But he whirled her about, his hands plucking at her laces. “I could smell your jasmine four seats down the table.”
She swayed in desire.
He leaned into her, his mouth skimming the line of her throat. “I wanted to taste roast beef on your lips,” he said and undid one set. “And mushroom tart.” He let loose another. “And Chantilly cream.” He yanked at the third and fourth and fifth hooks. Then spun her toward him. “But do you know what I wanted more?”
She shook her head.
“This.” His gaze never wavering from hers, he traced two fingers over the line of her gown’s décolleté. “I want your breasts in my hands. Your nipples in my mouth.”
“Theo.”
“I’m needy, darling. You cannot imagine.”
“I can,” she murmured and tugged at her own gown and consigned it to the floor.
“Petticoats?” He undid her tapes and they fell off her hips. “Corsets. Hellish things.” He attacked hers.
She watched his expression, rapt, dedicated to his goal. What a dear man, and for tonight he was hers. Finally.
But he struggled with the hooks and she had to wait. And when he finally peeled the damn thing away, he put his hands to the bodice of her chemise and she caught his fingers. He read her purpose and lifted his palms to the air.
She whipped the muslin over her head, balled it up and threw it to the corner.
If she lived to be one hundred, she would remember him as he gazed at her in that moment. Reverence, awe, triumph. Yet, he could not seem to move. Only his gaze met hers. “My sweet Penelope, you are quite exquisite.”
Praise for her throat, her shoulders, her curves, her breasts, her hips, her thighs and what was in between them, had come to her from her three husbands. Never as sweetly. Never as breathlessly. Never as reverently.
She swallowed.
“If I touch you, I wonder,” he said as he watched her and her nipples burned and hardened to stones, “will you disappear?”
Mute with yearning, she shook her head. She was not shy. She was too old for that. She was not modest. She was too often wed for that. She was not humble. She’d been praised by three husbands for the swanlike reach of her neck, the elegant length of her arms, the firmness of her breasts and the large roses of her nipples. Her spouses had admired the fullness of her hips, the tautness of her thighs, the length of her legs that they wanted wrapped around their own. She’d even heard praises for her most delicate attributes. How sweet, how plump, how ready.
As she was now.
Wondering if he’d think her forward, she took to undoing the passementerie frogs that closed his banyan. She was ready to enjoy him. She needed to assure herself that his readiness matched her own. And so she undid one closure after another, spreading wide the luscious supple silk and marveling at the man beneath.
She’d known his chest was wide. She had only to admire him in his pristine attire to see how his tailor had done the man proud. Tonight, he’d left coat, waistcoat, shirt and stock behind. Before her was the breadth of his muscular chest, the line of blond hair down his ribs, the honed rack of them, his waist and the line of his hips and loins beneath the buff breeches he’d worn for modesty to climb the library stairs. She ran her fingers over the ripple of his arms to the pointed nipples. “You are quite handsome, my darling. A man who works on his farms. I admire that. Among other elements of your nature.”
At once, she traced her fingertips along the line of his waistband. “May I undo your buttons?”
He winced and looked at the ceiling for forbearance. “Undo me? My lady, you may in this way as you have done in all others.”
She unhooked one button of his placket, then another and a third. But she paused and sucked in her breath. Near her hand stood the tip of his proof. She pressed her forehead to his bare chest. “Oh, Theo.”
“Continue, my sweet, or I will soon die of wanting your hands on me.”
She knew what it was to a man to have a woman hold him. She knew the power she could wield. She knew the promise she could offer. So as she slid her hand inside his breeches and he stiffened at her grasp, she knew too from experience that he could lose himself in her hand. As one man had done. Or he could quickly rush her to her bed and enter her without prelude. As two others had.
Never had a man reached up and gathered her hair into his hand and kissed her with such sweetness as she stroked him. She caressed the smooth, hard, warm length of his member and felt her body gush with wicked desire.
He tore his mouth away. “What do you think, lady mine?”
It was good he did not wait for an answer because she had none.
“Will I be able to satisfy you?”
“Come show me,” she managed as she stepped backward.
