Page 86 of How to Start a Scandal

His sweet Violet. He would ensure she knew exactly how beautiful he found her, exactly how much she stoked the inferno of his desire.

Without dropping his gaze from her, he pulled gently on the ribbon wrapped around his finger and the bow at her chemise slipped free.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Violet had to will her heart to remain in her chest. As it was, she feared at any moment it might leap out through her throat or knock through her ribs.

No man had ever seen her disrobed. Not even Lord Fordson. He’d had her in a quick moment in the garden during the night of her debut.

Seth’s dark gaze glittered with desire as he brushed his finger over her collarbone, stroking her skin with a feather-light touch as he loosened the neckline of her chemise. She fought to keep her hands at her sides when she longed for nothing more than to cross her arms over her chest to keep the flimsy fabric in place.

The neckline gaped around her shoulders and slipped down several inches. Seth’s stare dropped lower.

It was in that incredibly vulnerable moment, the most awful thing trickled through her mind: her mother’s words.

Men wanted women who were fashionably slender. Plump women were unseemly. A body like Violet’s would never be considered attractive.

She sucked in a breath and her arms flew up before the chemise could ease down another inch, clutching it to her chest.

Seth didn’t chastise her for her action, or demand she pull her arms away. Instead, he tilted her face up towards him. ‘I’ve spent more moments than I can count fantasising about what you look like.’

She shook her head and hated the tears burning in her eyes. If he had indeed fantasised about her, she did not wish to ruin it with reality.

‘I imagined your breasts are firm and lovely.’ He skimmed his fingers over the fallen neckline of her chemise and her skin shivered at the caress. ‘Enough to overflow from my hands.’

His touch swept lower to her waist. ‘I imagined your hips are full and feminine, something to hold on to while I thrust into you.’

Her breath caught at the boldness of his words.

‘And as for this...’ He caught her bottom with both hands and pressed her to the very obvious erection rising hard between them. ‘I want to clutch it in my hands while you ride me.’

His eyes held hers. ‘Remember when I told you how seeing you in that gown on your debut made me want to kiss you?’

She nodded, unable to even speak.

His hips flexed against her rhythmically as he spoke, pressing his arousal into the softness between her legs where she thundered with need.

He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling with the evident longing he felt. ‘I lied.’

Violet blinked at the unexpected words and turned away so he couldn’t see her flash of hurt.

He released her bottom and gently turned her face back towards him. ‘I didn’t want to kiss you. I wanted this.’ His hands ran down her body. ‘I wanted you.’

He reached up and slid a pin from her hair. A liberated curl fell over her shoulder as the violet pinned in place tumbled to the floor.

‘I wanted you so badly that I didn’t trust myself to dance with you.’ He drew another pin from her locks, then another. ‘I’ve never experienced lust as powerful as that. It’s why I left. I worried... I worried I wouldn’t be able to control that longing.’

Her hair was loose around her shoulders now with a dozen dark purple flowers dotting the floor. She gaped at him, unable to fully process what he’d just told her.

‘And you...you still want me?’ she whispered. ‘Like that?’

He growled and pulled her to him. He kissed her hungrily, thoroughly, so the breath fled her lungs and didn’t bother returning. His kisses went down her neck and his teeth nipped her earlobe. A fresh wave of tingles skittered over her skin.

‘I still want you that badly,’ he said against her ear. ‘Even more. Even after all these years. Even after all this time. Good God, Violet.’ He took her hand and carefully lowered it from where she held her chemise. ‘Feel what you do to me.’

Touching his arousal had been different earlier, when it was of her own volition, when it was not him guiding her to see her effect on him. She pressed her fingers obligingly to the blazing heat bulging against his placket. It was hot as a fever and hard as steel.

He hissed out a breath from between clenched teeth. ‘You do that to me.’ He kissed down her collarbone to the expanse of her chest and lower still to where she still held her chemise with her free hand. ‘Let me see you, my beautiful Violet.’