floor.
