“Look at what you can take,” he murmured. “Look at what you can enjoy.”
Blaise reached up. The silk that bound her loosened with a few expert tugs and fell away from the hidden ring, pooling around her wrists. Her cheek met the rough wool of his waistcoat, and she listened to the steady thump of his heartbeat against her ear.
The embrace was almost worse than the pleasure.
“You remain fully dressed. That is hardly fair!” she argued breathlessly.
Blaise’s eyes darkened, “Is that what troubles you, Iris? That I am dressed?”
“Yes,” she answered, surprising herself with the firmness.
“And here I thought I had exhausted you,” he said. “You are a rapacious little thing, are you not?”
The blush that followed felt different now, less like a punishment and more like a bloom.
“You have shown me a room full of… devices,” she said, glancing around. “You made an entire spectacle of binding and mirrors. And yet, I cannot help but suspect I have not yet seen the full extent of your potential.”
His laugh was low and disbelieving, as if he were genuinely delighted. “I bring a widow to the edge of madness, and she demands a full tour of my depravity.”
“You are the one who wished me to be honest,” she retorted, squaring her shoulders despite her lack of clothing. The confidence tasted strange and wonderful. “I am being honest. I want...”
She stopped. The word thrummed between them anyway.
He drew in a slow breath through his nose, as if reining something in. His hand slipped to the small of her back, fingers splaying possessively there.
“There is time enough for demonstrations.”
She almost groaned. One month had felt endless at the beginning, a penance she might endure in exchange for the house. Now it felt terrifyingly brief. Desperation tightened in her chest, different from the earlier kind but no less fierce. Her fingers, still fisted in his waistcoat, tugged.
“I am not yet satisfied,” she said, shocking herself more than him. “If you wish me to learn to endure pleasure, as you say, then…”
“Then?” His voice had dropped.
“Then you ought to… finish the lesson,” she managed, the words tumbling out in a rush. “I have endured the mirrors and the silk and being made to say things I never thought I would. I have endured coming apart in front of you. Surely you can endure being… less fully clothed?”
His laugh broke from him then, uncontrolled, delighted, and dark. It washed over her like another kind of touch.
“You are bargaining with me in my own den,” he said. “Did no one ever warn you against attempting to outwit a rake, Little Blossom?”
“Perhaps I wish to see him lose,” she said.
The air between them thickened. For a moment, neither moved. Then something in his face snapped, as if a tether he had been gripping too tightly finally slipped.
“Very well,” he said, voice almost a growl. “Consider me lost.”
He kissed her with abrupt, consuming hunger.
One moment she lay braced against his chest, breathless with her own daring; the next, his mouth was on hers, hot and urgent, devouring the last of her words. This was not the patient, coaxing seduction of their earlier nights. This was a man whose restraint had been dragged too far and at last had frayed.
Iris yelped softly into the kiss, hands flying up to clutch his shoulders. The rough fabric of his coat abraded her sensitive palms. He tilted her head back, angling her to his will, tongue sweeping into her mouth with a confidence that made her knees buckle.
“There,” he muttered against her lips. “Are you satisfied now?”
She might have made some retort, but his hands were already at his own buttons, working with swift movements. She watched, muddled, as he shrugged out of his coat; the heavy wool dropped to the floor without ceremony. His waistcoat followed, then his cravat, the linen fluttering like a white flag trampled underfoot.
Each layer that came away revealed more of him: the strong lines of his shoulders beneath the plain shirt, the texturedshadow of hair at his throat where the collar gaped open, and the ropes of muscles.
He stood bare to the waist before her, his chest rising and falling a little faster now. The light highlighted old, faint scars across his ribs and a newer, more brutal one that sliced down his face and continued in a thinner line along his neck, vanishing beneath his collarbone. His body exuded pure strength, shaped by more than mere aristocratic leisure. He carried his power with the same effortless grace as he carried his titles.
