Page 101 of A Contracted Spouse for the Prizefighter

She breathed in sharply. “Perfectly balanced?” she echoed lightly. Then she drew the top picture aside to see the one that lay beneath. The one depicting her bent neck and the back of her head. For some reason, Clem felt himself squirming inside as though he had been caught indulging in something frowned on. He felt like his soul had been slightly exposed, a notion he realized was both fanciful and absurd.

“You make me look beautiful,” she said at last with a queer little laugh. “I can hardly believe it.”

“You are beautiful,” Clem said, and the wonder of it was, he fucking meant it. He meant it, though the beauty he was speaking of was an entirely different beauty to that which he had always measured women by before, and by which he knew society measured them. His eyes roamed over her face. “Every time I look at you …” He broke off, shaking his head in disbelief. “It seems like I notice more and more things about you that I like.”

Dora breathed out. “Clem,” she murmured, sounding shaken.

Suddenly, he felt his spine tingle a warning that he was poised on some dangerous ledge and about to fall off it. If he did not rein things in at this point, he and Dora would go plunging right off the edge and he could never pull things back.

This was a momentary infatuation after all. He just wasn’t himself lately. He always bored of women. Some lasted longer than others, but all his liaisons burned out into indifference in the end. More importantly, he did not want her to be hurt when this inevitably happened. Dora was different. She was incredible and he needed to protect her, even if it was against his fickle self.

He needed to lighten the tone. Leaning in closer, he murmured flirtatiously, “You have the loveliest nape in all the world, Dorabella. That is why you cut your hair, you sly thing.”

She gave a startled laugh. “To show it off?”

He nodded and leaned in again. “To seduce me. I never even knew that area of the body was erotic,” he said wonderingly. “What an innocent I was.”

“Hah!” Dora regarded him sidelong and shook her head. “Probably hundreds of ladies have napes far lovelier than mine, they just hide them under great swathes of hair.”

“Impossible. I won’t hear of such blasphemy.” Her eyes danced and he had to kiss her, lingeringly and with far too much tenderness. He wanted to worship her body with his, and even the thought of it had him groaning into her mouth. “Dora,” he whispered.

“Yes?” she asked breathlessly.

“Kiss me like you did the other night,” he responded huskily.

“Which night?”

“That night where I was in a bad mood, and you took control,” he admitted. What the fuck was he even saying?

Dora’s mouth formed a silent oh of comprehension. With deliberation, she slid her hand up his muscular upper arm and across his shoulder. When she finally reached the back of his neck, he bit back a groan. Theo rubbed her hand there a moment, running her thumb over and over a spot he seemed to like. “You are sensitive here, Clem,” she murmured. He gave a non-committal rumble, which almost had her smiling. Who was he trying to fool? It must be blatantly obvious to her by this point.

Then she slid her hand up into his hair and tugged him there, so he lowered his head to receive her kiss. Then she let him have it, kissing him without any reserve at all, holding nothing back. Christ, who had taught her to kiss like that? Was it him? He groaned into her mouth, his hands first gripping her hips and then wrapping around her back to pull her in tighter against him.

She kissed her way over to his ear. “Let’s go to bed,” she suggested, setting his heart racing.

“Seduce me here instead,” was his counteroffer.

“Here?” She sounded startled.

“That was what I wanted the other day,” he admitted, “but I didn’t quite have the nerve to ask for it.”

“You lacked nerve, Clem?”

“It’s true; you make me feel almost bashful sometimes,” he murmured.

“I do not believe that for an instant!”

“It’s true,” he insisted, stroking his fingers through the short hair at the back of her neck. “I’m also a little jealous that Albert gets to take you to his barber tomorrow,” he confessed, not quite meeting her gaze.

She pulled back to look at him quizzically. “You are not serious?”

“Oh, but I am. I’m in a bad way.” He leaned forward to kiss the skeptical look off her face.

Thoughtfully, she dropped her other hand back to his hard shaft and started fondling him there.

His groans started up again and she pushed against his chest until he sank back on the sofa.

“Remember how you toyed with me at the theatre, Clem?” she asked lightly, beginning a little experimentation of her own. When his hips began to strain, she dropped her fingertips down to lightly trace his balls, gently caressing, squeezing, and rolling them when he made no effort to stop her.