AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Twenty-Five
“The wishes of the governess must be consulted and gratified.”
Private Education: A Practical Plan for the Studies of Young Ladies.
Elizabeth Appleton. 1815.
Rhys kissed her with savage want.
Yet he was not alone in this want because Isabelle’s fingers were untying his banyan and scrabbling at his linen-clad chest, so his own plunged into her glossy damp hair, stroking down the velvet of her robe and…what damn minuscule buttons!
With even more miniscule holes that no man’s hands, especially his, could tug a button through.
They tore slightly in his haste and he breathed deep, slowed.
He had all night.
So he removed her industrious fingers from his shirt ties and positioned them at her side. “Less haste, cariad, or your robe will be left in tatters.”
She hoisted a brow but complied.
An error.
Because the meticulous slow unbuttoning nigh slayed him, the candlelight revealing clefts and swells, anticipation ratcheting to nigh intolerable.
A button resisted.
Then slipped.
His fingers fumbled.
“Where did this…” was all he managed to growl as the robe gaped to expose a gossamer scrap of blue nothing, lace and ribbons barely tacking silk together. Patches of skin, the surface of her breast, glimpses of heaven.
“It was in the bottom of that holdall.”
He slid a hand inside the robe, the remainder of the buttons abandoned as he palmed her breast.
“I’ve waited so long,” he whispered without thought.
“You mean you’ve never done this before?” She gasped as the rough pad of his finger brushed the crest. “One would never know.”
His lip quirked before he tugged her near and buried his face in her neck, a floral scent awaiting him. “I’ve waited so long for you. ‘To bind my soul to paradise, to clasp and cleave, to…’”
“Those words, I recognise those–”
He kissed her, ferocious and intense, fingers tugging at more of those malevolent buttons until the robe sagged to her waist, and with patience spent, he wrested the velvet over her hips till it crumpled to the rug.
Hell, she stole his breath, the candlelight flickering muted light across her, flashes of rose skin and blue silk.
“I feel rather underdressed,” she said. “There isn’t a lot to this night-rail.”
No, there wasn’t, so he hauled his shirt off too. “Better?”
She grinned. “Much better.” Her palm came to settle on his heart, nails lightly scratching, shifting up to his shoulder and down his arms. He allowed her exploration, the thrill of her touch nigh unmanning him. “You’re so…” That hand wandered south on its adventure but as it reached the band of his breeches, he grasped her wrist.
Then guided it lower, to the aching arousal that had beseeched for her touch since he’d entered this bedchamber. A lust that he’d endured since he’d first kissed her – in his study, against that panelled wall – haunting him each and every night.
He heard a gasp in tandem with his own groan of pleasure, could tolerate no more as her fingers flexed, so he bent, one arm beneath her legs, another round her shoulders, and lifted her into his embrace.
