Page 76

He turned her gently. His fingers brushed the small of her back, found the first knot, and loosened it. When the laces gave, her ribs expanded.

Her corset gave at last. She expected him to rise, to move on to the next act in their careful pantomime. Instead, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to the red marks the corset had left.

She reached for him—something to steady herself, something to reclaim ground. Her fingers caught at his waistcoat.

Rodrick closed his hand around her wrist. “The coat. The waistcoat. The neckcloth.” His gaze held hers. “And you may open the shirt.”

Louise slipped the tailcoat from his shoulders and let it fall across the foot of the bed. The waistcoat followed, then the neckcloth, which she unwound slowly from his throat, drawing the linen through her fingers until the last fold came free. His shirt remained between them.

She reached for the first button. Then the next.

The linen parted beneath her hands, exposing the hollow of his throat and the hard plane of his chest. While his face had been made to stop drawing rooms, the body beneath his clothes had been shaped by fifteen years of knife work and hard landings. A scar crossed his left shoulder, another ridged the flesh above his ribs. Louise Bonnechoix had never dared touch them. Lady Vane knew those scars. Perhaps she had even nursed him through them. So Louise traced the largest with one fingertip, then bent and kissed it.

His breath shuddered, and making a rough sound, he lifted her chin for a kiss. How she had missed his lips. Slowly, he explored her mouth, kindling something in her she had no hope to control. Perform, she told herself. Give Lady Trent something to see. Keep your heart behind the—

He pulled away from her and noticed something on the nightstand.

"Look at what Lady Trent has here. Our hostess is very well prepared."

She knew what the small paper packet was. She had grown up at Covent Garden, backstage with dancers who needed to be safe.

He placed the French letters in his pocket, then tugged her toward the bed and bade her kneel on the mattress. Her arms hung loose at her sides, and her heart beat so hard she swore Lady Trent could hear it.

Then he circled her. She felt the weight of his gaze on her back, her hips, the curve of her thighs. He stopped behind her, so close she could feel the heat of his body, the brush of breath across her bare shoulder.

Then his lips touched her neck—one soft kiss, then another, lower, slower, his mouth dragging down to the edge of her collarbone. It wasn't in the script, this softness. This heat.

She shivered and tilted her head away, granting him more. He cupped her breasts, thumbs circling her nipples until they peaked. His gentleness undid her, and with a soft cry, she arched into him.

She didn't see him take the neckcloth. She only felt the linen slip around her wrists behind her. He looped it once, twice, and tied her hands.

"You are so beautiful," he said.

The words landed in the room at full volume, and her face flushed.

Before she could answer, he pressed her shoulders, and her body tipped forward until her breasts met the bed, the cool fabric an exquisite shock against overheated skin. Her wrists, bound and resting in the small of her back, tugged with each breath.

Louise closed her eyes. Kneeling like this left nowhere to hide: her cheek against the coverlet, her knees apart.

Rodrick traced two fingers down the ridges of her spine, following each small hollow until he reached the curve of her lower back. Louise held herself still, listening to his breathing behind her and trying to guess where he would touch next. He skimmed his fingertips across one buttock so lightly that the caress seemed to disappear before she could decide whether she had imagined it. A second later, the skin tingled where he had passed.

Rodrick did it again, this time letting his hand drift over the opposite curve, never quite settling, never giving her enough pressure to lean into. With each pass, he ventured closer to the place between her thighs, then veered away at the last moment, leaving a wake of prickling skin behind him.

Rodrick drew his fingers along her hip, then inward until the warmth of his hand hovered where she wanted it. Her breath stopped. He lingered there long enough for her body to anticipate the touch, and then he retreated to stroke the back of her thigh instead. Louise bit the inside of her cheek. He was teaching her to feel his absence as keenly as his touch.

Rodrick's hand disappeared.

For one suspended second, Louise felt nothing except the heat of him behind her and the faint movement of his breath against her shoulder. Then he leaned over her. His chest brushed her bound hands, his mouth found the nape of her neck, and his other arm slid beneath her body.

Louise barely had time to understand the change before Rodrick cupped her between the thighs from the front.

She gasped into the coverlet.

The touch was nothing like the teasing strokes she had prepared herself for. He covered her fully with his palm and held her there, while his mouth stayed against her neck. Louise could not press forward without meeting his hand or retreat without meeting his body.

Rodrick waited until she shifted helplessly against his palm, then he closed his mouth over the place where her neck met her shoulder and sucked. At the same instant, he slipped a finger inside her.

Louise cried out. The two sensations collided before she could separate them—the pull of his mouth at her neck, the sudden fullness between her thighs, his chest along her bound hands. She arched beneath him.