Lucien glanced around the room. “Everything is to your satisfaction?”
“It is.” She rose from the chair by the fireplace, setting the book down. “Though I confess, I have had trouble convincing myself that this marriage is real.”
“I bring proof that it is,” he said, opening the chest. Light sparkled on countless gems. “I had my solicitor deliver the Everdene jewels.”
She crossed to the dressing table, looking down at the glittering adornments, but there was no joy in her eyes at the sight. “They are very beautiful.”
“Are they not to your liking?”
“I’m just not sure why…they’re here?”
“Because you are my viscountess.”
“I’d rather be your wife…”
Her words, uttered so soft, undid him, melting part of that shard in his heart, affecting him like the strongest of aphrodisiacs. “After tonight, I will leave no doubt in your mind that you are.” He drew her toward him. His lips found hers, her mouth stiff with nervousness. But she softened as he coaxed her lips apart.
She fit so perfectly in his arms, her breasts pressing into his chest, causing his skin to hum with that energy in the air before lightning strikes.
“We are both in uncharted seas,” he murmured, “but I find myself eager to explore, chart every island and shore, every soft, secret harbor that promises pleasure. Tonight, there are no boundaries we cannot cross, as long as you are willing.” His ran his finger down the column of her throat, looking into her eyes. “Do you know what happens between a man and a woman, Grace?”
She laughed, startling him, and he drew back, frowning.
“You find the question amusing?”
“Forgive me, but I couldn’t help myself. Surely, you knew my mother? She thought it inexcusable that young girls were sent out into the world without the slightest knowledge about their bodies, or notion what to expect with their husbands. In fact, she not only made certain thatIunderstood, but many of my friends as well. She made it her crusade to dispel myths about how one fell pregnant.”
“I’d imagine that stirred up quite a tempest among your friends’ own mamas at times.”
“Yes. Especially when she insisted that even our own…instincts…were not to be feared or ignored.” Her cheeks went pink. “Yet now…I expect it is a trifle more complicated than she claimed. I am not quite sure what it is I should do. I?—”
“What do you want to happen? Tell me.”
He waited with a patience that only made her more nervous. Could he really expect her to say the words aloud? Was that a gift? Or a burden? He saw her lick her lips, swallow hard. Knew she was struggling to answer. “You have seen all of me,” she said at last. “I want to see all of you.”
His cock hardened, every primitive male instinct in his body straining to break free. He wanted to crush her in his arms, strip her nightgown away with one fierce yank, bury himself inside her as he’d been longing to do. But he kept tight control. “As you wish,” he said. “Tonight we choose how much to conceal or reveal.”
He led her to the bed, then paused, taking her hand and placing it on the topmost gilt silk fastening at his chest. “Go on, sweet…I want you to.”
Her breath hitched.
Grace slippedthe first knot of silk cording through its loop, then the next, and the next, her fingers unsteady as she reached his narrow waist, lower. When the last fastening was undone, the garment gapped open, revealing a slice of hard masculine body. He was naked beneath the robe, and she trailed her gaze from the pulse in his throat, to the dark dusting of hair on his chest, following it as it arrowed down his flat stomach in a dark ribbon, leading to mysteries below. She spread the cloth open, then ran her hands up to his shoulders to slip the garment off. His body seemed made for sin.
He stood there, shameless as Adam in the Garden of Eden, firelight limning his body. He was beautiful, all powerful muscles, long bones and sinew. He seemed so patient, and yet, his arousal left no doubt he was eager for this joining, his shaft erect in its nest of dark hair.
“Touch me,” he urged, half command, half plea.
She did so. His jaw knotted as she ran her fingers over his chest, learning him by touch. All that power, strength, so still. He was coiled like a tiger one breath away from pouncing. She reveled in the contrast, steel sheathed in silk, his skin so hot, smelling of bay rum and soap. She reveled in the thrill she felt, her own power to elicit such a reaction from Lucien. She wanted to snap that control, make him feel the need she felt. Remembering the spear of desire she’d experienced when he’d touched her nipples, she skimmed her fingertips over the flat disks, heard his breath hiss between his teeth.
He reached for her, divesting her of her nightgown. A chill ghosted over her bare skin, but only for an instant. His fingertips traced the curve of her breast, lightly at first, circling her nipple,but not touching the hard point until she was aching. He drew her so tightly against him she could feel every plane, so hard, so blatantly male. His mouth found hers, hot, skilled, his hands drawing her into currents that swept her away into a world of sensuality, of yearning, every nerve seeming to cry out for what he alone could give her.
She twined her arms about his neck. Her breasts flattened against his chest, the hair teasing her with its delicious texture, his shaft a hard ridge between them. He kissed her, his tongue slipping between her lips, stroking there, as if a prelude to what their bodies would soon join in. Sliding his big hands down, he cupped her bottom and pulled her onto her tiptoes, tighter, until his shaft was cradled against the place that ached to be filled. It seemed impossible that something so large would ever fit inside her, and yet, she wanted it to, so much.
He slid his mouth to her ear, his voice hoarse, tickling the tender flesh. “I want you very badly, Grace. All of those miles from London, I was picturing things that may shock you.”
A delicious shiver rippled through her as she whispered, “Show me.”
He smiled, a smile so sensuous her knees melted. He slid his hand down her arm, the tips of his fingers slightly rough on the sensitive skin as he reached the inside of her wrist where her blood was rushing. “Come to bed.”
