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By the time the nightgown went over her head she was rigid with humiliation and embarrassment. Never had she felt this way before a man. For all her reputation, she hadn’t had very many affairs, but in every encounter, whether with her husband, or another man, her body had been a luscious present she offered for his appreciation. She had always been supremely aware of the fact that she had reduced the man in question to incoherent awe.

Except, now she thought of it, perhaps with Sebastian, because he was so terribly beautiful himself. He still was, of course. He was on his knees on the bed, 240 Eloisa

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gazing down at her body, no doubt in the throes of regret that he found himself in bed with a whale. Esme swallowed and looked at his body so she wouldn’t have to think about it. There wasn’t an extra ounce of flesh on his body anywhere, not that massive, masculine body, every inch of it powerful and sleek.

He wasn’t even moving. Perhaps he was so horrified he was trying to think how to leave the room. Esme cast a desperate look to the side. Where had her nightgown fallen? She could pull it on, and leave silently, and spare both of them the distress of even discussing this incident. She would have sat up, but his hands descended on her belly. There was something fascinating about great male hands touching that stomach.

“It’s beautiful, Esme.” His voice was quiet, reverent.

“You’re beautiful.”

“No, I’m not,” she said crossly, but she was pleased. Even in her current loathing of her body, she was secretly fond of her great stomach.

“You are. These look like falling stars, like streaks of moonlight.” He traced the silver rays across her stomach.

“Do you mind my touch?”

“Of course not,” she said, quite resigned now. Of course the great seduction would turn into an anatomy lesson. What did she expect? No man in his right mind could think sensually about a woman in her condition. His hands slipped to her belly, and her skin, pulled tight by the baby, tingled in his wake, left little whispers floating toward the juncture of her legs that told her that she wouldn’t mind doing something, even in her condition. He was stroking her gently when a little bump appeared, just under his hand.

The look of shock on his face was so comical that Esme laughed out loud. “That’s the baby,” she said.

“I understand,” he said, and in his voice was such a gather-Fool for Love 241

ing of awe and joy that it almost made up for the fact he wasn’t attracted to her body anymore.

“Where did he go?”

“That was just a kick,” she said, enjoying telling him. After all, this was all new to her as well, and so far Helene had been her only confidante. “But it means the babe is awake, and perhaps—”

She could feel the next kick better than usual because his hands were against her. They lay there for perhaps fifteen minutes, the three of them, with Sebastian sweeping lazy circles over her belly and trying to entice the babe to kick him again.

“He’s not kicking you, silly,” Esme chortled. “He or she just seems to be an active sort of person.”

Finally, the baby stopped kicking, lulled (if you listened to Sebastian) by his gentle rubs. He removed his hands reluctantly and looked at her. Quite suddenly, there was a look of bedevilment in his eyes. “Now,” he said, and his voice was deep as dark honey,

“where were we before this baby woke up?”

“Oh no,” she shook her head. “We weren’t anywhere.”

Somewhere in the last fifteen minutes she’d lost all embarrassment before him, so she just lay there with her puffy breasts and plump thighs.

His hand descended on her breast, claimed it and shaped it as a rough thumb rubbed across her nipple. Her mind felt instantly drunk with desire, which must explain why she didn’t simply rise and put on her nightgown.

Desire had never deserted Sebastian; he was in the same burning, desperate condition he always found himself in around Esme. His own, beautiful Esme.

“I want you, Esme,” he whispered.

He licked her ear, made his way over her cheek to her lush lips, laid siege to her body with his hands. He knew from the way their tongues lazily tumbled over each other that she was 242 Eloisa

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his. Once again, and for this moment, but the moment was good enough.

That was a lesson he’d learned as a gardener and a pariah. Her fingers ran through his hair and pulled him closer. Finally, he trailed kisses down her neck and made his way toward her lavish breasts. He couldn’t help rising up on his knees to see them better, to feast on their beauty. “You look different,” he said achingly, just before his mouth claimed possession. For a few minutes he was intoxicated, drunk with their creamy smoothness, with the dark rosebuds begging for his attention, with the broken pants coming from her lips.

His hands fell lower, shaped her lovely hips, found a sweet curve of bottom that a man could hang on to while he sunk between a woman’s thighs. Just one thought managed to fight through the haze in his brain, but it was an important one. How was he to sink into her without putting pressure on her belly?