“I like that idea.”
So did he.
He put his hands on her waist and turned her so that she faced away from him. And then, for the second time that week, he set about the task of unbuttoning and unlacing her.
But it was so much different this time.
This time, she was his.
He’d been waiting a long time to have someone who belonged to him. Someone he could care for, unreservedly. Honestly. With every part of himself, not just the brutish, broken bits.
“Eat something while I do this,” he told her. “We can’t have you swooning again.”
She reached for a roll and broke off a piece. “If you didn’t want to make me swoon,” she said with her mouth full, “you should not have been so dashing.”
“You’ve little room to talk, in this gown.” He unbuttoned the last of the closures and cleaved the damp silk from her back. “When I first saw you in that ballroom, I thought I might faint.”
He pushed the gown down to her waist and over her hips, helping her step out of it. Then he set to unlacing her corset and untying the tapes of her petticoats. Wet knots were trickier than dry ones, but he finally managed to work them loose.
She turned to face him, clad in only a damp, tissue-thin linen shift. It clung to her, pasted to her every curve—all but translucent. Holy God. His gaze wandered from her hardened nipples, to the sweet flare of her hips, to the dark amber triangle of shadow guarding her sex.
If he hadn’t been jerked back to awareness by her sudden shiver, he could have stood there gawping all night.
“Sorry,” he said. He needed to hurry this, or she’d catch a chill. “Why don’t you do the rest yourself and climb into bed. I’ll take care of myself and join you.”
She nodded, and he turned away, dropping into a chair by the fire so he could remove his boots. After those were dispatched, he stood and worked on the rest. In a matter of seconds, he’d stripped off his waistcoat and shirt, then shucked his trousers. Holding his clothing in a ball before him, he turned.
Clio lay nestled in the bed linens, her hair unbound and falling about her shoulders in damp waves. So lovely. She looked like a painting one might find in a Venetian palace.
And this picture of feminine delicacy was staring at him. The way a stray cat might eye joints of meat in the marketplace.
“I . . .” She looked abashed at being caught, but she didn’t look away.
He tossed the balled-up clothing aside and spread his hands, as if to say: Go ahead; look your fill.
Her gaze flirted with his shoulders and abdomen, but quickly dropped to his most vital parts. Her cheeks turned an entirely new, rather alarming, shade of pink. He didn’t even know how to name that shade of pink. It might not have existed in nature until tonight.
“I don’t know what I was expecting.” She hooked one finger on her teeth, pensive. “You’re a large man. Everywhere. It stands to reason that you’d be . . . large . . . there, too.”
He scratched the back of his neck, trying not to laugh. He wasn’t freakishly big. Just on the larger side. But her unintentional compliments—and that fierce blush creeping up to her hairline—were only making matters worse. He was rapidly growing even larger.
She stretched a hand forward, tentative. “May I . . . ?”
As if he’d say no.
He moved closer to the bed, his cock jutting out before him like the prow of a ship. He was certain he’d never been harder in his life.
She touched him with one fingertip—one single fingertip, skimming him from shaft to tip—and his whole body went up in flames.
She tilted her head. “Are you very sure that this will—”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“In time.” He joined her on the bed, coaxing her to lie back on the mattress. “We’ll take it as slow as you like. If you want me to stop, you’ve only to say the word.”
He stretched out next to her, drawing her body close to his chest and enfolding her in his arms. Giving her his heat. He had plenty to spare.
“Warmer?”
She nodded.
As he bent to kiss her pulse, her head rolled to one side, stretching her neck into a pale, graceful curve.
An invitation.
And this was one invitation he would never refuse.
He began at her ear and kissed down her neck, all the way to her collarbone. His hand had drifted to her breast of its own accord. While kneading one, he kissed the other, nuzzling close to her violet-scented skin.
Even if they lived and made love for fifty years—and he fervently hoped they did—Rafe didn’t think it would ever cease to astonish him, that she wanted this. His big, roughened body rubbing against her soft perfection.
He laid her on her back and kissed his way down her belly, pausing halfway down to prop his chin on her navel and gaze up into her face.
“I’m going to make this good for you,” he promised. “Beyond good. I want . . . I want cake sounds. No, scratch that. I want Rafe sounds.”
She laughed a little. But as he slid a hand up her naked thigh, her laugh became a sigh of pleasure.
“There’s my girl. That’s a start.”
He finished kissing his way down her belly, then dipped his head lower. She startled. He held her hips tight.
“It’s all right. If you trust me.”
“I trust you.”
He didn’t take that gift lightly. He stroked her first with his fingers, parting her folds with the pad of his thumb, and pushing just an inch inside. When she gasped and moaned, he took the encouragement.
He nudged her legs apart, wide enough to accommodate his shoulders. And then he sank between her thighs, laying his tongue to the very heart of her. She bucked in surprise at the first contact, but he wouldn’t be deterred. He teased her with slow, lapping strokes of his tongue. He loved the taste of her. She was so sweet, with just the right amount of tart.
“Rafe.” She touched his shoulder. “Rafe, are you sure—”
“It’s all right.” He spread her wide with his thumbs. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”
She cried out in pleasure. Her thighs clamped together, catching his head like two sides of a vise. He wasn’t going anywhere now. So he settled into his task, teasing and tasting. Learning her every contour, her every response. Within moments, she was panting for him.
“Yes,” she moaned.
He moaned, too. His cock throbbed vainly where it lay trapped against the bedsheets.
When he couldn’t wait any longer, Rafe crawled his way up her body. Keeping his weight on his arms, he nestled his hard, aching cock in the cradle of her sex. He made no move to enter her. Not yet. He just rocked his hips back and forth, stroking her where he knew she’d like it the most. Giving them both more heat, more friction.