“I want to see you too.”
She did—shedidwant to see him. But more than that—she did not want to be alone. She felt strangely revealed already. She had not undressed, but she had spoken her desires aloud: to watch as he brought her pleasure. It was what she imagined in the darkest part of the night, Malcolm a floor away and her body hot with wanting.
He smiled as he looked at her, and—merciful heavens, the man had such a talent for joy.
“As her ladyship commands,” he murmured, and peeled off his shirt.
In answer, she twitched her shoulders, and her flounced white frock fell to her elbows. She tugged it off the rest of the way, letting it puddle on the ground at her feet, and then stood in her chemise and stays and stockings, and met his eyes in the glass.
His hungry gaze dipped down to the décolletage revealed now above her chemise, to the place where her stays lifted her breasts, pushing them up and out. And then his eyes dropped further: her hips, her legs, the shadowed place between her thighs.
She could feel the slow path of his eyes like a fingertip, tracing over her flushed, sensitive skin. She shivered, and her chemise brushed her nipples. She felt restless—already wanting.
He set his hands on her hips to hold her still. “Let me look at you,” he said thickly. “I could stand right here until the sun comes up and not grow tired of the sight.” His palms tangled in her chemise, easing the fabric up.
Her breath came quickly, her chest rising and falling unsteadily, and she watched him in the window—watched the flex of his forearms, the pale high curve of his shoulder, the slow path of his gaze.
Her chemise was above her knees. His hands worked; the thin cotton rose higher, brushing her heated skin, and her hips shifted back, seeking him.
“Impatient?” he murmured.
She covered his hands with hers, traced the lines between his fingers. “I told you,” she said. “I told you what I wanted.”
“You did.” He gave a breathy, uneven laugh. “God, you did, and I liked it so much. I don’t know why it pleases me to draw it out. To make you wait.”
“Because you wish to torment me?”
His left hand gripped the fabric taut, pulling it across her belly. His right hand slipped between her legs. She gasped, and he did too, grittily, groaning as he cupped her with his palm.
“Not torment you,” he rasped, and his hand shifted, his thumb sliding through her wetness to circle her clitoris, and then retreat. “Well. Perhaps a little.”
She felt dizzy. She felt her whole body cant down into his hand, tipping toward the place where he cupped her. The sight—ah—she could look down and watch his forearm ripple, his elegant fingers flex and move—and then she could look into the glass and see the ferocious focus on his beautiful face.
Her thighs went taut around his hand. Arousal built and built in her belly—she had learned, these past days, how quickly he could bring her to her culmination.
But this time, he stopped before she reached her peak, slipping his fingers free to clutch her hip.
She took a gasping breath, and he reached up and put his palm to her chest again. “Breathe. Yes. God, you feel good. Yes, breathe just like that.”
She clutched his arm. Her breasts pushed up into his hand as she inhaled, and she felt his body grow harder where he pressed into her back.
“Torture,” she got out. “I recognize it.”
“No,” he murmured, and palmed her breast with a little moan. “Can I take your stays off?”
“If you remove your trousers.”
Now he laughed too, and pressed his mouth briefly to her neck, her cheek, and then her lips. “Done,” he whispered against her mouth, and had himself out of his shoes and trousers in a heartbeat.
He was bare as the day he was born, and she could not help but chart the contours of his body while he worked her stays. His shoulders were broad; the muscles of his abdomen flexed. She had traced the scars on his biceps muscle with her tongue.
His phallus resembled no classical statue she had ever seen. Perhaps the Greeks had been loath to show off.
He had her stays off now, and then her chemise too, and then he was cupping her breasts, molding them, pressing them together and staring, staring at her in the glass, shamelessly grinding himself against her back as he devoured her body with his eyes.
She had never had strong feelings about her own form. Plumpness was generally considered a pleasing attribute, and she dressed in such a way to take advantage of her shape. But her breasts had always been cumbersome; when slim sweeping gowns had been in fashion, Ruby’s bountiful bosom had made such straight lines impossible.
But now, as she watched Malcolm watch her, she could spare no feelings for her own body except delight. She made him feel this way; her body brought him to a fever pitch of wanting. She felt a strange, vertiginous flush beneath her skin at the thought of her own power, a hot melting sensation in her lower belly.
